How to Become a CCIE Wireless

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How to Become a CCIE Wireless
By Saria I began the wireless CCIE journey in
July of 2012. Similar to the different CCIE
track, the most important task was planning the
route. My experience was an added benefit of
having to go through the same process in 2008
when I passed my CCIE RS test and knew what it
looked like. It's not about you and your
sacrifices and the contributions of your family
members, acquaintances and everyone who is
around you. First of all, I obtained consent of
my wife to devote an additional 12 months to the
wireless journey.It was not an easy undertaking
because we're on our own with two children, and
needed to find alternative ways to support my
entire family at this period. My mother-inlaw
and father-inlaw agreed to come visit us and stay
for six months at a time. When the environment
is set I need to devise an effective study
strategy. This was another important part of the
journey. When you study, you must be able to keep
track of your progress and ensure you build up
the confidence to keep going. My plan was to do
four hours of studying during the week and 12
hours of study on weekends. Below is an example
of my time tracker using Excel. I wanted to make
sure there aren't too that there were too many
empty cells (actual hours are not as scheduled
hours)
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• Your skills in managing time are crucial for
  success in this endeavor. You must also establish
  your goals using a timeline that is compared to
  the other. Personally, I would like to complete
  this by the year 2013 and I've already set up 3
  attempts if required (you must be realistic about
  your goals and ).
• The beginning was the tough portion for me.
  Initially , I thought that doing small-scale labs
  and getting prepared for the lab test could help
  me pass an exam in writing. It was extremely
  difficult to stay focused on that level and I
  eventually decided to give up the idea. Then I
  honed in on the exam on writing and devised an
  idea of how to get through the exam. In wireless,
  I did not have any official certification like
  CCNA Wireless, CCNP Wireless and I was determined
  to get an CCIE without these. I bought the
  below-mentioned documents for the CCIE Wireless
  written test and went through the exam.
• CCNA Wireless (640-722 IUWNE) Quick Reference -
  by Jerome Henry
• CCNP-Wirless (642-732 CUWSS) Quick Reference - by
  Jerome Henry
• CCNP-Wirless (642-737 IAUWS) Quick Reference - by
  Jerome Henry
• CCNP-Wirless (642-747 IUWMS) Quick Reference - by
  Jerome Henry
• CCNP-Wirless (642-742 IUWVN) Quick Reference - by
  Jerome Henry
• CCIE-Wireless Exam (350-050) Quick Reference - By
  Roger Nobel, Federico Ziliotto, Federico
  Lovison, Fabian Riesen, Erik Vangrunderbeek
• Written exams are mostly about the theoretical
  aspects and you're well prepared to take the test
  as long as you keep up-to-date with the
  blueprint subjects. I took my wireless exam on
  August 30, 2012 and passed it the first time. I
  began my blog (www.mrncciew.com) to save my notes
  and stay in touch with others with a similar
  interest. This was a huge plus for my success,
  and it also helped me keep my passion and keep
  it in check all the way through my adventure.
• After that, I've scheduled my lab test for the
  7th of May, 2013. It is a crucial thing to be
  aware of in your journey. Once you set the date
  for your lab, you shouldn't have to change your
  schedule too much. I scheduled it in May in
  order to give me 6 months for the 2nd and 3rd
  attempts in 2013. The availability to take this
  CCIE Wireless lab exam at Cisco's Sydney was a
  most important factor for me. I was keen to take
  the test in the same time zone that I was
  studying in. There are times when little details
  become crucial to consider. It can be difficult
  to switch to a totally entirely different clock
  for the test when your body clock is operating in
  another timezone.
• The first challenge was finding excellent study
  material to prepare for the exam. This was the
  time when CCIE wireless blueprint was updated up
  to 2.0 (done in November 2011) and only two
  vendors (IPexpert and Fastlane)have updated their
  entire material. I bought Fastlane CCIEW
  workbook IPexpert Wireless Self Study Bundle
  because there were not a lot of choices (only
  Volume 1 had been prepared for v2.0 at that point
  and it took almost eight months to get their
  racks with remotes for volume 2.). This meant I
  needed to set up my own lab in order to conduct
  my work and it was another major success of my
  trip. I was fortunate enough to get a few items
  that I could borrow from my business in order to
  refresh in our wireless environments. My home
  lab, with 2x4402,1x2106, and 2x3750, 2x2960and
  1x3725 (CME) 1x1841 (WAN) and the ESX for AD,
  ACS, WCS, AD, DHCP (Dell Optiplex 745)

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You need to evaluate your strengths and
weaknesses, and then devote time to studying. For
me "L2/L3 network infrastructure"
"Infrastructure Application Services" were two of
my top subjects. "Autonomous deployment"
"Unified deployment-specific to security of
networks) are my weak spots. "WCS" "WLAN
services" are good, however they need to be
improved. I struggled to get the hang of these
issues since I had little experience with
autonomous deployments. There aren't many
excellent documents on these deployments.So I
spent many hours to gain basic knowledge while
creating basic lab configurations for every type
of scenario (like Bridge, Repeater, WGB, etc.).
Then I studied security and advanced
configuration using that base understanding. Ano
ther challenging issue was wireless QoS. I spent
a lot of time testing it using sniffers, and
then finally getting an understanding of the way
it operates in wireless environments. This is
crucial since QoS plays an important role in the
wireless lab test. The same is true for Multicast
too. ACS was a different topic with a similar
theme. I've never been working with it on a
regular basis, so I had to study the basics. A
good friend who was a CCIE-Security has helped me
greatly to understand the basics of ACS and how
to configure it. Spend 2 hours each weekend with
the person (via telephone and remotely sharing)
to get to know this subject. I read through all
the Configuration Examples and Technotes that are
related to the blueprints for the lab exam
topics. I kept all of them in one excel sheet so
that I could quickly refer to them whenever I
needed to. Below is a section of the excel sheet
in relation to 5508 similar examples of config.
Here is the entire excel sheet to help you with
any needs. CCIE-W-TechNote1.0 There was a
bootcamp in Australia in February 2013 for CCIE
wireless in February 2013. I was optimistic that
we could take lessons from Jerome Henry who was
well known as the No. 1 CCIE wireless instructor
around the globe as it was run by a Fastlane
associated company. However, by the time the
event ended, he had left Fastlane and joined
Cisco which is why we didn't get any good
results from the bootcamp. We were handed a
Fastlane workbook once more and were left to
work on it.I was disappointed and had to fight
the company to obtain more rack hours because of
the low standard of their bootcamp. I took a
break of 3 weeks from work to prepare for my
first attempt on the 7th of May. I spent the
majority of that time working on IPexpert rental
racks to conduct something like full-scale labs.
It was difficult to utilize their racks in a
productive manner since the racks weren't ready
for Volume 2. ( five fake labs). I was not 100
sure regarding ACS Autonomous related advanced
issues, but I did have enough confidence to give
it an attempt. I visited Sydney on May 6th from
Melbourne. The wireless lab takes place every
week on Tuesdays in the Sydney lab. I was the
sole candidate that day (normally 4 to 5 people
are on other tracks throughout the day) . I felt
at ease in the lab. After the initial
presentation by the proctor, I began my lab at
around 815AM. While I had a goal to read the
paper and complete the initial work of planning
within 30-45 minutes, it took nearly 1 hour and
15 minutes after I
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• completed the job. After that, I started
  preliminary configuration verification and
  troubleshooting to make sure that basic
  connectivity was working. There were some
  questions on Autonomous and ACS related to that
  I was unable to know the answer to, but for ACS I
  found a workaround and was able to pass without
  scoring any points. Once I was in the Unified
  deployment section, I encountered the most
  difficult task during my test. WLC's GUI was
  extremely slow and I never felt at ease with it.
  I tried using WCS for a specific QoS template
  configuration and encountered several issues.
  Then I tried certain WLAN configurations using
  WLC GUI in one of the controllers, and took an
  archive of it using WCS. Then , try to derive
  from CLI instructions to make it work to other
  controllers. It was a very quick time and I knew
  that I wasn't going to be able to finish this
  task. In the last couple of hours, take the time
  to read the questions a few times that I don't
  know the answers to be better prepared for the
  next time.
• At 445pm, I completed my lab exam and
  immediately after, I took a taxi to Airport. As I
  arrived home at around 1030 pm I found an email
  in my inbox, which I was not going to read. It
  was the expected Unified deployment section.
  I've scored low and then the Autonomous section.
• Although I thought I scored good in L2/L3, I
  didn't get 100 percent. In the WCS section, I
  scored 100, and I was extremely happy with
  that.
• Without thinking, I decided to go ahead and book
  my second time on August 20th. I was required to
  wait three months since there were no lab dates
  open for wireless in Sydney with wireless. After
  that, I re-evaluated what went wrong with my
  first attempt. Below are the flaws I discovered.
• Slow approach (planned for 30 minutes but took 1
  hour and 15 minutes )
• Rely heavily upon GUI GUI was very slow
  (couldn't complete task in time, without
  understanding CLI, and was stuck on certain
  tasks)
• I didn't master ACS 5.2 configurations
• I didn't realize Autonomous had advanced
  configuration
• The length of the questions that were asked was
  way far too lengthy...
• A lack of practice and feeling my speed was way
  too slow.
• Between the first and the second one, I took my
  time attempting to correct my flaws. The most
  important thing was that I didn't want to risk
  becoming uncomfortable with the slow GUI and
  relying on it to manage my configuration.
  Therefore, I decided to study the CLI methods of
  working. Initially, I started with WLAN
  configuration via CLI Then I moved to Mobility,
  RRM Video Stream, 802.11 band-specific configs,
  SNMP, Syslog, RADIUS and more. After doing this
  several times, I was convinced it was easy, as
  you are familiar with the commands, it takes only
  a few minutes to configure it across multiple
  controllers (simple copy and paste exercises). ).
• I revisited the Autonomous Config Guide, Config
  examples Technotes. Additionally, I looked at
  ACS configurations to determine what I could do
  to accomplish similar tasks in various ways.
• Also, I worked working with IPexpert remote
  racks. By this point, their racks were set to run
  its mock labs. When I completed a couple of 8
  hours of labs, it was clear my improvement. Then
  , I tried to simulate some exam scenarios and
  was sure that I would be able to perform that
  again.

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• This time, I had a clear outline of the sequence
  of jobs I was going to do. The first time, I was
  going to the flow of questions rather than my own
  approach to tackling the issue.
• We went back for the test on the 20th of August.
  There were three additional hopefuls (for Voice,
  SP RS) to take their test. Exam began at 825AM
  and I began reading. In the first 30 min, I
  created the time/point tracker table myself along
  with a device connectivity table and a WLAN
  table. The content was similar to my previous
  time and I did not need to go through
  word-by-word to understand what they were looking
  for. I then began preparing my notepad using CLI
  commands to accomplish every task. I also
  included verification CLI commands too. At this
  point, all the candidates began hitting their
  keys boards and caused the environment to become
  noisy. I was nervous however I was aware that I
  had practiced this technique before and needed
  to stay at ease and execute my strategy. It took
  me approximately 45 minutes to finish my
  notepad, which means 1 hour and 15 minutes went
  by without completing any configuration task .
  However, I felt very secure this time because I
  had the answers within my notepad.
• I began to do things in the sequential order.
  Each time I completed a configuration task , I
  checked it using CLI. I had all the information
  in my notepad. It was simply a matter of "Copy
  Paste". When lunch was over, I was somewhere
  between steps 9-10. I was extremely confident,
  as I had checked a couple of WiFis before lunch
  and all was working. I could tell that everything
  was running according to my schedule this time
  around and I wasn't concerned in any way.
• Examine NTP and the reachability of NTP server on
  all switches and WLC. If it doesn't work, fix
  those problems
• Configure the Mobility groups.
• Set up the RRM requirement
• Each controller must register all LAPs.
  controller
• Configure AP modes according to the request
  (H-REAP and OAP )
• Configure RADIUS in WLCs
• Configure the ACS rules and policies
• Configure SNMP, and then add the controller to
  WLC
• Configure WLANs
• Check the connectivity using Anyconnect.
• Configure Autonomous AP tasks
• Add MSE Maps
• Configure QoS

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• my best and would be able to get through it. In
  CCIE the exam, it's way too for you to be
  celebrating until you receive the acknowledgment
  of Cisco.
• I thought I'd have my results before I went home
  the same way as I did previously. The second
  time I was unable to wait to receive this email.
  I went through my email several times prior to
  boarding the plane to Melbourne and found there
  were no emails.I went home at 1030pm and went
  back to my email and nothing was found. I didn't
  get a good night's sleep and woke around 515AM
  and checked my email and found no messages from
  Cisco. After I got to work, I checked my email
  again. There was no message from Cisco and then I
  went to my spam folder, and then found the
  email. It was sent around 800AM (15 hours from
  my test). The email was opened with a fright and
  I realized that I am now an CCIE Wireless
• In conclusion , here's my tips for anyone willing
  to embark on this adventure.
• Write your exam as early as possible and
  concentrate on it in the beginning.
• Take your lab test immediately following your
  successful completion of the written test, and
  make sure you have enough time to prepare for the
  lab test.
• If you can, maintain a blog it will help you
  connect with others in the world who share a
  similar passion and help you stay focused on your
  goals.
• Create your own home lab and begin to practice
  the technology area (not fully scaled labs)
• Explore Config Examples and Technologies in
  relation to blueprint topics/products of the
  CCIE wireless test.
• If you are able to purchase training materials,
  go to an authorized supplier of your choice and
  try it out.
• At the end of your training, complete 8-hour
  laboratory sessions (by employing remote racks)
  and come up with your own plan of how you will
  overcome it.
• Discover different methods to accomplish the same
  task and select a less risky alternative that's
  more appropriate for you. You can practice this
  many times.
• Do the lab test. Try to follow your plan. If you
  fail to succeed , review your plan and return
  within a couple of months.
• until you are below step 9. You'll get it in a day