CWNA 83% Baby

seek

Well I was worried I would fail...but I hoped for 90 +..so I guess 83% is just fine

Thinking of doing CWNP next but it seems a little too new. Im worried they have similar problems as CWNA V1.0.

Anyone try the CWNP yet?

I cant tell you anything specific on exam, but I recomend the official study guide and the official online practice exams.

Make sure you learn the RF math and know your stuff well.

If anyone has any other questions that dont violate any NDA, I be happy to help.

Seek.

Sartan

As for an opinion..
CWNA is already too new, wireless technologies are getting released way too often.
What's the renewal on that certification, one year?
You'll have to pump out cert exam after cert exam and become up to date with the times constantly, otherwise you'll be a dinosaur!
Wait a bit for everything to settle down, I guess. At least, that's what I would do.

kevinator

seek: it's CWSP next, Security.

Sartan: recert for CWNP certifications is two years, not one.

seek

heh my bad Kev.

Kev. the offical site says "Recommended: We recommend that all CWSP candidates achieve either the SCP or Security + certifications prior to attending a CWSP class"

What one of the two would you recomend?

Thanks

Seek

Webmaster

Congratulations Seek! Seems like a pretty good score to me.

Sartan wrote:

Wait a bit for everything to settle down, I guess

That's not a good idea when it comes to technology, it will never settle down...

I'm sorry to see you choose an "I passed" post to express your negative opinion about this exam, but apart from that I think your comments do not apply, at least not anymore. Many companies are implementing wireless networks using current technologies and they will be using it for a 'couple of years' at least.

More important, the CWNA exam covers the basics of wireless networking, which will remain the same for a long long time. The current wireless industry standards, such as 802.11b and 802.11g, are just a small portion of the exam (13%). Most of the remaining topics of the exam are not likely to change at all anytime soon, and certainly not sooner than any other LAN/WAN/Security technologies. Most changes to these topics will actually be additions.

JDMurray

Sartan wrote:

You'll have to pump out cert exam after cert exam and become up to date with the times constantly, otherwise you'll be a dinosaur!
Wait a bit for everything to settle down, I guess. At least, that's what I would do.

There's too much stuff coming down the pipe from the IEEE alone to allow wireless to settle down for at least the next several years. You'll become a "dinosaur" if you don't start learning about the technology as it happens. If you start the race too long after the gun has fired, you'll spend quite a bit of time playing catch-up to all the experienced people in front of you.

For a hot technology like wireless I'd rather stay as close to the leading-edge for as long as possible.

JOblessELement

Congratulations seek!

CWNA is already too new,

I think Spartan was referring to the newness of CWNA and it's acceptance or knowledge thereof in the current market. What I think he's trying to say is while the seek's and pdmalaise's of the world and primarily Planet3 are informing the current industry of the value of a CWNA, why not learn just the technology in full instead and stay off getting the certification until it the cert has established itself or in other words, settled down.

No offense to Planet3 here. Just my 2 cents.

JDMurray

JOblessELement wrote:

...why not learn just the technology in full instead and stay off getting the certification until it the cert has established itself or in other words, settled down.

An excellent way of learning any new or existing technology is to study for a certification applicable to it. Think of a certification's requirements as the syllabus for a college class. People need to be more skill-centric (i.e., "what I need to know") rather than resume-centric (i.e., "what looks good on paper") when decising what certs to do.

The sooner you jump on the bandwagon the better; education is never a waste of time (unless the bandwagon is going off a cliff ).

pmalaise

I'll be the first to admit that taking CWNA at the moment is a bit of a risk, in that 1) It's not well know and 2) Wireless is fairly new at the moment.
I had two main reasons for taking it as early as I did.
First, I've been working in an environment where we have had an ESS of 8 802.11b AP's with about 130 clients (scanning stations) for about two years. I was lucky enough to work with the fairly knowledgable WLAN architect when he did both the site survey and trained the installers on the installation techniques. I cannot over emphasize how facinating I found all of this. It literally blew me away how practical this solution was for our needs.
Second. I really wanted to become a subject matter expert for this new technology. It's so much easier learning something you really find interesting. Along with my practical experience, I found I could almost inhale the book and really only did about two weeks of actual studying for the test. I'm not saying that it was easy, just that I wanted to learn it, and that made it much easier.
Now that I have it (CWNA) I find myself in selling mode. As with many companies out there, wireless design and administration is not being given the level of importance it really needs. When management think of it they either think that it is (a) an easy way to give plenty of people access by putting one AP with high gain Omni's in the middle of a building or (b) a blatant magnet for all local 12 year old hackers. They neither understand the design considerations involved or the security options available. I am slowly changing that, and at the same time making myself more valuable to the company (which in todays economy we all need).

On another positive note, I recently got a trip to Asia out of this. I work for a well known Fortune500 company, and me, a lowly customer facing technician was one of only a few people with any experience/knowledge with wireless. Jeez, everyone and their sister seems to have MCSE or CCNA (which I plan to write next, so no insult intended), yet there are maybe a couple of thousand in North America who really know WLAN stuff.

Sure, it might be early, but isn't that the time to buy a good stock and ride the wave upwards. The basics will remain the same, it's only the details that will change...... And I now have the basics down pat.

I know I don't mind rolling the dice on this one.

See ya

tahjzhuan

congrats

the only wireless experience I have is here on my home 'network'. anyway, this looks like something I'll pursue in the near future.

JDMurray

pmalaise wrote:

I'll be the first to admit that taking CWNA at the moment is a bit of a risk, in that 1) It's not well know and 2) Wireless is fairly new at the moment.

Well, to whom is wireless new to? Joe Consumer and his home network maybe? SOHO networking has been around for nearly four years now. Not always inexpensive as it is now, but it's been available.

I've been working with 802.11 wireless systems for nearly five years now. I can rememeber slobbering over the original Prism chipset when it came out, and being disappointed to find that 2 Mbps really meant 1.4 Mbps--and only that good if you were standing near an antenna. Upgrading to an 11 Mbps chipset was like going from a 300 baud to a 2400 baud modem. Heaven!!

Wireless is:
1) Not a new thing.
2) Available in many forms (900MHz, 2.4GHz, 5.8GHz, etc.).
3) Quickly evolving (or mutating?).
4) Here to stay.

If you wait until wireless has travelled along its development path to a point were it suddenly become "mature" and slows down in it's growth, then you will have a loooooong wait ahead of you. You will then rush to play catch-up with those who had more vision, and up having missed out on gaining several years of wireless experience to boot.