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Hi fellas,

Many of today's controller-based APs stay running if controller connectivity is lost, but the real issue is "to what degree" that they stay running. If fast/secure roaming, authentication, radio resource management, firewall filtering, QoS rule application, and other key features are lost, then that's not really "running."

What gets me is that some controller vendors have a variety of "modes" that APs operate in. There's remote AP mode, sensor mode, regular AP mode, split tunnel mode, and a variety of others. Some modes are really wacky, like in Aruba's new 5.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0 code. Shouldn't an AP have full functionality regardless of where it is installed and what role it operates in?

I'm not being "visionary" because I say that controllers will go away soon. Every Wi-Fi vendor has already accepted this as a hard fact. I'm just the first one out there shouting it from the rooftops because the controller vendors are busy as bees in the back room figuring out how to rearchitect their feature sets for removal of their controller. Motorola, Ruckus, and others are going as fast as they can toward this, but trust me, it's no small task they're undertaking. The real trick right now for them is how to leverage wimpy AP hardware to do tasks that have been previously done in monstrous controller hardware.

Have you noticed that NOBODY is saying "controller-less is stupid?" Why? They pick on Meru and say that "SCA is stupid" http://www.arubanetworks.com/technology/architectural_insights.php so why not controller-less also? Isn't controller-less just as radical of a departure from the norm as SCA? I think so. I consider this a rhetorical question of course...and the answer is that these other vendors are pushing their intelligence to the edge as fast as they can...and don't want to come out against it when that's what they're building. ;) I'm just sayin'...