Hi Frederik, I think you've got a good plan developing. Here are some of my thoughts.
A home lab is great to have if you can swing it. But the wireless lab can be an expensive one to replicate at home. A good chunk of the wireless blueprint can be done with a single WLC and a couple of APs. So even a small lab can be beneficial. If equipment isn't readily available to you, consider renting racks from Proctor Labs. We'll have the wireless racks available soon and for about the price of a single 2106, switch, and AP on ebay, you could purchase a 25 pack of 4 hour sessions. Don't worry about not having 6500s or a spectrum expert card. The differences on the 6500 are minimal compared to a 3560/3750. Also, I find it highly unlikely you'd ever need to live spectrum expert work in the lab. That would mean the'd have to have a live interferer running in a production environment. I would more become familiar with the screens and what the different readings would represent. You can download and install the spectrum expert software for free. It has some sample capture files that you can play back and see what common interferers look like in the software. You can also put 3500 series APs in the SE Connect mode and use those as a remote spectrum expert card. That would be worth knowing how to do. Know and love the workbooks. You should be able to do pretty much everything in them without having to look stuff up by the end. A bootcamp is really helpful. I know it was the difference maker for me along with many others on this forum who have passed. I'm guessing it saved me at least 1-2 extra attempts. I'd love to see you at one. Scheduling seems to be unique to everyone. It will depend on existing knowledge level and how many hours you put in. I took about 2 months of studying to pass the written. I had previously gotten my CCNP-W, which got me a good portion of the way there. I then took a year to pass the lab on my second attempt. I had a few things working for me. This was my second CCIE, so I already knew how to prepare for an IE exam. I did wireless networking on a day-to-day basis. I was also fortunate enough to have a really nice home lab and to have attended a bootcamp after my first attempt. One thing that slowed me down was periods of low or no study activity. So you might do it faster or slower. But I would suggest studying specifically for the written exam first and getting that out of the way before focusing on the lab. There have been no announcements about going to version 3 on the wireless lab. Here is my speculation about it. My guess is that the next version of the lab would want to include the new unified access/IOS controllers that were just released. I'm also guessing they'd wait until the AirOS code goes to 8.0. My last guess is that they'd wait until the IOS controllers have feature parity with the AirOS controllers. That would happen closer to the end of this year. Then they need to develop the lab and put out the announcement, which usually happens approximately 6 months before it goes live. So if I had to bet on it, I'd bet we are a good 16-18 months out. That would put the lifecycle of the v2 exam at about 2.5 years. That seems reasonable to me. So my guess is there is plenty of time for anyone to start today and pass the v2 exam. Worst case, they rev it sooner and you have to learn extra stuff. But most of what you would study for on the v2 exam would apply to future revs. Good luck with your studies. Myself and the OSL community are all here to help you along the way. Jeff Rensink - CCIE #24834 (Wireless, R&S) Senior Technical Instructor - IPexpert On Wed, Feb 27, 2013 at 3:28 AM, Fredrik Carlen <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi there! > > I just want to present myself and have some newbie question..;-) > > My name is Fredrik Carlén and work as a wireless engineer at a gold > partner here in Sweden. A bit depending on my employer I would like to > charge for IE. Now I hold CCNP-W and CWNA and is about to refresh and > retake my CCNP R/S this year. The IE would definately be a challenging goal > to aim at. > > So on to the questions if anyone have some time over to elaborate: > > Overall strategy > > - Read all the stuff, several times > - Read the rest on the web, like the blogs and notes frpm other IE-W's > - Build a decent lab. I think I can gather most of the stuff, maybe not a > 6500 and Spectrum Expert. Lab a lot… > - Buy and use the Workbooks from IPexpert > - Attend a Bootcamp, or two… > - Strengthen my weak parts, like v6, Multicast, EIGRP, Voice > - Go for the lab but have no expectations to make it, of course do my best > but see it more like a learning/preparation > > Timeframe > > - Any thoughts about scheduling and strategy here? Rescheduling labs etc. > > CCIE-W v3.0 > > - The 2.0 is about a year and a half soon, when do you expect a 3.0? Would > you guys wait if you were in my position? > > /Fredrik > > > _______________________________________________ > For more information regarding industry leading CCIE Lab training, please > visit www.ipexpert.com > > Are you a CCNP or CCIE and looking for a job? Check out > www.PlatinumPlacement.com >
_______________________________________________ For more information regarding industry leading CCIE Lab training, please visit www.ipexpert.com Are you a CCNP or CCIE and looking for a job? Check out www.PlatinumPlacement.com
