CCNA Wireless Experience

I took the CCNA Wireless exam and passed thankfully about two weeks ago, before I started blogging, I would have been gutted to get a fail with my experience and would have probably quickly resat the exam and kept quiet!

I think the exam was fair however you either needexperience or alot of reading as there are just some questions that you would find it hard to pick up.

Look at all the practice questions from Boson and on the Cisco site and it will give you a good idea what to expect. The harder part for me was definitely on the 500 series controller as I have only configured one and its alot different to the enterprise controllers so had to read some on the 500 series. Being intimately familiar with the enterprise models, the 4400 and 2100 series, I automatically think about what I would do if deploying them. Know the limitations of the 500 series access points and controllers. Also get some hands on even if its just a sandalone access point.

I studied for about a week pretty solidly but was involved in the Cisco CCNA Wireless Study Group quite actively that has helped me get into study mode and probably think more aboute the minutae that would be on the exam rather than just being able to configure and understand the processes. At the time I was on there I was studying for my CCDA, I still am, I should be sitting the CCDA tomorrow but have delayed it for about a week.

All in all I thought it was a pretty straight forward test and a fair assessment of what you could expect at that level.

I did however give myself quite a bit of stress as I also sat the Cisco AWLANFE exam on the same day, thats the Advanced Wrireless Field Engineer 642-631. I thought the material would be pretty similar and to a large degree it is. The only issue I had was time and a few of the less familiar topics like EAP-FAST that I had to read up on. The main issue is that it is based on older code so you have to think in terms of code 4.0 and also know the 1000 series access points.

Finally sitting two Cisco exams in one day is stressful even if you know the sbject matter. I have pledged to do the same for my CCDA and AWLANSE, thats the 642-681, but I know it will be a lot tougher than the CCNA and AWLANFE. Most people I spoke with thought I was mad even attempting it. I onestly can't see myself doing the same for my CCNP Wireless, R&S or teh CWNO stuff, the detail and depth is so much harder and alot of the routing stuff will be new though the concepts are alot more meaningful now and are actually making sense.