CCIE Wireless Preparation Tips

With the introduction of the CCIE® Wireless certification in 2009, there now is a path to
be recognized as a Wireless expert. To become a CCIE Wireless you must pass both
the written qualification exam and hands-on lab exam.

With the ever-growing proliferation of the Internet and mass information sharing across
shared communities, there is a lot of preparation material available. As wireless is a new
track, compared to other CCIE exams, not a whole lot of material is available, but we do
expect the amount of available information to pick up. Be selective and choose
preparation materials that offer hands-on approach using configuration & troubleshooting
skills by taking a “pragmatic” approach.

Assessing Strengths & Weaknesses

There is no single universal formula or recipe for successfully passing your CCIE as
each candidate has their own strengths and weaknesses.

 Use the blueprint to determine your conceptual, theoretical and practical

experience and establish a skill-matrix and identify your knowledge-level by
rating yourself on each topic; on a scale of 1-to-5 (1 being poor, 5 being
Excellent).
 Evaluate your hands-on experience in each technology and topic areas listed on
the blueprint for the lab exam.
 For areas of strength, practice for speed and perfection.
 For weaker areas, boost your knowledge level by following trainings, selected
reading material, online resources, and lots of hands-on practice (for the lab).

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:

CCIE Wireless Written Exam Blueprint:

https://cisco.hosted.jivesoftware.com/docs/DOC-3584

CCIE Wireless Lab Exam Blueprint:

https://cisco.hosted.jivesoftware.com/docs/DOC-3601

CCIE Wireless Lab Exam Expanded Blueprint:

https://cisco.hosted.jivesoftware.com/docs/DOC-3601

CCIE Wireless Lab Equipment and Software List:

https://learningnetwork.cisco.com/docs/DOC-7025
 “My approach to prepare the lab exam is to first break down the lab blueprint in 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.”

“In terms of equipment, we strived to include equipment that would generally be seen in
most enterprise wireless networks. While some might consider WiSM Controllers overkill
in a lab exam, they are quite common in larger networks and as such we felt had to be
included. “

(Matt Swartz, Wireless SME)

Trainings
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. Although there are not a lot of Wireless training resources
available at this stage, the introduction of the the CCNP Wireless Program might be just
what you need.

https://learningnetwork.cisco.com/community/certifications/ccnp_wireless

Note, 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.
Therefore, it is highly recommend you also spend some time looking at fundamental
Routing & Switching training offerings, if needed.

“There was a significant focus on creating a lab exam that exemplifies common design
principles as well as best practices gained from the field. Although the exam focuses on
implementing and troubleshooting Wireless technologies, expect to see CCNP level
routing and switching concepts. Within the design team we agreed that this was a must,
given the high amount of Wireless issues in the field that ultimately were due to a basic
underlying routing or switching issue. Candidates will not be expected to know complex
nuances of any particular protocol, but should be proficient in the core concepts of
predominant IGPs.”

(Matt Swartz, Wireless SME)

CCIE Bootcamps
A bootcamp is another source of confusion for candidates preparing for CCIE
certification. There are many 3rd party vendors offering CCIE bootcamps and preparation
workshops. Please note, that these are not Cisco authorized curriculum and the CCIE
team does not endorse them officially. However, they can be used at candidate
discretion to prepare for their exam.
Bootcamps might provide mock scenarios which help candidates’ gauge their readiness,
and provides the candidate the essential tips-and-tricks for exam taking. To gain the
most benefit out of these bootcamps, we recommend you to initially focus on self-study
materials using the skill-matrix and self-preparation books and resources discussed
above, and master each individual technology from the blueprint. Once you feel you
have achieved that peak level, and then you could plan on attending any bootcamp to
gain maximum mileage.

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 several books available from Cisco Press and other 3rd party
publishers. The list is expected to grow in the future. Recommended books to prepare
for CCIE Wireless can be found at:

https://cisco.hosted.jivesoftware.com/docs/DOC-3602
http://www.ciscopress.com/

Cisco Website CCO

Many candidates overlook one of the best resources for useful material and technical
information which is available free of cost, the Cisco website. A plethora of sample
configuration and technical tips are available on support pages for each Cisco product
and technology. These articles & whitepapers are written to reflect current trends and
demands and include sample diagrams, configurations, and invaluable show and debug
command outputs. Also study the Wireless Best Practices and Design Guides!

“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.

CLN portal
http://www.cisco.com/go/learnnetspace

CCIE Wireless Study Group:

https://learningnetwork.cisco.com/groups/ccie-wireless-study-group
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;

Cisco’s Networking Professional Connection (NetPro), where candidates

can post questions for technical assistance, seek suggestions or share
experiences at NetPro:
http://www.cisco.com/go/netpro

Cisco’s Certification Online Support, where you can find a Q&A on

certification related topics such as exam info, books, trainings,
requirements, resources, tools and utilities and much more:
http://www.cisco.com/go/certsupport

Cisco Technical Documentation (Your Lifeline)

During the CCIE Lab exam, there is only one resource available to assist you if you get
stuck or need help – the Cisco Technical Documentation. You need to be able to
navigate the Cisco documentation website with fluency & confidence. This is the only
resource you are allowed during the exam and you will need to be able to look up
anything you need with speed. You need to ensure you make it part of your regular
practice. If you are familiar with it, it can save you a lot of time during the exam.

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 switches, routers, access points and controllers. 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 you
with the devices.

Practice Labs
During your study, I strongly recommend 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, but also help you improve your time management and test-
taking approach skills.

Troubleshooting
As many of you might be aware, CCIE Lab exams evaluate your in-depth
troubleshooting skills.

There are two types of troubleshooting questions in the CCIE Wireless Lab exam:

1. Dedicated explicitly marked Troubleshooting Questions – these are clearly

marked and candidates will be told that this is a troubleshooting scenario, and
has been preconfigured with some broken configs. Candidate needs to identify
the purposeful injected faults and ensure functionality of the item.
2. Integrated, embedded Troubleshooting Questions – these are not marked
troubleshooting, but are integrated into the topology. Troubleshooting is woven
into the scenario and candidate may have to think over and beyond in order to
achieve the task and ensure functionality.

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; don’t lose too much time working on a
two or three point question. Verify functionality for each question before moving on.
Remember, no functionality – no points.

Lab Exam Tips and Techniques

Finally, I would like to share a list of “Lab exam tips and techniques” that we were able to
compile through our day-to-day proctoring experience, and watching what some
candidates do best. Some of these items are trivial but some candidates tend to forget
them:

 Read the entire exam first

 Redraw topology (consolidate information from all the Diagrams given)
 Plan your exam, divide-and-conquer rule
 Manage your time by the total number of Sections/Questions
 Make no assumptions
  Ask the proctor for clarifications
 The 10-min rule - report any technical problems or hardware equipment issues to
the proctor after troubleshooting 10 mins on it (only if you are convinced that your
configuration is absolutely correct)
 Keep a list of everything, items need to be re-visited or re-checked or re-verified
before exam end
 Work questions as a unit
 Some questions are independent, and some are inter-dependant. Read carefully.
 Test your work, functionality is important. Do not rely on config only.
 Save configurations frequently
 Minimize last-minute changes
 Plan at least 30-45 mins towards the exam end to re-verify all your work from the
beginning
 Reduce stress - arrive early to the exam location
 Leave yourself time - exam can run over

Final Word
I hope that the preceding tips and information will help you succeed in achieving your
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. 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 CCIE Programs, visit the CCIE Website at;
http://www.cisco.com/go/ccie.

Thank you
Erik Vangrunderbeek