CWNP Program

2006-07-31T15:17:00.000-07:00

CWNE

Today, we announced the official arrival of the CWNE certification. We've been planning this certification for some time, and we are very excited about the new challenges and changes that CWNE brings to the wireless networking world. CWNE is the capstone certification of the CWNP program.

CWNE brings a few changes to the CWNP Program, so we want to make sure all these changes are well communicated and well understood. To that end, below is a sort of FAQ session on CWNE. You can also view a short Webinar delivered by Kevin Sandlin, CEO & Co-Founder of the CWNP Program at www.cwnp.com/eday.html

What does "CWNE" mean?

CWNE means "Certified Wireless Networking Expert". The operative word here is "expert", and anyone who earns this certification will be worthy of that title, because that individual will possess a great deal of knowledge about 802.11 WLANs, and furthermore, be able to apply that knowledge to real world, in-the-field scenarios.

What topics are covered on the CWNE exam?

There are several high-level topics that are tested on the CWNE exam. They are as follows:

- 802.11 Physical Layer Technologies
- 802.11 MAC Frames and Exchange Processes
- 802.11 Spectrum Management
- 802.11 QoS Terms and Features
- WMM Certifications, Features, and Configuration
- Designing Voice/Data Networks
- 802.11 Wireless LAN Protocol Analyzer Use and Trace Interpretation

When we say that these topics are "covered" or "tested" on the exam, we mean that they are covered and tested in-depth. The official CWNE exam objectives are on the cwnp.com website at http://www.cwnp.com/exams/pw0300_objectives.html

What are these changes to the CWNP Program?

First, the CWAP certification will be retired at the end of 2006, specifically, 12/31/2006. Second, anyone who holds all three CWNP certifications - CWNA, CWSP, and CWAP - before the end of 2006 - will be eligible to apply for the CWNE certification. That means you can get your CWNE certification today.

What do you mean "eligible to apply for CWNE”?

If an individual has earned their CWNA, CWSP, and CWAP certifications, then that individual is eligible to apply for CWNE. The application is available in the CWNE section, and asks for specific enterprise WLAN experience and professional references.

Why is the CWAP certification being retired?

We launched the CWAP certification about 18 months ago due to the availability of many protocol analysis products in the market, both laptop-based and distributed. These products were and are great for troubleshooting security and performance problems, but at that time very few IT professionals knew everything there was to know about the 802.11 protocol with its many amendments. Today, with new amendments to 802.11 (like 802.11h and 802.11e) and interoperability certifications like WMM and WMM-PS, we’re expanding the topics currently covered on the CWAP exam objectives to include spectrum management, QoS, real-time applications, enhanced power save, and other topics. This expansion will become the CWNE certification because of the sheer expertise required to master these topics. Introduction of the CWNE certification will obsolete the CWAP certification. Again, the CWAP exam will be retired on December 31, 2006.

The CWAP certification will still be a valid certification from the CWNP Program until its regular expiration date, which is 3 years after one has passed the exam.

What are the specifics of the CWNE exam?

Current exam info can be found at www.cwnp.com/exams/pw0300.html

You get three hours to take this exam. If you take CWAP (PW0-205) today, you get two hours, and most candidates will tell you that the CWAP exam is one of the most challenging exams they have ever faced. CWNE will be the content in CWAP plus 802.11h, 802.11e, WMM, WMM-PS and other topics.

When will the CWNE study guide be available?

We have adopted the IEEE 802.11 Handbook as the official study guide for the CWNE certification. This book is in its second edition, and is a fantastic resource whether you plan on earning your CWNE certification or not. You can get the book here:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?link_code=ur2&tag=wirelesscentraln&camp=1789&creative=9325&location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2Fgp%2Fproduct%2F0738144495

The official CWNE practice test will be available on cwnp.com January 2, 2007, the same day that the exam will be available.

How do I get the CWNE certification today?

To earn the CWNE certification today, you must pass three exams: PW0-100 (CWNA), PW0-200 (CWSP), and PW0-205 (CWAP), and then complete the CWNE application. You only have until December 31 2006 to take the CWAP exam, so hurry! Exam PW0-205 will not be available after December 31, 2006.

How do I earn the CWNE certification after December 31, 2006?

To earn your CWNE after 2006, you'll still have to pass 3 exams: PW0-100 (CWNA), PW0-200 (CWSP), and PW0-300 (CWNE), and then complete the CWNE application. You must pass all three exams, though you can take them in any order.

What is the recertification policy for CWNE?

It depends on when you earn it. If you earn CWNE in 2006 by passing CWNA, CWSP, and CWAP, and having your application approved, then your CWNE certification is valid until 12/31/2008, which is 2 years from the end of this year. To maintain your CWNE certification, you'll need to pass the current version of the CWNE exam, PW0-300 on or before 12/31/2008. After passing PW0-300, your CWNE certification becomes valid for life.

If you earn your CWNE certification after January 1, 2007, then your CWNE certification is valid for life.

What about instructor led training for CWNE?

We're working on that as well, and we expect several third party vendors to produce both vendor-neutral and vendor-specific training that will cover the objectives for the CWNE exam. Information on CWNE training will be made available later this year.

We're sure there will be more very specific questions about CWNE and the changes that this new high level certification brings to the program. We want to hear and answer these questions, so we encourage you to post them on the new CWNE forum on cwnp.com: http://www.cwnp.com/phpBB2/viewforum.php?f=13

More information is available about CWNE on cwnp.com, specifically:

CWNE exam objectives
CWNE announcement webinar
CWNE Forum
CWNE certification description
CWNE Announcement press release

This is what we meant by "EDay": CWNE is here at last.

The CWNP Name

2006-07-27T08:32:00.000-07:00

How to use your certifications on your resume and business cards.

The CWNP name is used to indicate an individual has earned any of the CWNP certifications – Wireless#, CWNA, CWSP, CWAP, and CWNE.

The CWNP name is not used on your resume or business cards.

Put the highest level cert you have earned on your resume and business cards. For example, if you have earned CWSP, you would not use CWNA. CWSP requires CWNA, so it is implied. You would only use it like this: Joe Smith, CWSP

It is the same as someone asking you if you hold a Cisco certification. If you do, you'll say, 'Yes, I have CC__.'

If you are asked 'are you a CWNP' - yes you are a CWNP. You are CWNA or CWSP or CWAP or CWNE. Nobody has the CWNP certification, because CWNP itself is not a certification. But, much the same as someone who holds a Microsoft certification is an 'MCP', anyone who holds a CWNP Program certification is a 'CWNP'.

If you're trying to meet the qualifications for a job posting that requires 'CWNP' and you have earned one or more CWNP certifications, then you have met the qualification.

New CWSP Study Guide - Just in time!

2006-07-18T13:10:00.000-07:00

OK, well, not exactly, but the CWSP Official Study Guide 2nd Edition is finally here!

The 2nd edition is a thorough update to the original CWSP Study Guide, which was published back in the spring of 2003. A LOT has changed in 802.11 security since 2003, hasn't it? Can you say 802.11i? That amendment to the 802.11 standard was barely a gleam in some geek's eye in 2003, but now it's here, as is WPA, in all its various forms. WEP is gone, or should be, from most enterprise installations, and anything designated "Wi-Fi" has to support WPA.

The 2nd edition covers all the 2006 CWSP Exam Objectives (http://www.cwnp.com/exams/pw0200_objectives_2006.html), and has lots of review questions at the end of each chapter. The old appendices at the end of the book are gone, but there is a nice new Wi-Fi security glossary.

The authors of the CWSP Study Guide 2nd Edition are Tom Carpenter (http://www.sysedco.com), Rick Dreger, and Grant Moerschel (http://www.wavegard.com), all of whom have attended and/or taught the very latest CWSP WLAN Security class and hold several CWNP certifications. The tech editor is CCIE and CISSP, so he's quite qualified. We'd like to give a good old fashioned shout out to these guys for their hard work to get this book out as fast as they did. Well done.

Oh, and one more thing, the CWSP Official Study Guide is ONLY available at cwnp.com until October. Check it out here: http://www.cwnp.com/cart/products/CWSPSG.html

The ability to secure enterprise wireless LANs is in high demand, and enterprise Wi-Fi implementation continues to grow like mad. Get in now with the CWSP Study Guide.

Cheaters never prosper

2006-07-17T07:09:00.000-07:00

We know that maintaining the value of the CWNP credential is as important to you as it is to us. We have been taking steps to protect the investment you are making through CWNP certification.

When someone cheats on an IT certification exam, by whatever means they may choose to cheat, it lessens the credibility of the certification. How? When potential candidate passes the IT exam and cheated, and then gets a job based on the fact that he "earned" that certification, he can't actually DO the job. So, he gets fired, or otherwise redistributed in the organization, and the person who hired him based on his certifications (and other qualifications, we hope) vows never to hire anyone else who holds that certification.

Cheating takes many forms, from memorizing braindumps to bringing study aids into the testing center, and everything in between. At CWNP, if someone is determined to be cheating, that person immediately loses any current certifications and is permanently ineligible for any CWNP certification.

If you cheat, you know you cheated, and so do we. We don't reveal how we know, because then cheaters would try to find a way cheat the cheating detection system. The same detection mechanisms used by Cisco, Microsoft, and CompTIA are fully enforced at CWNP.

And, if by chance, you don't think you know you cheated, or at least aren't willing to admit it because you "worked so hard for so many hours" to memorize a braindump, here's our policy on cheating. If you did anything outlined here, then you cheated, and that's the end of it.

http://www.cwnp.com/exams/CWNPConfidentiaityAgreement.pdf

CWNP does not tolerate cheating on the exam. If you are cheating or using braindumps, you have not earned the CWNP certification and you will not receive one.

Keeping exams as security-enhanced as possible helps maintain the value of CWNP certification and ensures that only qualified information technology professionals are identified as CWNPs. You can help us protect your certification investment by discouraging fellow CWNPs who may be sharing exam questions or answers.

If some is good, more is better

2006-06-19T04:14:00.000-07:00

We just added 120 more items to our CWNA Official Practice Test on cwnp.com. For current licenseholders, these new items are automatically available. For new customers, now you get 240 items for thesame low price of $49.99.

These new items are derived from the most current CWNA exam objectives, and offer full explanations. Even so, you may have questions about questions. For just that purpose, we have the "Send Comments"button.

When you send your comments, the author of the question gets an email noting which question you sent the comments about, so he can respond directly to your particular question.

Whitepapers, forums, blog, and now podcasts...

2006-06-07T08:53:00.000-07:00

CWNP is trying as hard as we can to keep up with today's many information dissemination channels. In that effort, today, we've introduced the first in a series of podcasts covering Wi-Fi technologies.

You've ready our numerous forum posts, blog entries, white papers, but now you get to hear our voices. Scripted? No! Of course not. All this stuff is off the cuff, from the hip, off the top of our heads. We'll let you be the judge of that. You can hear the first CWNP Podcasts by going to the CWNP Learning Center, which, by the way, is also home to over 1000 other white papers, webinars, and other Wi-Fi focused publications.

We're Listening

2006-06-07T08:52:00.000-07:00

The CWNP forums are busy, and we watch them very closely, because we rely very heavily on the input of our customers to determine how we conduct our business.

One of the more recent topics on the CWNP forums was the idea that our Wireless# (again, that's Wireless "sharp", not pound, hash, number, or tic tac toe) certification should not have a recertification requirement. We modeled this certification as an entry-level certification for wireless technologies. As you may know, other popular entry-level technology certifications do not "expire" or otherwise require recertification.

So, we're changing the recertification requirements for Wireless# to...none!

Thanks for talking to us. We love to hear from our customers, and we love even more to listen and implement changes accordingly.

Errata

2006-05-09T13:24:00.000-07:00

Nobody's perfect. Neither is any book. Find an error in one of the CWNP study guides? First, make sure you're not the first one to find it:

http://www.cwnp.com/cart/products/errata.html

Then, if you ARE the first to find it, let us know! Send the book, page number, erroneous statement(s) or image(s) or chart(s) and your correction to feedback@cwnp.com

We will research your issue and fix it if necessary.

Practice Test Features

2006-05-09T13:22:00.000-07:00

We are constantly working to maximize the user experience on our Official Online Practice Tests. We've recently hammered out several new features that help all the self-studiers work on their WLAN knowledge.

* Once you have a CWNP practice test license, you can use it as many times as you like! Be careful not to memorize question with answer, but rather try to understand the concepts that are being tested by the question.

* Once you buy your license, your license NEVER expires! That's right, even after you pass the exam, 3 years later when you're ready to recert, you just login and start studying the NEW updated practice exam questions! That saves you money over the long run.

* One of the settings that you can choose is to see the explanation after every question. This is a huge study tool. Instead of just blazing through and scoring 75 and thinking you're ok, try studying the explanation after each question. For CWNA, that's 120 explanations...practically a whole book!

* Want to measure your progress? All your completed practice test scores and answers are stored for future review, so you can go back at any time and see what you chose the last time you saw that question, and relearn from that mistake.

* Here's a biggy. See in the first point above where I warned you about memorizing question with answer? BAD habit. To try and break that nasty habit of yours (and everyone else) the answers to each question always appear in random order. So if you do 2 run throughs of the same pool, you'll never see the answers in the same order. Forces you to read through the answers carefully to make sure you actually do read them, and choose the right one.

* Practice test pools are divided up into 60 items each, to more realistically simulate the actual exam. However, if you want to do a brainpain thorough review, select the option to see all the questions randomly. That's a couple hours of solid learning.

* CWNP Practice test are compatible with the most popular browsers - IE 5.0 and higher, Netscape 7.1 and higher, Firefox, and Opera. Using a Mac? Sorry, but the questions have not been tested for quality on MACs. We love Apple, but we don't use Macs.

For those of you who just have to ask...NO, the practice test questions are not the same questions you'll see on the real exam.

Wireless LAN Analysis

2006-05-01T13:48:00.000-07:00

What's in a name? Everything. CWNP has 3 instructor-led training (aka ILT) courses: WLAN Administration, WLAN Security, and WLAN Analysis.

"Analysis", under any circumstances, doesn’t sound interesting or worthwhile. When you are considering your path through the CWNP certification program towards the inevitable but not yet present CWNE, you may take a look at CWAP - Wireless LAN Analysis, and look right back to security. Security is hot. Security is it! You gotta know security. But that's only half the picture.

In order to know security better, and to know what's going on underneath the hood, so to speak, of your enterprise WLAN, you have to know "analysis". But, for now, let's change that unsexy word to "troubleshooting". Don't you want to be the "go to guy" when the WLAN is not performing adequately (or not at all)?

I don't mean the guy they yell at. In my former life at a small software company, where we had a customer/orders database that was really, really big and complicated. The DBA for this monster's name was Tony, and he wanted to "name" the monster. I suggested "FIAT": Fix It Again Tony. You don't want to be that guy.

So, I'm not talking about the guy who gets yelled at because the network is hosed. You want to be the guy (or gal!) who gets called to see what's wrong with the network and fix it. To be that person, you have to know troubleshooting. You have to know optimization. You have to know what's going on in that WLAN Packet Analyzer...in the frame...in the 802.1x handshake...in the encryption. Being that person is good, and valuable.

That's what's great about "analysis".

Free Wireless# Practice Test

2006-05-01T13:47:00.000-07:00

Free? No really, free.

Yes, to build awareness of the new Wireless# (that's "SHARP", not pound, hash, number, or even tic-tac-toe) certification, we've been giving away a fee license to a pool of official practice test questions for exam PW0-050. The reaction to the offer has been extremely positive. You never know what people are going to think when you give something away for free. It never ceases to amaze me how people question it if it's free, but will blindly pay for it if you charge.

http://www.cwnp.com/mlist/

We do ask you to join our mailing list, but you can unsubscribe anytime.

Oh, and this license never expires.

Tracking

2006-04-21T04:22:00.000-07:00

CWNP tracking: Tracking your CWNP certification progress.

It's important that you prepare properly and pass the exams, but it's almost equally as important that you login to the CWNP Tracking System and make sure your personal information is accurate and up to date.

https://www.cwnp.com/tracking/login.php

We recently reminded everyone that CWNP recertification is about to take effect, three years after the initiation of our recert policy. Lots and lots of people's email and snailmail addresses were not up to date. Don't worry, we're into tracking too, and we found them all.

Please login using your CWNP ID number and your password and update your personal information! If the email you had before was a company email, and you left that company 14 months ago and don't have access to that email, contact us to reset your password. You are not alone. Just let us know. Send us a quick email - with your current, non-company email, and give us your CWNP ID number (hint: it's on your certificate) and ask us to reset your email and password. We'll do it, no problem.

Questions of the day

2006-04-21T04:21:00.000-07:00

OK, so maybe of the week...or month...sometimes. Devin Akin, our CTO and wireless LAN expert, has been posting his "Question of the week" on the CWNP Forums for about 2 months now, to tremendous response, mostly of brain-pain.

Devin pushes himself to learn and know more than anyone out there, and his questions prove that out. How much do you know? Check out the forums and read up on the questions.

CWNP ID Cards

2006-04-18T04:01:00.000-07:00

They're here. Now, when you earn any CWNP certification, you CAN REQUEST a "Certification Kit", which has a nice letter from me, your beautiful certificate (suitable for framing!) and a wallet sized personalized colorized beautified signified ID card.

Notice I said you can "request" this kit. CWNP no longer mails certificates to "the address provided to us by the testing center". Most of the time this address is not accurate. Now you'll login to the CWNP Tracking System, verify your info - including your address - and request your certification kit.

Everyone will actually receive their certificates now.

New CWNA WLAN Administration Course

2006-04-18T03:59:00.000-07:00

We've just fully introduced the new wireless LAN administration course to our Learning Partner network. This is version 3.0 of this course, and it is a complete overhaul from the previous version, which was nearing 3 years old. CWNAILTv3 makes for a full 5-day, 40 hour class, with about 8 hours of customizable labs.

The lecture portion, driven by the usual PowerPoint presentation, is anything but "usual". The lecture features more than 200 flash animations of complex wireless LAN concepts, helping the student to SEE what's going on over the wired and wireless portions of the network. If a picture tells a thousand words, then an animation tells a million.

This new courseware covers all the CWNAv3 exam objectives plus about 40% on top of that for good measure. It's about way more than the exam. From AAA to PoE, students of the new CWNA WLAN Admin class are going to get a thorough education in the foundations of running an enterprise wireless LAN.

We've had 3 train-the-trainer (TTT) classes so far, and the reactions are consistently "wow!" from our instructors.

White Papers Galore!

2006-04-17T03:35:00.000-07:00

A while back, we created our own home grown version of a searchable database of wireless white papers. It plays host to a whole lot of white papers from a whole lot of industries. We call it the CWNP Learning Center, LC for short.

LC has grown from literally nothing, to indexing well over 1000 white papers, all of them focusing strictly on WLAN and related technologies.

Lots of folks new to wireless ask us, "where do I start?" LC is a great place to find some short and some long white papers that will give you the inside skinny on what's happening in the WLAN space.

CWNT - Our version of Quality of Service

2006-04-17T03:32:00.000-07:00

Shortly after we introduced the CWNA certification came the CWNT certification. CWNT stands for Certified Wireless Network Trainer.

We've set the bar pretty high for CWNTs. To be a CWNT, you have to (1) attend the latest official class, (2) score above 80% on the latest exam, (3) hold another IT industry teaching cert like MCT, CCSI, CNI, etc., and (4) have at least 1 year of documented IT training experience.

"Latest" above appears twice. Why? Good question. Just like software, certifications are always being upgraded and updated, especially in the wireless space, because the technologies are changing so fast. Every time we update an official class, CWNTs have to attend a Train-the-
Trainer (TTT) class to re-up their knowledge of what's in the class and how to best deliver the materials to their students.

Every time we upgrade an exam - like we just did with CWSP (PW0-200) - each CWNT must take the new exam, and again score 80% or higher within a certain time period to maintain his/her CWNT status.

And all that's just to qualify. Why is it so tough? CWNP instructors are one of two means of quality control that we have for the delivery of CWNP classes. The other means is the quality of the material delivered.

CWNTs participate heavily in the creation and maintenance of all CWNP materials, especially the courseware, since that is their primary focus of involvement in CWNP. As you can imagine, our instructors are nitpicky, and we like it that way. They regularly beat us up over small points that are important to them and to their students in a classroom environment.

Teachers are held to a higher standard, and we have no issue with that at all.

Wireless# Study Guide

2006-04-14T08:48:00.000-07:00

No, the McGraw-Hill Official Wireless# Study Guide is not yet available. Soon, I promise. But, there is a great, very inexpensive, downloadable study guide available at PrepLogic.com.

This 110 page PDF was written by a couple of CWNP Triple Crowners (they have all CWNP certifications) who really know their stuff. They put it all down on paper, and it does cover all the Wireless# exam objectives very well.

While it's not "official", we certainly recommend this study guide for those of you wanting to break into the wireless world. Challenge yourself, and learn what's going on out there in Wi-Fi, WiMAX, Zigbee, Voice over WiFi, Bluetooth, and RFID.

"Entry Level"

2006-04-14T08:46:00.000-07:00

Entry Level is a loaded phrase! Many folks refer to CWNA as entry-level. It's just not so, sorry to say. We've developed and positioned CWNA to be on the same level as Cisco's CCNA and Microsoft's MCSA - administrator level.

Anyone who has achieved, say, CompTIA's Network+ and A+, and then heads for CWNA thinking it's entry level is in for a big surprise. CWNA is tough. It covers a very wide spectrum of topics, all of which are part of the foundations of WLAN technologies.

Wireless#, our newest certification, IS entry level, and is meant to be so. Wireless# is about introducing the candidate to the various popular wireless technologies that are currently in the home and also the enterprise. It's about what those technologies are and what they do, rather than how they work and how to install, secure, and troubleshoot them.

Wireless# requires no previous knowledge or experience. CWNA requires a solid background in IP networking. You should get IP networking knowledge through something like Cisco's CCNA or the equivalent experience.

Salaries in Wireless

2006-04-13T10:13:00.000-07:00

Big subject...why else do people seek IT training and certification? Why else: to get a better job either where they are or someplace else. Yes, there are other reasons, but they boil down to making oneself more valuable.

The last two years, CWNA and CWSP have ranked pretty well in the annual CertMag.com Salary Survey:

http://www.certmag.com/images/CM1205_Figure1.htm

Hint: lower right hand side, "Planet3 CWNA".

Here's the inside skinny, and many people get the wrong idea from salary surveys like this, even though they are very telling. The thing is that you don't just go get your CWNA and then stand up and demand your $69k annual salary. No, far from it.

What this survey means is that, of the people surveyed, those who hold the CWNA certification are making an average of $69,600 per year. What we don't know at all is what other certifications those folks hold, how long they've been jiggling the cables, where they work, and how valuable they are to their organization.

Still, salaries for people with CWNP certifications and those working in wireless are well above average.

Around the World

2006-04-13T10:11:00.000-07:00

CWNP reaches people globally. That's pretty cool. From our inauspicious press conference at 930am on September 11, 2001 (no, it never actually took place, but it was scheduled!) to certified IT professionals in 86 nations! We're not Google, but CWNP has helped make better wireless IT professionals in 86 different countries.

Google Maps needs to work with Microsoft Excel so I can see the footprint.

History of CWNP

2006-04-13T10:10:00.000-07:00

There's a lot more to tell, but here's the short version.

Devin Akin and I were working together at a small division of First Data Corp, Devin improving the network and me working on westernunion.com. Our faith was the first thing we had in common, and we quickly realized that we both wanted to own our own business someday.

Devin has an idea. I didn't say it was a good idea. It was an idea, and that was enough. We formed "Devcomm" (gee, where'd that name come from?) in May of 1999 as a wireless LAN reseller and integrator. We created WirelessCentral.Net and Scott Turner joined the gang. In 2000, we saw a big ole hole in the IT certification space: wireless. Sold WirelessCentral.Net for practically nothing, but enough to fund the development and "launch" of the CWNA exam.

Launch. HA! We had a press conference scheduled at Networld+Interop for 930AM on a Tuesday...in September...in 2001. Yes, you guessed it: 9/11/2001. Not a good day, and our world was rocked before 930am on that hideous day.

So we literally started at ground zero. No borrowed cash, no venture capital. Just an idea, but now it’s an actual IT certification exam. That worked. We received some great feedback. In the Spring of 2002, we published our first CWNA Study Guide under the "Dairy Queen Napster" model. After that came the course guide, then the official practice test. CWNP quickly became a real business!

Later that year we started work on CWSP, Wireless LAN Security. WLAN Security was hot, and still is. Is wireless secure? No, but the properly trained IT professional can make it secure. In 2004, we introduced Wireless LAN Analysis, and in 2005, Wireless#.

Stay tuned for what’s next. We quickly adapt the CWNP Program based on the changes in the networking landscape.