Lightweight vs Autonomous access points
In this is article we will dive into the differences between a lightweight access point and an autonomous access point deployment. After we show you the core features we will then look at the different scenarios and reasons to use either type of AP deployment.
Once we have gone through the what and the why, we will then explore the how.
What is a lightweight access point?
A lightweight access point isn't a type of access point. It doesn't have any physical differences. Nor does it actually weight any less than another comparable AP. The term 'lightweight' is coined from the way the AP is deployed(mode). Essentially, lightweight AP's are managed by a centralised wireless lan controller(WLC). The WLC handles all the control and management plane traffic. This includes firmware updates, authentication, RF management, security policies. SSID's and automation.
What is a autonomous access point?
Like we've already explained for lightweight AP's. An autonomous access point also known as a standalone AP is a physically different unit. It operates in different mode, this is also known as local mode also.
With autonomous AP's, all functions are managed and performed locally from the AP itself and not some form of controller. This includes management, Authentication, SSID's, security policies and firmware updates
When to use lightweight or autonomous access point deployment?
Now lets discuss when to choose either a lightweight or autonomous AP deployment. We'll go over the pro and cons of both and when its suitable for either.
Lightweight AP Deployment
This mode and AP deployment are a lot more scaleable than an standalone AP. Units can be centrally managed and deployed via zero touch automation. This is more efficient than configuring every AP manually. Especially in remote locations.
Pretty every type of deployment with more than 3 access points uses this model. This is due to reasons above along with a performance. Lightweight AP's use a shared brain(controller). Cause of this, the controller will dynamiclly assaign the best RF channel for the AP to broacast on. It will also ensure there is no co-channel interference from a neighbouring AP. This makes things like roaming and authentication more seamless.
Pros
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Highly Scaleable
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Automated Deployment
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Better Performance
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Holistic Monitoring
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Ease of Management
Cons
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Cost
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More Technical
Autonomous AP Deployment
Autonomous or standalone AP deployments are best suited for home for very small offices. This is due to the manageability of and the performance of such a deployment.
Although ill advised, Standalone AP's do not need to be the same vendor or AP model unlike a lightweight AP. This is due to not using a compatible centralised controller. This may opens up to options of purchasing a variety of used access points..
As you can see this is not scaleable and is only realistically practically in a deployment with a couple of access points.
Pros
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Quick Deployment for small amount of AP's
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Cheap
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Easy to stup
Cons
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Limited Scale
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Lack of Monitoring
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Subject to RF issues
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Time Consuming Management
How to manage lightweight access points?
As discussed, Lightweight access points are managed to and configured via a centralised controller. Typically local browsing is disabled on the AP and all forms of management are done via the controllers GUI or cli interface.
Lightweight AP's need to be able to communicate with their controllers. In many scenarios the APs do not live reside on the same subnetwork as the controller itself. The controllers can manage many WLANS simultaneously.
Usually all that is required is layer 3 connectvity between the AP and the controller. The two then establish a CAPWAP or LWAPP tunnel, also known as a lightweight access point protocol. Contained within the encrypted tunnel is all the control plane and management plane traffic between the two. This includes SSID's, authentication requests and VLAN assignments. In some cases data plane traffic can also be forwarded over this tunnel. But we will discuss that in the next article
How to manage autonomous access points?
If not using a controller, how do we configure an autonomous access point? Or how do we manage a autonomous? If you guessed by web browisng or via a console more than you would be correct.
Wireless admins can wither console into a dedicated console port on the AP itself. Or if this is not available then web browse. To browse to an AP you need to ensure that the AP has picked ip an IP via DHCP and your laptop can route to it.
As you've gathered by now, All changes made to that device will be local only to that device. The above process will need to be repeated on all the other nodes in your deployment
Hopefully you now have a good understanding what lightweight vs autonomous access points are? Continuing following our ultimate guide where we will discussed trunked(bridge) vs tunnel WLANS.