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I just completed my CCNA and now intend to focus more on the wireless certifications but I was wondering if I should finish my CCNA Wireless or move forward with the CWNA? Obviously moving forward in a neutral path is needed but my brain is already flooded with Cisco so should I just finish it off?

If you are (or work for) a Cisco shop, you should get your CCNA-Wireless. CWNA will only help you understand how Wi-Fi works even better, so you can fine tune that Cisco WLAN. If you are not a purely Cisco shop, we'd recommend CWNA as the icing on the CCNA cake.

!00% agree with Kevin

If you use Cisco the CCNA Wireless will cover the fundamentals of how cisco kit works and is configued.

The CWNA gives a fundamental understanding of wireless in much more detail than Cisco tests or endeavours to go into.

CCNA Wireless will give you a tick in the Cisco box if you need one but the CWNA will give you a far far better understaning of how wireless works.

If you have to do the CCNA Wireless there is a CCNA pre requisite which is beneficial for understanding networks.

Best otion is certainly get both if you work with Cisco kit.

Can someone out there tell me how much emphasis Cisco puts on configuring things correctly , like only using Channels 1, 6, and 11, using or performing site surveys, etc.

I have been in several Cisco shops in the last couple years where the LAN administrators are completely oblivious. They seem to think all wireless signals interfere with everything else, so they have no problem using every channel in site.

Right this minute, it's mostly those three, but every pair or triplet on the same cahnnel has the same signal level. Talk about co-channel interference !

Cisco places great emphasis on doing it correctly from site survey through implementation etc. From the TAC escalation route the first things they are looking for is good design practice as its no use troubleshooting a poorly designed WLAN from a controller point of view.

That said and I may be shot down in flames here many many Cisco partners do not have WLAN professionals deploying WLANs they rely on the standard network guy to do some config work. Equally the general level of site surveys I see even from non Cisco houses leave alot to be desired.

The issue lies at the route. People offer free surveys which are usually crap. They will do a warehouse and repport it in a day. I had some other SOHO vendors bring us some work (trust me not my choice) the survey was a kit list with a plan and pen marks where the aps needed to go. They stated it would support voice I doubted it would support data as it was far from a proper survey.

The issue is that many clients dont see the value of the upfront design work, generally I have no issues convincing people who have bought these solutions before as now they simply do not work but if its their first foray into wireless they simply do not understand the needs.

Its not the vendors its really from solution providers and distributors and obviously the snake oil salesmen.

That said there are some very competent people out there as well working for vendors solution providers and partners alike, just not enough.

I guess we just have to believe in what we do and eventually these guys will disappear when industry is educated enough which I feel is happening slowly.

I'm about to finish my CCNP, and I want to get both CCNA Wireless and CWNA. I'm definitely going for CWNA first. It goes deeper into the foundations of WiFi, so I believe CCNA Wireless will be a breeze after CWNA.

Edit: misspelled breeze.

Thanks for chiming in LuisTeixeira. We agree: CWNA will definitely help you prepare for CCNA-W.

Thanks all for the input. I had pretty much set my mind to do the CWNA first but wanted to make sure that was the best idea from people who had done both. I work in a vendor neutral environment so it's not critical to have Cisco.

Ash if you are vendor neutral I would definitely focus on the CWNA and then the CWSP both great certs for enhancing and validating your wireless knowledge

Thanks Pete. That gives me hope. It took the IT people here three years just to comprehend the 1, 6, 11 idea.

From my perspective, I would go for the CWNA first. You'll learn a lot more, and your foundation will be much better.

Then when you go for the Cisco Cert you'll understand why they do it that way.