Question For Webmaster

KMAN24

What are your thoughts on the two Cisco Certfications for wireless technologies. Would they be more worthy than these vendor neutral certs ?

Webmaster

I'm sorry about the late reply...

I haven't done the Cisco wireless certs, but did look into them when I started with the CWNA and I think they may be more valuable when have a bunch of Cisco certs already, but the CWNP certs have gained a lot of recognition in a relative short time so I'd still recommend to take those also.

With wireless networking technology becoming more common every day, I think the CWNA should be mandatory for any IT pro involved. It provides an excellent general foundation. The CWSP cert is more for those who want to become a specialist. Although the Cisco certs cover a lot of theory (including overlap with the CWNP exams), they also include more practical topics, such as configuring wireless cisco devices.

Personally, mainly for the reasons above, if I would work at a company with mainly Cisco devices, I'd probably start with CWNA and go for the Cisco specialist certs after that. Any certification that starts with 'Cisco' is worthy so you can't go wrong with it, but eventually it depends a lot on your situation.

KMAN24

Thanks for the Reply, I will take that into consideration. My main reason for asking is the fact that we are a fully cisco wireless shop.

Thanks

Webmaster

My main reason for asking is the fact that we are a fully cisco wireless shop

As I mentioned in my previous reply, I think any certification that starts with 'Cisco' is worthy, but especially since your a fully cisco wireless shop, I'd personally would prefer the Cisco certs. But if you are interested in a long-term carreer in wireless networking, working for different companies etc, you'll probably want to pick up the CWNP certs as well.