Cisco CCIE Wireless

Design decides whether coverage and capacity survive real use. You plan high-density spaces, outdoor coverage and links, choose antennas and mounting, and size cells for the load they will carry.

• Coverage against capacity design
• High-density venues and cell sizing
• Antenna selection and placement indoors
• Outdoor coverage and point-to-point links
• Mounting, orientation and obstruction
• Validating a design against requirements

You build An RF design for a high-density room and an outdoor area, with sizing reasoned in full.

Surveys test the design against the building, and optimization keeps it true. You run predictive, passive and active surveys, find interferers with spectrum tools, and tune channels and power by hand and with radio resource management.

• Predictive, passive and active survey methods
• Survey tools and data collection
• Spectrum analysis and non-Wi-Fi interferers
• Channel and power tuning
• Radio resource management behavior and limits
• Dynamic frequency selection events
• Writing up survey findings

You build A survey report with measured coverage and an optimization plan.

Wireless is only as good as the network under it. You provide power and switch ports for APs, build the Layer 2 and Layer 3 services wireless depends on, support multicast and QoS, and place wireless in an SD-Access fabric.

• Power over Ethernet budgets and negotiation
• Layer 2 design for access points and controllers
• IP connectivity, DHCP and DNS for wireless
• Multicast support in the campus
• QoS across the wired and wireless boundary
• Wireless in an SD-Access fabric
• Troubleshooting a wired fault that looks wireless

You build A wired campus design that supports a wireless deployment, verified from AP to controller.

Controllers and APs have to start cleanly and survive failure. You deploy Catalyst controllers and APs with profiles and tags, build high availability, and test what happens when a controller or link disappears.

• Controller deployment options
• Configuration model: profiles, tags and policy
• AP join, priority and failover
• Stateful switchover between controller pairs
• N+1 and other resilience designs
• Software upgrade strategy
• Testing failure and recovery

You build A controller pair with tagged AP groups, and a recorded failover test.

Not every site can switch traffic centrally. You build mobility across controllers, run FlexConnect for remote sites, and deploy mesh and ultra-reliable wireless backhaul where cables cannot go.

• Mobility groups and anchor roles
• Layer 2 and Layer 3 roaming across controllers
• FlexConnect groups and local switching
• Operation during a WAN outage
• Mesh architecture and backhaul design
• Ultra-reliable wireless backhaul
• Troubleshooting mobility tunnels

You build A multi-controller network with a FlexConnect branch and a mesh segment.

Cloud-managed wireless behaves differently from controller-based. You deploy Meraki access points, choose among its data plane modes, and understand how roaming, VLANs and policy work in a cloud-managed network.

• Cloud-managed architecture and the dashboard
• Bridge, NAT and tunneled client modes
• VLAN and policy assignment
• Roaming in a cloud-managed network
• Choosing between Meraki and Catalyst
• Troubleshooting from the dashboard

You build A Meraki network using two data plane modes, with a comparison against a controller design.

Wireless extends the network’s edge into every room. You secure AP switchports, build 802.1X and WPA3 networks, run guest access, and control administrative access to wireless platforms.

• 802.1X and WPA3 enterprise design
• Identity services for wireless clients
• Guest access and web authentication
• Securing AP switchports
• Administrative access and role separation
• Troubleshooting authentication failures

You build A secured wireless network with enterprise, guest and administrative access controls in place.

Attackers can join the air as easily as the wire. You detect rogue devices and attacks, contain them within policy, and apply group-based policy to wireless clients so that access follows identity.

• Rogue AP detection and classification
• Wireless attacks and their signatures
• Containment and its legal limits
• Group-based policy for wireless clients
• Propagating group tags across the network
• Reviewing and tuning security events

You build A detection and policy setup that identifies a rogue AP and enforces group-based access.

Services shape what clients can do and what you can see. You identify applications with AVC, export flow data with NetFlow, enable service discovery across VLANs with mDNS, and control it with policy.

• Application visibility and control
• NetFlow export from wireless platforms
• mDNS gateway behavior
• Service discovery policy across VLANs
• QoS policy for wireless clients
• Verifying the services work

You build A configuration that identifies applications, exports flows and shares services across VLANs.

Roaming and multicast are where good designs reveal their flaws. You tune fast transition and key caching for voice and video clients, and deliver multicast efficiently across the wireless network.

• Fast transition and its client support
• Opportunistic key caching and related methods
• Roaming diagnostics from captures
• Multicast over the wireless network
• Multicast-to-unicast conversion
• Troubleshooting a sticky or slow roam

You build A roaming test report for three client types, with multicast verified on each.

At scale, wireless is run through code. You program controllers with Python, model-driven interfaces and REST APIs, and automate configuration, auditing and repetitive changes.

• Wireless controller APIs and data models
• NETCONF and RESTCONF on controllers
• Python scripts for configuration
• Auditing settings across many access points
• Templating and bulk changes
• Verifying automated changes

You build A script that audits and corrects wireless settings across a set of controllers.

A wireless network is judged by the clients’ experience. You use Catalyst Center, Cisco Spaces and the Meraki dashboard to measure that experience, locate problems, and use location and usage data.

• Client and network health scoring
• Assurance workflows in Catalyst Center
• Location services with Cisco Spaces
• Meraki analytics and alerts
• Correlating analytics with captures
• Turning findings into configuration changes

You build An assurance review that traces three poor client experiences to causes and fixes.

Join RF, network, security, services and automation in one deployment. You design and survey a site, build the wireless network, secure it, tune it, and then locate and fix faults across layers.

• Designing and surveying the site
• Building the wired and wireless networks
• Securing access and services
• Tuning roaming and capacity
• Troubleshooting faults across RF, wired and security layers

You build A complete wireless design and deployment record with fault diagnoses and fixes.