| A Journey Well Worth the Effort (With the long delay, Now I am wondering if it was) |
Though I had been in the networking and WiFi realm for the last 28 years and have held many certifications during this tenure, the CWNE journey was quite different in a sense that the milestones on the way were quite diverse and challenging. I had recently recertified for the Aruba Certified Edge Professional along with my friend Gurpreet who is also a CWNE # 263. He encouraged me to take on this challenge and start my journey towards earning a CWNE. He lent me CWNE related materials, books, and pointed me to excellent informational blogs maintained by Rasika and Francois.
Learning has always been a passion and I am an avid reader. As per my experience in the field, I already had good solid knowledge of Wi-Fi. A quick but focused read of the CWNA book, while learning a lot of new concepts, I was good to write the CWNA exam on may 4th 2020 which I passed with flying colors. With a bit of encouragement from my colleagues, I studied really hard for the next three months to prepare for my next three exams. COVID-19 kept me home most of the weekends and by the end of September I cleared all three of them (PHEW they weren’t easy!)
I spent atleast a month on writing my articles and essays and blogs to meet the certification requirements and have submitted my application for the CWNE certification.
I have been designing, deploying and troubleshooting WiFi networks for some time now, but the in-depth packet level learning was great that enhanced my knowledge. When working with vendors the focus always remains on their proprietary technology, rather than on open 802.11 standards. This journey taught me a lot more than proprietary stuff.
Over last few years I have had opportunity to work with vendors like Cisco , Aruba , Meraki, Juniper/Mist and Fortinet. Currently, I am running two POCs for two big enterprises in Canada using Juniper Mist and Cisco Meraki.
Some of the best resources I found online were WLAN Pros Website which is managed by Keith Parsons, Rasika’s Blog, and Semfio Networks.
I would like to thanks each and everyone who helped me on this great journey and am hoping to do the same for my colleagues who are about to take their first step or already are on their way.
I finally received my CWNE certification on June 16th 2021.