A customer has limited staff to manage a wireless network. The customer wants a solution that requires minimum hardware. Which type of architecture do you propose?

Centralized architecture still requires physical WLC hardware on-premises, which increases hardware footprint and management complexity.

Distributed (autonomous) architecture pushes management to individual APs, which increases per-device configuration overhead and is harder to manage with limited staff.

Cloud-based solutions such as Cisco Meraki host the wireless controller logic in the vendor's cloud, meaning the customer needs only APs on-site with no dedicated controller appliance. This minimizes hardware requirements and allows a small team to manage the network through a simple web dashboard without specialized on-premises expertise.

Unified architecture is another term for a centralized controller-based deployment and still requires dedicated on-premises controller hardware.