The IEEE 802.11 family of Wi-Fi standards (a/b/g/n/ac/ax/be) that define wireless speeds and frequencies.
The IEEE 802.11 family defines how wireless devices communicate, each amendment specifying frequency bands, channel widths, and maximum throughput. 802.11b/g run on 2.4 GHz only and 802.11a on 5 GHz only, while 802.11n (Wi-Fi 4) is dual-band across 2.4 and 5 GHz and introduced MIMO. 802.11ac (Wi-Fi 5) is 5 GHz only, and 802.11ax (Wi-Fi 6/6E) extended into the 6 GHz band via the 6E designation. A common trap: 802.11a and 802.11g both reach 54 Mbps, but a uses 5 GHz and g uses 2.4 GHz. Crucially, 802.11ac cannot fall back to 2.4 GHz, unlike dual-band 802.11n.
Service Set Identifier — the broadcast name that identifies a wireless network to clients.
A Service Set Identifier is a case-sensitive name of up to 32 characters that identifies a wireless network and is advertised in 802.11 beacon frames so clients can detect and join it. Access points sharing one SSID form an ESS (Extended Service Set), enabling seamless roaming. For the exam, distinguish the SSID from the BSSID: the BSSID is the MAC address of a specific access point radio, while the SSID is the human-readable network name. Disabling SSID broadcast is weak obscurity — clients still reveal the SSID in probe requests, making it discoverable with a wireless analyzer, so it cannot replace strong authentication like WPA3.
The latest Wi-Fi Protected Access standard, offering stronger encryption and protection than WPA2.
WPA3 is the current Wi-Fi security standard from the Wi-Fi Alliance, superseding WPA2. Its central improvement is Simultaneous Authentication of Equals (SAE), which replaces the WPA2 Pre-Shared Key (PSK) handshake. SAE provides forward secrecy, so even if an attacker later obtains the passphrase, previously captured traffic cannot be decrypted. For the exam, the key distinction is SAE versus PSK: WPA2’s four-way EAPOL handshake is vulnerable to offline dictionary attacks once captured, while WPA3-Personal eliminates that exposure. WPA3-Enterprise adds an optional 192-bit cryptographic mode. Transition mode supports both WPA2 and WPA3 clients but inherits some WPA2 weaknesses until migration completes.
A device that bridges wireless clients to the wired network by broadcasting one or more SSIDs.
A wireless access point (AP) operates at Layer 2 (the data link layer) of the OSI model, connecting Wi-Fi clients to a wired Ethernet network by bridging the 802.11 wireless medium and 802.3 wired frames. APs broadcast one or more SSIDs and authenticate clients, often via WPA3 or WPA2. When multiple APs share an SSID under a wireless LAN controller (WLC), clients roam between them with little interruption. The key exam distinction is AP versus wireless router: a router adds NAT, DHCP, and a WAN port in one device, while a standalone AP only bridges wireless to wired. In infrastructure mode, all client traffic passes through the AP, unlike ad hoc (IBSS) mode, where clients communicate directly.
Software-Defined Networking — separating the control plane from the data plane for centralized programmable control.
Software-Defined Networking decouples the control plane — the logic that decides where traffic goes — from the data plane, which actually forwards packets. Traditional routers and switches bundle both functions inside one device; SDN moves control to a centralized software controller that has a global view and programs forwarding rules down to individual devices via southbound APIs such as OpenFlow. For the N10-009 exam, the key distinction is SDN versus SD-WAN: SDN applies this model to a local or data-center network, while SD-WAN applies it specifically to wide-area connectivity, optimizing traffic across multiple internet or MPLS links. Confusing the two scopes is a common exam trap.
Software-Defined WAN — a virtual overlay that intelligently steers traffic across multiple WAN links.
SD-WAN (Software-Defined WAN) uses a centralized controller to apply application-aware routing policies across multiple underlay transports — broadband internet, MPLS, and LTE/5G — at once. The controller monitors link quality such as latency, jitter, and packet loss in real time, then steers traffic to the best path without reconfiguring each branch router by hand.
For the exam, contrast it with traditional WAN: a legacy MPLS-only WAN routes by destination IP, while SD-WAN routes by application identity and link health. Don’t conflate SD-WAN with SDN — SD-WAN applies software-defined principles to wide-area connectivity, whereas SDN broadly separates the control plane from the data plane across any network.