Study Update: 11.02.2010

Study Update 11.02.2010 1. Passed CCNP-Wireless Site Survey

2. Passed CCNP-Wireless Mobility

3. Bought my vouchers for the CCNA wireless, CCNP-Wireless Security, and CCNP-Wireless Voice Umm... if it seems I'm saving the best for last you are probably right.  It seems I've been avoiding taking the CWNA and CWSP until after I get the CCNP-Wireless under control. Why? Mostly because I've been working on the Cisco Wireless Project at work and it encompassed pretty much every product line that Cisco offers short of the 3200, MSE, and Cisco WCS Navigator (I've only got got 5 WLCs and not hundreds oreven thousands to manage).  Otherwise, I've got pretty much everything else. So where am I now? Well starting tomorrow and ending Sunday morning I'll be completing all testing of the Wireless Infrastructure I've designed and now implemented.  This means I'm testing redundancy mostly. Multicast is on the agenda too. Whew! The outdoor LAPs are due to arrive on the 3rd week of November and this will give me the opportunity to deploy Cisco's Mesh solution in a limited fashion.  I only have 2 to start with. More later to support other areas and provide additional coverage. I'm still studying my practice questions as time permits, reading up on various topics and I have been reading a lot of Cisco Docs...  a lot of them.  This week I've been nailed to the Enterprise Mobility Guide 4.1 and I've just about got it finished. I started a local Cisco group with the assistance and hosting from the area's largest and most prestigious Cisco Gold Partner: Presidio/Coleman Technologies. 

 They've done a wonderful thing with the 3200 and Mobile IP.  I'd tell you more about it but I'd probably have to kill you if they didn't kill me first, that is. Seriously they've got some bright folks over there and they've come up with a simple by eloqent solution to a couple of Wireless issues and it seems like they are making a profit at it too.  Nice! So I'm going to class next week for DCNI-2 (That's the Nexus N7K, N5K, and N2K for those who might not know) and while I'm there and sitting really close to a testing center I'm going to try to score a few classes either at 8am before the 9am typical start time of class or during the lunch breaks typically around noon.  Either way, I'm one busy guy next week.If I pass them all, I'm then eligible for reimbursement and maybe even a small bump in pay.. and I've even heard there might be a small bonus in there too. All very kewl.   I'm hoping to study my tail off the weekend I return and look forward to taking the CWNA exam the following week.

 Umm... kinda right on time.  I'm working with 2 Wireless vendors at the Preview Center next week too and I'll be assiting them to make sure their networks work as designed for their respective products. Looks like I made the right choice choosing to dive into Wireless when I did.  I don't know how I'd have gotten this far without the knowledge acquired from studying for the CWNA.  Cisco covers a lot of ground in their reference guides, but the CWNP certifications give you the ability to take a step back from the kool-aid once in a while.I did join a study group for the CCIE Wireless but so far I've seen very little activity.  Guess with few to no classes and very few candidates I'll probably be floating that boat all by my lonesome. 

 One of our members here, Pete Nugent, has helped me out a lot and he's very good at this Wireless thing too.  I still consider myself a novice to most.  I can get clients and the infrastructure working, perform modest site surveys, and of course harden the infrastructure, apply qos, and allow for multicast...  maybe I've moved up a notch or so but still not uber-guru and I'm pretty sure I can't quite teach wireless by any means. Ok - I got more chapters to read and more practice to do + a little pre-game planning for tomorrow's start of a marathon weekend of wireless.

Study Update 10.28.2010

Study Update 10.28.2010

Where are we?

1. I finally finished reading my CWNA book... Too many projects and too much other stuff in the middle some might argue... um... a lot of it is luckily Wireless.

2. Let's see... I went to the Cisco Unified Wireless Networking class offered by Global Knowledge and conducted by Gigwave... totally awesome class. Only downside (major downside for most folks) was 5 people and 4 laptops with access to equipment. Looking over someone's shoulder is NOT what we go to hands-on classes for... is it?

3. I was fortunate, that aside from WCS (I used my own WCS during class to some degree - I had to re-size the hard drive to add WLCs to the 6.196.0 code) I knew how to do mostly every lab in my sleep. AP Groups was not something I has done but George has an awesome video on the subject and the instructor explained the concept very well.

4. The instructor from Gigawave is absolutely the bomb! He rocks. I'd imagine mostly everything in the class was the making of a CCIE Lab question - especially the tidbits of experience offered by the instructor and some carefully worded questions from one of the students - me!.

5. I'm getting ready to finally book my exam. I know... Sorry, this test has a lot memorization, definitions, concepts, and material in general. So it takes time to read it and understand it.

6. I've ordered my Cisco Outdoor mesh gear (LAP-1524AG's) and the poles arrived yesterday. Everything else is on back-order. Either these things are in demand or they... are not in demand.. Hmm...

7. I re-sized the VM for my WCS, added WLCs, and I just finished adding all my switches to the controller. Rogue detection on steroids!!!

8. I'm also finally completing adding 2 WLCs to the network. Time flies when you are having fun.

9. I'm going to have to survey each site I am responsible for to help ensure my heat maps are correct in WCS or at least as accurate as I can make them.

10. As you can tell I learned a lot from CUWN and am trying to implement what I learned into my own network.

11. I had to rebuild my Wireless DMZ to fix an issue I learned about in class. Did that as "Step 1" and now I have to complete the other piece of the equation.

12. I bought more gear for my own Wireless Lab. The idea is to have an autonomous lab with WDS and the WLSE and then have the LWAPP Lab with A/B/G/N with the WCS and all my various controllers. Seems mostly everything I need is in the 4000/4100's but I'm probably going to buy the 2106 to support "N" and support that AP-1252 I bought. I have my 1131's and 1242. I've got the older Airespace 1200/1250s for indoor/outdoor use and they are what I'm using to get me faster at the CLI.

I gotta run through the book one more time for a final review and get to the testing center I might be able to wrap this up. Of course, trying to juggle everything and competing priorities (work is my personal biggest challenge) is always going to be the story of my life.

Let's see I can tell that studying for the CWNA has made a tremendous impact on my ability to successfully deliver my own wireless projects and probably has saved the company several tens of thousands of dollars in consulting fees just for a project like the one I have been working on since I started studying for the CWNA.

I can further tell you that as a result of studying for the CWNA I now understand the technology, the language, the implications, and where the fast-paced wireless industry is going and where it has been. This is huge!!!!

A. It allows me to mix and max various generations of gear for my own personal use and interoperability between various vendors if/when needed.

B. When implementing any vendor's equipment, in this case Cisco, and in classes, I have a much stronger leg to stand on since I have the assurance and confidence that I have a more solid depth of understanding required to deliver a better product properly.

C. I've been offered a decent-sized local project with over 1000 users on a campus network of several acres and it is also wireless. I have been asked to audit the site and part of that audit includes a Wireless Survey of the network. Kewl! I have to admit, it's not my first wireless survey, I've been doing wireless since it was ad hoc back in 2000/2001 with Netgear Wireless NICs and I've since had a lot of experience with Cisco over the past 7-8 years more or less on well over 50-60 campus networks or enterprise networks. So not much is new, except now I'm better trained, a lot better trained thanks to the CWNA, and I actually can make more informed decisions for the benefit of my client which equates to the old adage: faster, cheaper, better. I'm not just a Wireless guy, but also a Network Engineer of a certain level and so the client gets a lot of additional value and insight from my own matrix of skills. Previously I'd have felt more comfortable farming the Wireless Survey out. Today, I can't quite say that. I'm well armed with some of the best tools in the industry to perform the job and top of the list is the skills from the CWNA.

That's it for now.

Darby

http://wwww.darbyslogs.blogspot.com

Study Update 10.11.2010

Wow!

Time flies if you let other things get between you and your certifications:

1. Family2. Job3. Life in general

Number 3 can be about anything else.

For me number three has been a lot of things all rolled into one but these things cannot be avoided and life will happen with or without us.

So where am I now?

1. Read the book in its entirety. 2. Maintain a few WLCs at work.3. Final stages of implementing 2 morw WLCs finally.4. Submitting a BoM for an outdoor Mesh Solution.5. Attending Cisco's CUWN by Global Knowledge tomorrow (Cisco Unified Wireless Networking)

What I need to do now to complete the CWNA:

1. Review my notes.2. Schedule the exam.3. Pass the exam.

That's it.

Re: Darby Weaver Mid-Week Report 06.302010 #5

Update:

I've been studying a little half-heartedly lately for the CWNA. Mostly due to the fact that my time actually doing actual Wireless Work was stolen away this month to do research for the Year 2011 Budget.

Next year's budget is all about ARS, Nexus 7000/5000/2000, and of course, WAAS. The Fluke Aircheck also made the "Must-Have" list too.

There are some plans to expand the Wireless up north to continue what we already started there.

That was the Capital Budget for 2011.

At the moment, I'm working on the Operational Budget for 2011. Not quite as much over-time research needs to be committed to this one.

However, since things like Books, Classes, items under $1000.00 and other misc items are part of this one, I'm still working on it too.

This means I've been spending time getting registered and preparing to get registered in not one but three schools for 2010/2011. Two of them offer a Wireless course from Cisco. That's it.

I did get all paid and signed up for Global Knowledge's CUWN course in October in Orlando.

I got permission to attend the 1-Day MS Project classes locally administered by New Horizons.

I'm headed to Wilmington at the end of the month to sit a class with Narbik for the CCIE RS at the CCIE Expo for a week of vacation.

I'm taking next week off for a week of vacation at home - R&R.

On the home front - I've had to take a step back. My sister-in-law is moving in, so I had to clear a rather large room for her. This took a lot of doing since the stuff had to go somewhere else.

I also bought 5 book shelves (11 now) for my NOC room in my house and I had to clear it out and am still working on putting it back together.

Anyway - these activities have pretty much occupied my time this past month and have kept me away from my CWNA study routine.

Now I did register for 2 exams yesterday for the CCENT/CCNA - and I just brushed up on them last night and will take both today.

But that only accounts for a single day...

I expect to be back on the horse after I get back from my 4th of July vacation.

Oh yes, I took up trying to learn to touch type. I got my home rows up to 106 wpm with 0 errors after a week of practice. So I've got a lot to go there too.

Still expect to take the CWNA in time to qualify for a re-take if needed but don't expect to need it anyway.

Later

Darby

Darby Weaver Mid-Week Report 05.27.2010 #4.1

Kewl stuff...

The CWNA is making me look like a hero at work to the exec's already...

I showed up on-site to prep for a routine UPS replacement. The old one was failing.

Well... the lady in the corner office needed some help with her Wireless. She just got a new laptop and could not connect.

So... I step in take quick look. I saw she was associated with the Guest Wireless and that worked but she could not connect to a drive on the network.

So... Of course she needed access to the Secure Wireless LAN where she was at...

No problem. Took a look. She was using the Windows Client (the XP SP3 version) and so I just went to her Wireless NIC's properties and took a look.

Ok - We were not using the smartcard. We do use PEAP. We do do use MS CHAPv2.... She needed WPA2/AES and voila!!!

Worked like a champ!!!

Kewl deal...

I call this experience a CWTS/CWNA practical lab experience.

My day was busy researching/verifying/defending the Cisco CSS Load Balancer and working with a vendor about a script error on IIS which in no way is in my job description this year...

So after I got all the details, crossed all T's, dotted all I's... presented the config in full detail and layman's explanation...

I proceeded to use the new Fluke AirCheck...

This is one awesome device!

Ok - I count this as a CWTS/CWNA Lab experience. I did note that none of the neighboring networks were using 802.11N. Interesting...

One still had Tsunami for an SSID - Uh oh!!!

Lots of open networks in the building - easily attachable - the Fluke does that... with too much ease.

I proceeded to survey the 2nd/3rd Floor of the building (we lease about 1/2 of each or so)...

All my zones were good and were covered by at least 2 APs in Channels 1 and 11 respectively.

Only one area could possibly use another AP. So I'm adding one to my project for that area.

Totally awesome!!!

All of my spaces had 100% reception from at least 2 APs. The "Corner" had availability from at least 4 APs.

The building is not concerned with roaming, VoIP, or with RFID at this time.

The experience was quick, easy, and pleasant.

The antenna is terribly sensitive to everything... gotta check those specs.

I was asked for my opinion and quite frankly... This Fluke Aircheck is a "Must-Have" in my book.

The one I'm using is a demo and so... I gotta give it back... :(