Forum

http://www.wirelesstrainingsolutions.com/cwna-labs-only

Interesting concept.  Wondering if anyone is using these or others?

This program is intended for wireless professionals interested in pursuing a network administrator credential or career. The labs contained within this set are designed to give a student confidence in configuring, maintaining, and troubleshooting a broad cross section of the types of equipment and software used every day by wireless LAN administrators. With CWNA RALO, experience is attainable from your desktop.

The CWNA Online labs have been designed to allow a CWNA student to gain hands-on experience with an array of popular wireless software applications, utilities, and hardware devices. Each lab is focused on a particular element of wireless network administration and serves as real-world experience for the objectives tested by the CWNA certification exam (PW0-104). Although, the CWNA Online labs, by themselves, would not be considered a complete preparation for the CWNA exam, they make an excellent reinforcement for do-it-yourself students, and a perfect compliment to the Official CWNA Study Guide. In addition, for wireless network administrators who are not concerned with attempting the CWNA exam, this set of labs allows an unequalled exploration of many of the methods and techniques used to design, implement, maintain, and troubleshoot modern WLANs.

Following is a list of the contents of “CWNA Labs Only – LAB6210”:

Lab 1 – Introduction to Spectrum Analysis
Lab 2 – Visualizing Antenna Coverage (instructor demo)
Lab 3 – Outdoor Propagation Modeling
Lab 4 – WLAN Discovery Using HeatMapper
Lab 5 – Testing Classical Autonomous APs
Lab 6 – Introduction to Protocol Analysis Using WildPackets OmniPeek
Lab 7 – Indoor Site Design
Lab 8 – Using WLAN Controllers
Lab 9 – Preparing for 802.11n
Lab 10 – Building Enterprise WIPS

The LAB6210 Lab Guide comprises over 100 pages and includes a 38 minute instructor video demo on antenna coverage patterns using AirMagnet Survey Pro with its optional Planner module.

This program is intended for wireless professionals interested in pursuing a network administrator credential or career. The labs contained within this set are designed to give a student confidence in configuring, maintaining, and troubleshooting a broad cross section of the types of equipment and software used every day by wireless LAN administrators. With CWNA RALO, experience is attainable from your desktop.

The CWSP Online Remote Access Labs Only are accessed through a web-based, remote control infrastructure, referred to as the WiTS - Network Operastions Center or WiTS-NOC, which is centralized at our Colorado Data Center. Students download a small remote control application that runs on their local PC and uses a high-speed Internet connection to take over various pieces of WLAN equipment located within the WiTS-NOC. The equipment is viewed in a second desktop window that appears on the student's local PC and gives them complete control over the remote equipment. The access speed is determined by the speed of the student's connection, but even for slower Internet connections it is very nearly realtime. The only issue is that students will need to be allowed to passthrough any corporate firewalls using the standard ports required by the remote control application. This has rarely been an issue and has always been accomplished successfully through a simple request to the student's IT department. Port requirements are available upon request.

Following is a partial list of the equipment and software that is assigned to each student for the duration of your enrollment into the CWSP Online Remote Access Labs Only course:

CWSP Online students are assigned laptops per student/team
Microsoft WinXP SP2
Microsoft WZC
Atheros-based External dual band WLAN adapter
NetStumbler
AirDefense Mobile
Leagcy SOHO-grade single-band access point
Internal WLAN adapter
Wildpackets OmniPeek
Cognio/AirMagnet Spectrum Analysis PC card
CommView for WiFi
SMAC
AirCrack
ProConvert
AeroHive Enterprise-grade dual-band access point
AeroHive Captive Portal
CoWPAtty
Elektron CA and RADIUS Server
Microsoft PEAP
AirMagnet Enterprise WIPS
HyperTerminal
AirMagnet Smart Sensor 5120 dual band with spectrum analysis

Following is a list of the contents of “CWSP Labs Only –

Lab 1- WLAN Discovery
Lab 2- Legacy Wireless Vulnerabilities
Lab 3- Current Wireless Security Technology
Lab 4- Enterprise Wireless Intrusion Prevention Systems

I was looking into this option, as well as the 1 week online CWNA course they also offer. It gives you access to the lab equipment after the course is complete, I think it was a month. The labs by themselves were a cost of roughly $600/week. The course was around the $2000 mark. I was hoping to have approval from my company to take the course, but I'm still waiting. It starts today, so I'm hoping to be approved for it by the time they offer it again in June.

I posted awhile back, looking for opinions on the course vs. the Train signal DVD set. No response, it seems not many here have taken the training.

Hmm...

I've got Wireless gear up to a variety of kits (tools / bootable CDs, etc.) and I've got hardware up to Wireless LAN Controllers. 

I've got the infrastructure for Radius and PKI. 

And a small library of books and classes from other Wireless Courses over the past decade.

I was kind of curious.

I read in another forum where people seemed to be just recommending "the theory approach" by itself - JDMurray a moderator from techexams actually - who also posts here.

Over the years I've found that people make mistakes or are not as thorough as we'd all like.  Things that read one way often have some practical "considerations" etc.

All in all - I love theory and all.. but I'm of a mind that all this has to be tempered with experiance gleaned from trial and error ultimately resulting in a "what works" or best practices type of methodology.

Just me doing my due diligence and cursory scanning of the scenery before taking on another series of certification exams.

Hi Darby,

I saw the other forum topic you mentioned as well. I agree that it can be done with theory alone, but as a personal preference I like to have some practical experience to go along with the theory. It's not essential to pass the test, but I think most people appreciate the opportunity to gain "real" experience.

Reagrding the course I mentioned in the previous post, I know of one person who did take it last year. He highly recommended it. Right now, I'm just working my way through the Study guide and the Train Signal DVD set. Nice to have the DVD to reinforce what I've just read in the book and provide some different points of view. Any additional forms of training are always a positive.

It sounds like you may have enough of your own equipment to create some scenarios and get some hand on experience. Any experience is better than nothing.

I'm doing pretty good in the real world implementation.  I'm just not delving as deeply into RF and into the vernacular per se.

I've got 3 WLC's stood up and am working on a project to get 2 more purchased and deployed.

I've got the Anchor in the DMZ, and will have 3 WLCs in the rest of the network, with 1 more for redundancy and of course 1 WCS Server. 

I've got 3 ACS Servers with Radius.

I've got over or about 100+ APs throughout Florida and a lot more out of state that report to the WiSMs in a dedicated 6500 Chassis pair, they have their own anchor, and they also have a dedicated WCS Server.

My lab is very well stocked. 

Darby,

I too have a lab that's very well stocked with gear. However I am taking the Wireless Training Solutions CWSP course with them. For me the reasoning is simple, they are teaching me things directly related to passing the exams and have their labs setup for that purpose. I _could_ do the same thing here but it would take me quite a bit of time to setup, time that I can better use for other activities. Wireless Training Solutions has put quite a bit of time and effort into tailoring the courses to learning what's needed in a practical sense for the exams. To me that's worth the money.

BTW, did you have to post their entire syllabus in 3 posts? I could copy and paste a lot of website's content here to bump up my number of posts but I refuse to do that because I would rather post my own opinions relevant to questions asked.

Chris,

You mentioned that you're scheduled to take the CWSP course from Wireless Training Solutions - have you taken any other courses from them, possibly the CWNA? I'm wondering if the benefit beyond self study using the Official Study Guide and Train Signal DVD is worth the extra expense.

The main reason I am looking at the course is the lab access. I don't deal exclusively with wireless in my job, and when I do it's mainly SOHO networks. I'm just interested in the wireless technology, and always wished I was better educated in that area.

Any thoughts or opinions would be appreciated,

Cheers!

Jeff

Jeff,

No, this is the first course I have enrolled in with Wireless Training Solutions. My own experience with learning wireless is very practically based. I got controllers and AP's and the other tools I use in my job and basically practiced with them until I learned how to use them properly (with help from mentors of course). The reason I liked their approach to teaching is that it enabled me to be at home and follow the training, instead of having to travel to them to sit in a classroom all day. The lab portion was the main thing I was looking for as I am familar with most of the CWSP material from my job. I think it will enable me to learn in a structured way some the material I need for the CWSP. When I mentioned doing just the labs to my boss, he suggested I may as well just do the whole course.