Under the covers, what's happening when you make this between controller-managed and not using it, is this:
- Going from non-controller-managed to controller managed: Within the RF-Domain, instead of an AP being elected to operate as the 'RFDomain Manager' for that RFDomain, the controller will take on that responsibility.
- Going from controller-managed to non-controller-managed, (in a Distributed architecture) the controller will no longer be the RFDomain manger for that RFDomain, and now one of the site's (RFDomain) APs will be elected to operate as the RFDomain manager.
Regardless, whoever the RFDomain manager is, that device simply takes on a couple of additional responsibilities. (E.g, collecting and aggregating stats to send to the controller, distributing firmware updates, assigning power/channel decisions to the RFDomain's APs if using SmartRF). None of these functions have anything to do with a client's ability to associate with an AP within that RFDomain.