When we arrive at stage two in the evolution of WLAN management, we encounter centralized configuration management with distributed intelligence. The devices and software that provide this functionality are known as a WLAN Network Management System (WNMS).
This stage provides much faster implementations of traditional APs, and works using SNMP or other proprietary communication protocols to configure the APs across the network. The WNMSs usually supports the rollout of firmware so that the APs can be updated without having to visit each one individually. This model provides scalability, but does not cause much impact to the topologies, and to the infrastructure cost of the APs. In short, this model centralizes management, but distributes processing.
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