In traditional WLAN architecture, each and every AP works in a standalone manner.
Each AP is isolated with its cell and the clients associated with it.
Each AP should be configured separately.
So AP in this traditional WLAN architecture is called the autonomous mode AP.
Managing security for the autonomous mode AP is difficult.
You have to implement the policies like security,QoS, bandwidth separately on each AP.
In Autonomous AP architecture, he traffic to and from the clients must pass through the AP.
Notice from the below figure, that traffic from client A to client B passes through the AP.
If you are using multiple VLANs, then the AP can support multiple SSIDs for those VLANS.
In autonomous AP architecture, the multiple SSIDs needs to be configured on each AP, if multiple VLANs exists.
In the below figure, the SSID one and SSID two are configured on the two APs. The SSID one is for VLAN 1 and SSID two is for VLAN2.
