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I can't say that.  I've seen and received a lot of employment opportunities by virtue of mentioning Sniffer University courses completed and actually attaining the Sniffer Certified Master certification.

I can say that even in a company like my current company where we have a nice bit of Sniffer hardware and software, it is not used to its capacity.  However, I was only hired on the basis of my CCNP.

It is also hard if not impossible to request more specific sniffer traces from other teams when needed.

So overall, I can see where you are coming from.

Here is a good site with a focus on wireless sniffing, and a great name aswell

http://www.sniffwifi.com

The value of any certification would depend on the goals of the indiviual. As Chris mentioned, there must be some sort of market value to it for it to be developed. A side benefit of preparing for any certification is the learning of the subject matter, or at least the theory aspect if there isn't much of an associated practical element. The main reason I'm working on the CWNP path now is that I've always wanted to become better educated in the area of WLAN technology, and I enjoy it. I don't have any specific career requirements or goals that directly relate to CWNP, but I'm sure it will be a good thing to have at some point.

I know what you mean. My job is mostly route/switch/firewalls/vpns/nms - usually. Lately I've gotten a decent chunk of Wireless - but not even close to being vendor neutral. All Cisco really. So one might think that the CCNA or CCNP Wireless would be the more direct path.

I argue this in favor of nailing down the technology first and use the Cisco certs for mastery over the practical implementations.

I'm learning a lot so far and so I'm not complaining.

Sniffers are always par for the course. Usually the last par or almost the last par - in my reality.

I bought the Wireshark Cert book and have been working through it. I don't know about actually taking the test, I haven't actually seen how much I would have to spend, but the information in the book is great. I use Wireshark regularly, and it is nice to find all the features and tools in one location. My only complaint about the book is that even with a 35% coupon I had, it was still $65.00 for the book. I don't see them selling a whole lot of the books at retail, even the CCIE study book is less by $10, and you can get that with a nice discount at various locations.

Does anyone use the live CD's Backtrack? I used them allot when I worked on a military base seeing what I could see on the wired/wireless network. (Relax, I work as a network engineer, I was supposed to find the holes and fix them)

I am sure I never used them to the fullest extent I could but I would love to learn more about them if anyone one of you is a pro.

I have been using Wireshark for a long time, as well as a host of other analyzers/sniffers. One of the best ?starter? books I have read on TCP/IP was written by Ed Tittel and Laura Chappell. Ed is a great writer.

Most analyzers perform the same core functions, but as a beginner it was an awful experience ?fumbling my way around? the menus etc. I was pretty well familiar with the operation of the various protocols that I was wanting to look at, but reading the help and going through the menus took a fair amount of time. Having a nice step by step ?handbook? is a great thing.

As soon as I can afford it, I?m going to buy Laura?s book, as I am certain it will be a great ?desktop reference?.

Dave