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On your findings, all of your suggestions are correct, and will be added to the errata except the IV thing. You are right that this might cause some confusion due to the popularity of "24 bits" being known as the IV length used in WEP and "48 bits" being known as the IV length used in WPA. Hopefully our illustrations of the IV having two parts (3 bytes & 1 byte) will do the trick of informing the analyst of this situation. I don't feel that we need to change this. I think the fact that you caught this in your reading means that most people will follow suit and also catch this. The other issues will be corrected asap.

thanks!

Devinator

The best way for you to assess how we test you on the CWAP exam is to take the practice exam. Our practice exams are typically 20% easier than the real exams, but you can bet that the question types and subject areas are the same. We covered some of the typical "how to" scenarios in the Case Studies in the back of the book.

As far as the hands-on lab goes, your proctor will be grading your exam, not a machine. That's certainly going to have its challenges on our end, and I'm sure that some people will go home very unhappy (as I did when I failed the CCIE R/S Lab exam). The goal is to make sure the person that can claim "expert" status actually is an expert. :-) Wouldn't you agree?

I know I was a one time ccie failure also. I tried it after 12 years of cisco work for the heck of it and I haven't had the time/chance to go back for a second attpmet. Plus after all the years of cisco work from 1992 one does get sick and tired of reading about idsn, or routing protocols again etc.
I went into the wirless stuff after 18 years of the wired stuff hence my time spent on this work. To me the wireless is like being reborn again in technology. I mean I was getting board with the general networking/cisco and protocol analysis world and this was new for me. I was looking at wireless back in 96 but figured when it matures I can really did into it.. That's why this is fun. Eventually though I have to make some money from this;)

Regards..

studying for exams from a study guide can be a pain especially when the exam is very detailed like this one. I may be splitting hairs here but this is what I am talking about.

on page 53 of the cwap study guide you break down the frame types as data frames that do carry data and data frames that don't carry data.

Then cross checking in the cisco press book on page 76 that book just lists 802.11 data frames as
"The 802.11 specification stipulates eight uinque data frams:" and goes on to list all the frame types that you list in the cwap guide as data and non carrying data as just data frames.

This can be confusing in the nomencleture aspect of an exam. The key here is that they are all 802.11 DATA frames, but some carry data and others don't.

You read one book you get one idea you read another you consider the cf-act cf-poll, etc frames as non "data" frames and may miss the term "DATA" in the meaning.

I hope you don't split hairs like this on the exam.

We don't split hairs like this on the exam, though it is useful to know which types of frames are used for carrying data. :-) The practice exam should give you an idea of how detailed we focus on things like this.

I'm much like you - getting tired of the same old stuff in the Microsoft/Novell/Cisco world. Wireless was my rebirth in technology as well. So long ISDN.... ;-)

Devinator

I'm much like you - getting tired of the same old stuff in the Microsoft/Novell/Cisco world. Wireless was my rebirth in technology as well.

Devinator:

Can you elaborate more on why you see wireless as a rebirth in the IT world? I think your insight is one that will be respected by many on this forum . You and your staff at Planet3 started this revolution in certification in wireless.

I was going to go the Cisco route but find this to be much more diverse (vendor neutrality is the key) than Cisco. Nothing against them, just that this seems more focused yet able to pull in all aspects of LAN/WAN/MANS/SANs & the rest of the alphabet soup of IT.

Really like to get your outlook on the future as it relates to this program and what you see coming ahead for those aspiring to be CWNP certified.


Thanks much
compughter

I'm no soothsayer, and any predictions I make in a public forum will be cautiously worded so that people don't come back later and say, "Look, that Devinator was just WRONG!" I'm wrong all the time about lots of things, but you still have to be careful what you "predict."

My personal thoughts, not to be confused in any way with The CWNP Program's official stance on such matters, are:

1. Wireless certification will someday (soon) become just as important as any other technology-based certification. Security, Routing/Switching, Wireless, Operating Systems, and others are all examples of such areas of expertise that necessitate certification due to the lack of formal degrees on such topics. We all know that the certification world and the formal education world are often at odds, but in the IT arena, certifications rule the roost. It's nice to have a bachelors or masters degree, but if you have your CCIE, you'll get the job for sure.

2. Wireless has taken off much faster than its counterparts, both with the technology and with the certifications that go along with it. It took ISC(2) 10 years to do with The CWNP Program has done in three. That's no knock on them, because their certifications are high quality, they're the industry standard for their field of study, and those guys know what they're doing....my point is that wireless has grown so fast as a technology that everything associated to it has been swept up in the trend. Finally other vendor-neutral offerings like ISC(2)'s CISSP have started to pick up the same momentum because security has suddenly become such a hot topic.

3. The CWNP Program has been endorsed by most every major WLAN vendor (hardware and software) in the market, and is also considered the industry standard for wireless training and certification. We're seeing CBT vendors like LearnKey, practice test providers like Boson, and others producing products focused on helping individuals pass the CWNA and CWSP exams. This bodes well for the program. We have individuals certified in over 60 countries now, and training providers offering classes around the world. To us, this is phenominally fast growth.

4. WLANs are so popular and flexible that we feel like they're here to stay for a VERY long time, if not indefinitely. This is good for those individuals that invest the time and effort to get certified. The CWNP line of certifications are some of the highest paying certifications on the market. A recent salary survey by CertMag shows that with the CWNA alone (1 exam), the average salary is in excess of $70k/yr). There are many areas of study within WLANs as well - administration/management, security, analysis/troubleshooting, etc. This means that an engineer could work in the WLAN technology arena for a long time, able to change fields of study throughout his/her career in order to grow.

5. WLAN technology is fun. It's a total blast in fact. This fact alone pushes people toward working in this career field. Wireless LANs solve so many networking problems that it's easy to see how a person could easily transition out of ordinary networking and into WLAN networking fairly quickly even at the same employer. We hear this quite often when speaking to people who are taking training classes.

I'm open to any comments/arguments. I sure don't know everything, and I can't tell the future....but all of us here at The CWNP Program are hoping that the WLAN industry explodes over the next 3-5 years.

Devinator

My only reply is that if you focus soley on wireless you will have a hard time. This is in response to the previous poster about cisco.

If you are new then make sure you have the basiscs(read cisco and os) type knowledge, skills, certs and experience befoe delving into wireless. Make sure you know the wired world, protocols in and out like IP and TCP etc then do your wireless. I recall that one of the planet three cwna paragraphs mention that gettning the cwna compliments your previous experience.

What good would you be just haveing cwnp certs if you cannot figure out IP subnetting, don't understand how icmp, traceroute and the like work. How tcp works. How ethernet in all flavors works and other protocols like eigrp, ospf and spanning tree.
And don't get me started on all the security stuff.

Knowing this and then adding the cwnp stuff will make you the well rounded IT professional for the future.

Just having wirelss skills and being very weak on the integration aspect of the other areas in IT will typecast you into niche or var employment opportunities. Unless that is what you only want to do is just install access points and do site surveys. Wireless is becoming more and more pervasive and you have to know it but know its relationships and ramafications to other technologies around you.

Thanks for the "outlook". I am much appreciative to all the responses (Devinator and /JS). Your professional knowledge helps pave me a road map to success in the wired and wireless networking world.


V/r
compughter

Here are a couple more from the book. This is my second read remember.

On page 217 under the Carrier Sense/Clear Channel Assessment (CS/CCA) section you have “to detect the start of a network signal that can be received (CS) and to determine whether the channel is clear prior to transmitting a packet (CCA)”

So this statement seems to break down the state functions flipping as (CS) for receive and (CCA) for transmit.

However, on page 220 under the Receive Function section you start off the paragraph as “If the clear channel assessment discovers” should that be, under the Receive Function heading “If the carrier sense assessment discovers”? Or are you using “clear channel assessment discovers” as a generic term for both states?

Also, on page 222 figure 8.4 you have the figure labeled LONG Preamble yet the figure is showing a short preamble and the figure is exactly the same as it is on page 223 figure 8.5 title short preamble.

Shouldn’t the figure 8.4 on page 222 show the long preamble using the CCK modulation and rates???