Only Slightly Off Topic - CCNA-Wireless Anyone?

redwarrior

Ok...so I was about halfway through my ISCW book when I started my new job and wham...found out that my primary concentration here, at least for now, will be wireless. Problem is, all my wireless knowledge amounts to is installing a few unsecured, autonomous AP's in conference rooms and what I learned in ONT and this is a VERY sophisticated wireless environment. Luckily, they already know my learning curve, so I'm not expected to be a wireless ninja...yet...

So, I was wondering if anyone here had taken the new CCNA-Wireless? I was looking at that and the CWNA and I'm thinking the CCNA-Wireless might be a better way to go since the environment here is entirely Cisco. The exam is out, but the exam guide for it hasn't even been printed. I managed to purchase a "rough cuts" version, which basically is the author's working copy that gets updated continuously online. I'm thinking that plus some resources normally used for the CWNA should help.

If anyone has any direct experience with this, please feel free to offer words of wisdom here! I thought this would be a more likely place than the regular CCNA boards, so sorry if this is more than slightly off topic.

Thanks!

Bokeh

This was discussed recently on the cwnp.com forum. Their take on that matter, is it would be easier for someone to get a cwna cert then do the ccna-wireless, as there is some overlap and once someone has the theory down pat, picking up the Cisco-centric portions wouldnt be a problem.

Just passing along some info.

dtlokee

One of our guys at work who does nothing but site surveys for us passed the CCNA Wireless a few weeks ago.

dynamik

I'll probably be doing this before the end of the year. I did my CWNA not too long ago and will wrap up my CCNA this month, so it seems like a good time to take it on. I'm currently a little ways in on the rough cut on safari.

mamono

Bokeh wrote:

This was discussed recently on the cwnp.com forum. Their take on that matter, is it would be easier for someone to get a cwna cert then do the ccna-wireless, as there is some overlap and once someone has the theory down pat, picking up the Cisco-centric portions wouldnt be a problem.

I concur with Bokeh. I was planning to take this route too. Finish CWNA and then study for CCNA:Wireless, but I put my CWNA on-hold since CWNP will be releasing the PW0-104 CWNA revised exam on Nov. 3rd. I have heard mixed statements from CWNP. When I asked their customer service about when was the latest that I could take the PW0-100 CWNA exam, they said it would be retired Nov. 2nd. Their website says that the PW0-100 CWNA exam will still be available until the end of Dec.

http://www.cwnp.com/cwna/index.html wrote:

The new CWNA exam - PW0-104 - will be available exclusively from VUE testing centers.

Exam PW0-100 will be updated to exam PW0-104 on November 3rd, 2008. PW0-100 will be available until 12/31/2008. For information on the new updated CWNA exam PW0-104, please click here.

The differences between the PW0-100 v3 and the PW0-104 CWNA exams can be found at the following link: http://www.cwnp.com/exams/pw0104_differences.pdf

I was under the impression that the primarily difference was 802.11n.

Asides from the foundational information and theories, the only thing that separates CWNA from CCNA:Wireless is the Cisco centric information. CCNA being a prerequisite, I do not believe there would be much else that needed to be covered after CWNA course material other than information from Cisco 800-series Routers and Aironet AP manuals. Keeping in mind that, we are talking about the new CWNA material for PW0-104 due on Nov. 3rd since the CCNA:Wireless covers 802.11n.

CCNA:Wireless Objectives
https://cisco.hosted.jivesoftware.com/community/certifications/wireless_ccna/iuwne?view=overview

redwarrior

I went ahead and got the rough cuts for the CCNA-Wireless and I think I'm actually going to go for it first since our environment is 100% Cisco. I'm going to be assisting the main wireless guy, so that might be sufficient for now and then I can decide if I need to go the CWNP route later on. It does look like there is significant overlap, but I'd like to not stray too far from my CCNP studies at this point and it looks like the CCNA-Wireless shouldn't be too tough a nut to crack between CCNP exams.

I'll stop by the CWNP forums here and see if I can move this conversation over to there. I'm just finding that I'm needing to know a lot more about wireless than I learned in ONT!

dynamik

redwarrior wrote:

I'm just finding that I'm needing to know a lot more about wireless than I learned in ONT!

I'm not familiar with ONT, but going by the objectives for it, um, yeah!

If it's anything like the CWNA (which it looks like it is), it's going to get very nitty-gritty with standards, modulation, encoding, and all kinds of other layer-2 goodness. It was a great deal more involved than I was anticipating.

I'll probably still buy the book in a few weeks (when it's published) because it looks like it comes with a practice exam. I usually go with Transcender, but it doesn't look like they have any of the CCNA specializations ready yet.