Documenti di Didattica
Documenti di Professioni
Documenti di Cultura
Since the introduction of the CCIE Wireless certification in 2009, there has been a path
to be recognized as a Wireless Expert. The journey to become a CCIE Wireless will not
be one of the easiest or shortest activities you will ever venture into. However, from the
defining moment that you make that decision, you will also find many rewards along the
way; from increasing your knowledge and technical ability across a variety of
technologies, to gaining peer recognition as a wireless expert once you obtain those
sought after CCIE digits.
To become a CCIE Wireless, you must pass both a written qualification exam and a
hands-on lab exam which, since the introduction of version 3 in late 2015, it now also
includes a one hour diagnostic module.
With the ever-growing proliferation of the Internet and mass information sharing across
shared communities, there should be a lot of preparation material available. However, as
wireless is a relatively new track in comparison to other CCIE exams, you might feel that
there is not as much material available as for other tracks. In any case, try to be
selective and choose preparation materials that offer hands-on approach using
configuration & troubleshooting skills by taking a pragmatic approach.
Using your skill-matrix established above; draw your own unique study plan and
customize it to reflect your own personal technological strengths and weaknesses. A
good, individualized study plan is the key to your success!
Please visit the Cisco Learning Network website to check out the latest available
blueprints. Some must-read information can be found at:
My approach to prepare the lab exam is to first break down the lab blueprint into
digestible pieces. Once I have the blueprint separated into manageable chunks, I focus
on each technology area individually until I feel I have mastered the concepts for that
particular technology. Once complete, I start doing practice labs that encompass all of the
technology areas into one.
Training
An important note to keep in mind is that training is not a prerequisite or formal
requirement to achieve your CCIE certification. However, Cisco recommends you to
follow training courses and, in that respect, a good starting point might be the CCNP
Wireless Program.
https://learningnetwork.cisco.com/community/certifications/ccnp_wireless
Note, that although Routing & Switching is mostly pre-configured in the CCIE Wireless
Lab exam, candidates need to have knowledge of these in order to understand,
troubleshoot and fix any underlying problems, as well as to implement basic routing and
switching (including basic IPv6 knowledge!). Therefore, it is highly recommended that
you also spend some time looking at fundamental Routing & Switching training offerings,
if needed.
Reference Books
No single resource is uniformly great; you will likely need to review multiple books to
assist you in preparing for CCIE Wireless certification. You may need to use varying
books to master different topics from the blueprint. No single book will cover all the
topics in-depth. There are several books available from Cisco Press and other 3rd party
publishers. The list is expected to grow in the future. Recommended books and other
material to prepare for CCIE Wireless can be found at:
https://learningnetwork.cisco.com/docs/DOC-26433
Please do note that new books are released all the time. If you are interested in a
particular subject, you can also check Cisco Press to find out if there are any more up to
date publications on your topic of interest.
http://www.ciscopress.com
The CCIE Wireless exam focuses on commonly used Wireless design principles as well
as Cisco Best Practices to make sure engineers that get CCIE Wireless certified are up
for the implementation and/or troubleshooting challenges they come across in the field.
(Erik Vangrunderbeek)
Cisco Learning Network (CLN)
You can use one of the most sought after social learning network tool CLN, to enhance
and advance your knowledge and use it as the primary source for information sharing
and learning. Browse the many technical content out there and connect and share
insights, opinions, and knowledge with the community. Visit the CLN portal at;
http://www.cisco.com/go/learnnetspace
Community Forums
Additionally, technical forums can play an essential role for a candidate during
preparation; you can generally find qualified CCIEs and other wireless engineers
available 24x7 to answer your queries and work through your technical problems. Group
forums can play the escalation role during your preparation time to help resolve your
technical problems by providing instantaneous technical support;
There are also many other 3rd party forums and blogs that you might find useful, most of
which have been written by individuals while preparing for the CCIE Wireless exam
themselves. In that sense, it might prove constructive, as well as encouraging, going
through other peoples experiences and approach to the exam. You might even find it
useful to start your own one! The list below is by no means exhaustive, nor it is intended
to be in any particular order:
http://mrncciew.com
http://wirelessccie.blogspot.com
https://rscciew.wordpress.com
http://www.my80211.com/ccie-wireless-syllabus-v3/
http://cciew.blogspot.com
http://www.cisco.com/web/psa/products/index.html
Equipment for Studying (Home Lab vs. Rental Racks)
This is by far one of the most important aspects for every CCIE candidate i.e. arranging
equipment for study. Although acquiring a personal home lab is an ideal scenario, it can
be costly to gather all the equipment to build a CCIE Wireless rack. However, you can
start with just a few devices a few controllers, access points and switches and, ideally,
some sort of server/PC to run virtual machines. The goal should be to obtain a thorough
understanding of the technologies and the architecture and also know how they integrate
with each other. For hardware devices that are costly & difficult to obtain; look for renting
the equipment online to familiarize yourself with the devices.
If you plan to build your own VM machine, you might find the link below helpful, at least
as a starting point, but of course, there are plenty of other possibilities to achieve a
similar result.
http://www.ryanbirk.com/the-perfect-vmware-vsphere-5-homelab/
Practice Labs
During your study, I strongly recommend that you start with individual technologies and
master each topic from the blueprint independently. When studying individual
technologies, you might find you can easily gain proficiency using them as standalone
technologies, but integrating multiple technologies can be tricky and difficult at first. Your
goal should be to champion each topic in-depth on its own without having to worry about
integrated technologies.
Later on, once you are confident in each topic; you need to focus on multilayer,
multifaceted integrated technology practice labs & complex scenarios involving all the
topics from the blueprint. Find practice labs with complex scenarios that require you to
integrate multiple technologies. By practicing with more complex lab exercises you can
improve your exam strategy and identify areas that require extra study. This will help you
refocus and revise your study plan and adjust it accordingly.
In addition to technical skills, candidate must also focus on time management and exam-
taking strategy; this plays a vital role to your success. Practice labs not only help you
assess your technical skills, they also help you improve your time management and test-
taking approach skills.
Troubleshooting
As many of you might be aware, CCIE Lab exams also evaluate troubleshooting skills.
There are two types of troubleshooting questions in the Wireless Lab exam:
When studying, I usually recommend candidates to learn how to read debugs. Configure
a task and turn on debugs. Capture good debugs, and copy into your Notepad. Then,
break your own work by miss-configuring something, re-capture bad debugs and then
compare with the good debugs. This is one of the best methods to learn the protocol in-
depth and understand how it works.
Know how to troubleshoot extensively using the show and debug command outputs.
Check for typos when configuring items, this is a very common mistake observed during
grading the exam. Keep in mind the point value; dont waste too much time working on a
two or three point question. Verify functionality for each question before moving on.
Remember, no functionality no points.
Final Word
I hope that the preceding tips and information will help you succeed in achieving CCIE
Wireless certification. Passing the CCIE exam is a great source of satisfaction and can
boost your career to the next level. The secret to success on CCIE, as with most
endeavors, is motivation, dedication and consistency. Failure on the first lab attempt is
not uncommon and, for that reason, it is important to be mentally prepared should that
happen. Keeping the momentum can be critical in order to not waste months, or even
years of preparation. In the long run, being an expert in the field of Wireless networking
is not just a destination, but an ongoing journey. I wish you all the best in the pursuit of
excellence.
For more information about the CCIE Wireless Program, please visit the CCIE Wireless
website at;
http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/training-events/training-
certifications/certifications/expert/ccie-wireless.html