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Wireless on the New CCIE Written Exam

In January Cisco officially moved to a new blueprint for the CCIE R&S Written Exam(350-001). This new blueprint added a major category called Enterprise Wireless Mobility. This article addresses how CertZone is responding to this change.

How the New Emphasis on Wireless Technology on the CCIE R&S Written Exam will affect CertZone

In January Cisco officially moved to a new blueprint for the CCIE R&S Written Exam (350-001). This new blueprint added a major category called Enterprise Wireless Mobility. Previously wireless was a single subcategory under the major category of LAN.

The sub categories under Enterprise Wireless Mobility are:

Standards
Hardware
SWAN
RF Troubleshooting
VoWLAN
Products

Certification Zone has previously published two Study Guides on the topic of wireless, so the topic should not be unfamiliar to subscribers who are studying for their CCIE certification.

The first wireless Study Guide was written by Dennis Laganiere. Networking Without a Net discussed the following major topics:

A description of a basic wireless network
Access points, including hot standby access points
A discussion of 802.11 protocols, the wireless LAN standards developed by IEEE
A basic discussion of radio frequency and spread spectrum
Key aspects of the site survey and wireless design
An introduction to antennas
Security and basic configuration
Basics of troubleshooting a wireless network

The second Study Guide, written by Ken Chipps, tells you How to Implement Wireless Networks. This is a "nuts-and-bolts" application paper. It starts by reviewing the basic concepts of wireless networks. Then it reviews the rules, regulations, and standards that have been implemented throughout the world. Once you're focused on wireless networks, Ken gets you into the hardware and procedures for implementing a wireless network. But what if things don't work? Well, the paper concludes with some basic troubleshooting.

So if subscribers have studied and used the three parts of the two previously published wireless Study Guides (tutorial, study questions, exercises), they should be well on the way to being prepared for any wireless questions that appear on the CCIE R&S; exam.

However, we want you to be able to focus on the topic according to the way Cisco is describing the aspects of wireless networks, so CertZone will be developing new wireless Study Guides.

Ken Chipps is developing the first new Study Guide. He expects to complete the tutorial very soon. In this tutorial he will discuss:

Security. Wireless security and management looks like it has been collapsed into the subcategory of SWAN. In addition to SWAN, Ken will touch on fast secure roaming, WLSE, hot spots, guest access, and other security-related items.
Hardware and Products. This will be a summary of Cisco hardware that is wireless related, including access points, antennas, bridges, and NICs.
Standards. Previous CertZone tutorials have covered the major existing standards, but there are also new in-progress standards that deserve mention. These under development standards address topics such as quality of service and fast roaming.
VoWLAN. At the present time this capability is not "fully baked." There are several issues impeding the full deployment of voice over wireless local area networks, especially delay and roaming. This tutorial will mention the Cisco equipment and quality of service provisions in the equipment that support VoWLAN.

There are many, many things that can go wrong in a wireless network, so troubleshooting is a major issue. Yes, troubleshooting is addressed in existing CertZone wireless tutorials, but more needs to be said. Not only is it a sub category on the written exam, but it's a topic that's important to anyone involved in an actual wireless network. Additionally, one of the benefits of good troubleshooting is that it helps you to better understand the technology itself. So CertZone expects to develop a second new wireless Study Guide focusing on wireless troubleshooting.