One week to the CCIE-W lab, An approach

So in just over a week I will make my way to lovely San Jose to take my first attempt at the CCIE Wireless lab.  Sure it's a long shot passing on a first attempt, but even a failure at this point will give me the experience of "The Lab" and help point my studies in the right direction.  Not to say that I'm not going to give it my all, but I also don't "expect" to pass.

I'm currently going through the Fastlane lab material, and a lot of configuration guides and implementing them in my home lab.  I feel ok about the material.  I wish I had more time to to cover topics like MSE and WIPS, but I decided to go ahead with the lab on a short timetable.  At this point I'm looking more at SWTs (Stupid Wireless Tricks), learning some lesser known CLI commands and building a strategy for dealing with problems in the lab.

My focus for skills building is moving away from the simple "How Do I?" to more of a "How Do I Verify?" or "What is the quickest way to configure feature <x>?"

Building of my CCIE Lab

For those who don't know, I've been building my home Wireless lab for the better part of 2 years.  It started off as a 4402 load to me from a customer who had traded it in on an upgrade to a 5508.  Between some gear off ebay, some loaners from coworkers and clients alike it has grown.  In the last part of 2012, my employer purchased some equipment for lab up and demo purposes which currently resides in the lab.  I'm very thankful to my employer for sponsoring this effort, and various other individuals who have donated equipment.

Below is a list of what the lab consists of today, I'll amend the post as thing change dramatically.

Network Equipment
1x Cisco 2811 running CME
1x Cisco 3550 24 POE running IP Services
1x Cisco 3560cg 8 POE running IP Base
1x Cisco 2504-5 WLC
1x Cisco 2106 WLC
1x Cisco 5508-12 WLC
1x Cisco 881W


Access Points
1x Cisco 3602i
1x Cisco 1262
2x Cisco 3502i
1x Cisco 1142
3x Cisco 1242
1x Cisco 1042
2x Cisco 1131


Virtualization:
1x Dell Precision Workstation T5500:  Quad Core, 30GB of Ram,
   - 2x 512GB Drives
   - 2x 250GB Drives
   - ESXi 5.1

Software
1x Cisco ACS 5.2 VM
1x Cisco WCS 7.0 VM
1x Cisco Prime Infrastructure 1.2 VM
1x Cisco MSE 7.4 VM
1x Cisco vWLC 7.4 VM
1x Cisco ISE 1.1.2 VM
1x MS 2008r2 Domain Controller

Clients:
2x Windows 7 x64 Clients VM
1x WinXP x86 Clients VM
1x Backtrack Linux 5r3
1x GNS3 Workbench
1x Apple TV Gen2

Misc:
10 varied USB wireless adapters
 - Dynamically mapped to wireless clients via ESXi


Management:
1x Cyclades TS-3000 Terminal Server for OOB management

1x Windows 7 x64 Management Station (VM)

A very special thanks to @DevinAkin and @Aerohive for their donations, which not specifically listed in the "lab" equipment are in use, well tested and utilized.