Product Description

CCNA Wireless Official Exam Certification Guide

 

• Master IUWNE 640-721 exam topics with the official study guide
• Assess your knowledge with chapter-opening quizzes
• Review key concepts with Exam Preparation Tasks
• Practice with realistic exam questions on the CD-ROM

 

CCNA Wireless Official Exam Certification Guide is a best of breed Cisco® exam study guide that focuses specifically on the objectives for the CCNA® Wireless IUWNE exam. Senior instructor Brandon Carroll shares preparation hints and test-taking tips, helping you identify areas of weakness and improve both your conceptual knowledge and hands-on skills. Material is presented in a concise manner, focusing on increasing your understanding and retention of exam topics.

 

CCNA Wireless Official Exam Certification Guide presents you with an organized test preparation routine through the use of proven series elements and techniques. “Do I Know This Already?” quizzes open each chapter and allow you to decide how much time you need to spend on each section. Exam topic lists make referencing easy. Chapter-ending Exam Preparation Tasks sections help you drill on key concepts you must know thoroughly.

 

The companion CD-ROM contains a powerful testing engine that allows you to focus on individual topic areas or take complete, timed exams. The assessment engine also tracks your performance and provides feedback on a module-by-module basis, presenting question-by-question remediation to the text and laying out a complete study plan for review.

 

Well-regarded for its level of detail, assessment features, and challenging review questions and exercises, this official study guide helps you master the concepts and techniques that will enable you to succeed on the exam the first time.

 

CCNA Wireless Official Exam Certification Guide is part of a recommended learning path from Cisco that includes simulation and hands-on training from authorized Cisco Learning Partners and self-study products from Cisco Press. To find out more about instructor-led training, e-learning, and hands-on instruction offered by authorized Cisco Learning Partners worldwide, please visit www.cisco.com/go/authorizedtraining.

 

Brandon James Carroll is one of the country’s leading instructors for Cisco security technologies, teaching classes that include the CCNA, CCNP®, CCSP® courses, a number of the CCVP® courses, as well as custom-developed courseware. In his eight years with Ascolta, Brandon has developed and taught many private Cisco courses for companies such as Boeing, Intel, and Cisco. He is a CCNA, CCNP, CCSP, and a certified Cisco instructor. Brandon is the author of Cisco Access Control Security.

 

The official study guide helps you master all the topics on the IUWNE exam, including:

• WLAN RF principles

• WLAN technologies and topologies

• Antennae concepts

• 802.11 protocols

• Wireless media access

• Wired to wireless network packet delivery

• Cisco Unified Wireless Networks basic architecture

• Controller discovery, association, and configuration

• Adding mobility with roaming

• Migrating standalone AP to LWAPP

• Mobility Express architecture

• Wireless clients

• Installing and configuring the WCS

• Securing, maintaining, and troubleshooting wireless networks

 

Companion CD-ROM

The CD-ROM contains an electronic copy of the book and more than 150 practice questions for the IUWNE exam.

 

This volume is part of the Exam Certification Guide Series from Cisco Press®. Books in this series provide officially developed exam preparation materials that offer assessment, review, and practice to help Cisco Career Certification candidates identify weaknesses, concentrate their study efforts, and enhance their confidence as exam day nears.

 

Category: Cisco Press–Cisco Certification

Covers: IUWNE exam 640-721

 

$49.99 USA / $54.99 CAN

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #48958 in Books
• Published on: 2008-11-02
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 504 pages

About the Author

Brandon James Carroll, CCNA, CCNP, CCSP, is one of the leading instructors for Cisco security technologies in the country, teaching classes that include the CCNA, CCNP, and CCSP courses, numerous CCVP courses, and custom developed courseware.

In his eight years with Ascolta, Brandon has developed and taught many private Cisco courses for companies such as Boeing, Intel, and Cisco. He is a certified Cisco instructor and the author of Cisco Access Control Security, in addition to several Quick Reference Sheets. Prior to becoming a technical instructor for Ascolta, Brandon was a technician and an ADSL specialist for GTE Network Services and Verizon Communications. His duties involved ISP router support and network design. As a lead engineer, he tested and maintained Frame Relay connections between Lucent B-STDX and Cisco routers. His team was in charge of troubleshooting ISP Frame Relay to ATM cut-overs for ADSL customers. Brandon trained new employees at Verizon to the EPG in ADSL testing and troubleshooting procedures and managed a Tekwizard database for technical information and troubleshooting

techniques. He majored in information technology at St. Leo University.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

CCNA Wireless Official Exam Certification Guide

Introduction

Welcome to the world of Cisco Certified Network Associate (CCNA) Wireless! As technology continues to evolve, wireless technologies are finding their way to the forefront. This clearly indicates the progression from a fixed wired type of connectivity to a more fluid, mobile workforce that can work when, where, and how they want. Regardless of your background, one of the primary goals of the new CCNA Wireless certification is to introduce you to the Cisco Unified Wireless Network (CUWN).

In June 2008, Cisco announced new CCNA specialties, including CCNA Security, CCNA Wireless, and CCNA Voice. These certifications, released 10 years after the initial CCNA, represent the growth of Cisco into new and emerging industries. Certification candidates can now specialize into specific areas of study. Figure I-1 shows the basic organization of the certifications and exams used to achieve your CCNA Wireless certification.

Figure I-1 Cisco Certifications and CCNA Wireless Certification Path

As you can see from the figure, a traditional CCNA certification is a prerequisite before you venture into the CCNA Wireless certification.

Goals and Methods

The most important and somewhat obvious goal of this book is to help you pass the Implementing Cisco Unified Wireless Networking Essentials (IUWNE) exam (640-721). In fact, if the primary objective of this book were different, the book title would be misleading; however, the methods used in this book to help you pass the IUWNE exam are designed to also make you much more knowledgeable about how to do your job.

This book uses several key methodologies to help you discover the exam topics that you need to review in more depth so that you can fully understand and remember those details and prove to yourself that you have retained your knowledge of those topics. This book does not try to help you pass by memorization but helps you truly learn and understand the topics. The CCNA Wireless exam is the foundation for Cisco professional certifications to come, and it would be a disservice to you if this book did not help you truly learn the material. Therefore, this book will help you pass the CCNA Wireless exam by using the following methods:

• Helping you discover which test topics you have not mastered

• Providing explanations and information to fill in your knowledge gaps

• Supplying exercises and scenarios that enhance your ability to recall and deduce the answers to test questions

• Providing practice exercises on the topics and the testing process via test questions on the CD

In addition, this book uses quite a different style from typical certification-preparation books. The newer Cisco certification exams have adopted a style of testing that essentially says, "If you do not know how to do it, you will not pass this exam." This means that most of the questions on the certification exam require you to deduce the answer through reasoning or configuration rather than just memorization of facts, figures, or syntax from a book. To accommodate this newer testing style, I have written this book as a "real-world" explanation of Cisco wireless topics. Whenever possible, key concepts are explained using real-world examples rather than showing tables full of syntax options and explanations, which are freely available at Cisco.com. As you read through this book, you will definitely get a feeling of, "This is how I can do this" rather than, "There is the general syntax I need to memorize," which is exactly what you need for the newer Cisco exams.

Who Should Read This Book?

This book is designed to provide a twofold purpose. The primary purpose is to tremendously increase your chances of passing the CCNA Wireless certification exam. The secondary purpose is to provide the information necessary to deploy a CUWN and a Cisco Mobility Express (CME) network as part of the Smart Business Communications System (SBCS). The new Cisco exam approach provides an avenue to write the book with both a real-world and certification-study approach at the same time. As you read through this book and study the configuration examples and exam tips, you will truly understand how you can deploy a wireless network, while at the same time feel equipped to pass the CCNA Wireless certification exam.

Strategies for Exam Preparation

Strategies for exam preparation will vary depending on your existing skills, knowledge, and equipment available. Of course, the ideal exam preparation would consist of building a small wireless lab with a 2106 wireless LAN controller and an 1131AP, as well as a Cisco Mobility Express (CME) 526 controller and 521 AP. You would also need a switch and a few wireless clients so that you could work through configurations as you read through this book. However, not everyone has access to this equipment, so the next best step you can take is to read through the chapters in this book, jotting notes down with key concepts or configurations on a separate notepad. Each chapter begins with a "Do I Know This Already?" quiz designed to give you a good idea of the chapter content. In some cases, you might already know most of or all the information covered in a given chapter.

After you have read this book, look at the current exam objectives for the CCNA Wireless exam listed on the Cisco website (http://www.cisco.com/certification). If you see areas shown in the certification exam outline that you would still like to study, find those sections in the book and review them. When you feel confident in your skills, attempt the practice exam included on the book CD. As you work through the practice exam, note the areas where you lack confidence, and review those concepts or configurations in the book. After you have reviewed the areas, work through the practice exam a second time and rate your skills. Keep in mind that the more you work through the practice exam, the more familiar the questions will become and the less accurate the practice exam will measure your skills. After you have worked through the practice exam a second time and feel confident with your skills, schedule the real IUWNE (640-721) exam through VUE (http://www.vue.com). You should typically take the exam within a week from when you consider yourself ready to take it so the information is fresh in your mind.

Cisco exams are difficult. Even if you have a solid grasp of the information, many other factors play into the testing environment (stress, time constraints, and so on). If you pass the exam on the first attempt, fantastic! If not, know that this is happens to many people. The next time you attempt the exam, you have a major advantage: You have experienced the exam firsthand. Although future exams might have different questions, the topics and general "feel" of the exam will remain the same. Take some time to study areas from the book where you felt weak on the exam. You must wait a certain period between attempts, so use that time to make yourself more prepared in the areas in which you scored low.

640-721 IUWNE Exam Topics

Table I-1 lists the exam topics for the 640-721 IUWNE exam. This table also lists the book parts where each exam topic is covered.

Table I-1 Exam Topics for 640-721 IUWNE Exam

Book Part(s) Where Topic Is Covered	Exam Topic
Describe WLAN fundamentals
Part I	Describe basics of spread spectrum technology (modulation, DSS, OFDM, MIMO, Channels reuse and overlap, Rate-shifting, CSMA/CA)
Part I	Describe the impact of various wireless technologies (Bluetooth, WiMAX, ZigBee, cordless phone)
Part I	Describe wireless regulatory bodies, standards and certifications (FCC, ETSI, 802.11a/b/g/n, WiFi Alliance)
Part I	Describe WLAN RF principles (antenna types, RF gain/loss, EIRP, refraction, reflection, ETC)
Part I	Describe networking technologies used in wireless (SSID —> WLAN_ID —> Interface — >VLAN, 802.1Q trunking)
Part I	Describe wireless topologies (IBSS, BSS, ESS, Point-to-Point, Point-to-Multipoint, basic Mesh, bridging)
Part III	Describe 802.11 authentication and encryption methods (Open, Shared, 802.1X, EAP, TKIP, AES)
Part I	Describe frame types (associated/unassociated, management, control, data)
Install a basic Cisco wireless LAN
Part II	Describe the basics of the Cisco Unified Wireless Network architecture (Split MAC, LWAPP, stand-alone AP versus controller-based AP, specific hardware examples)
Part II	Describe the Cisco Mobility Express Wireless architecture (Smart Business Communication System — SBCS, Cisco Config Agent — CCA, 526WLC, 521AP - stand-alone and controller-based)
Part II	Describe the modes of controller-based AP deployment (local, monitor, HREAP, sniffer, rogue detector, bridge)
Part II	Describe controller-based AP discovery and association (OTAP, DHCP, DNS, Master-Controller, Primary-Secondary-Tertiary, n+1 redundancy)
Part II	Describe roaming (Layer 2 and Layer 3, intra-controller and inter-controller, mobility groups)
Part II	Configure a WLAN controller and access points WLC: ports, interfaces, WLANs, NTP, CL...

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Customer Reviews

Not good enough for wireless fundamentals
Perhaps this text would be appropriate for somebody seeking the CCNA Wireless certification, but this book seriously falls short on wireless and radio fundamentals. In the opening chapters the author introduces the concept of phase before he even describes a waveform and its components. It also contains a lot of inaccuracies. He goes into detail about the differences between DSSS bit rates and their associated encoding techniques but barely describes OFDM or 802.11n at all.

For those seeking knowledge on how to pass the CCNA Wireless exam and how to configure Cisco AP components, this book is a necessary acquisition but those who are seeking solid entry knowledge into the world of 802.11 administration should check out the CWNA book from Sybex.

up to date
I teach Cisco wireless at community college. this book will be the text for next semester because it contains up to date info on Lightweight Access Points and controllers. The first third of the book is basic wireless technology (using Linksys as example because Cisco owns Linksys), and the 2nd part is about basic standalone APs.
My only complaint is that the bookjacket claimed that the CD inlcuded exam questions and ebook -- no ebook, only a link to Safari and a code good for 45 days.

for the newbies using Cisco Wireless products
I baught this book for my studies with Wireless Lan Controller and Cisco APs. I am not satisfied with the coverage of the subjects with this book. Cisco Wireless Lan Controller subjects are not covered well. A lot of subjects are missing. If you are newbie with the cisco wireless products you can read it otherwise it is only waste of time with reading this book.