autonomous vs controlled mode.

[Eddy Belew]

New to HP products and don't find an explanation..

In the quick setup of my MSM310 the instructions told me to go to autonomous mode to set up the AP. Now I think I should have them in controlled mode for use with the MSM 710 Controller, but the AP says that if I change, I lose all settings. :( These units are already mounted.

What is the major difference between the two modes? What do I lose in the MSM710 if I stay in auto mode? What do I gain by going to controlled mode?

Thx
TRIS

[nunocosta75]

hi Eddy, autonomous mode and controlled mode are complete diferent, in autonomous mode or also called standalone the ap works alone and you have to do the configurations in the ap and if you are deploying a big wireless lan this is a big disvantage because the possible number of ap's and you dont have a central control of your wireless trafic, imagine how you can control a wireless lan with 30 or 40 ap's if you are not in controlled mode you can´t know where the user's are logged and the type of trafic they are using so in controlled mode you need to have a controller that is responsable for all configurations in all ap's and for the control of trafic and user's, you can apply network policies and things like that in the controller, so the controlled mode provides you a central control of your network, you have more security and more control, tipicaly in a network above 7 or 8 ap's it´s better use a controller. So if you are using just one ap there's not a lot of vantage of using a controller.
Regards