I work as a network engineer mainly handling Ruckus Wi-Fi deployments for SMB and education sites and passed the RCNI a couple of months ago.
From my experience, I’d say the sweet spot is about 1 to 2 years of solid hands-on work with Ruckus gear. You don’t have to be an expert, but you should be comfortable installing and provisioning APs, creating SSIDs/VLANs, pushing firmware, and doing basic troubleshooting through ZoneDirector or SmartZone.
The exam is pretty practical, it’s not something you can pass just from reading docs. If you’ve actually configured a few networks, dealt with roaming or coverage issues, and used the Ruckus interface regularly, you’ll be fine.
I also found it really helpful to go through practice questions from credible sources like CertBoosters. It gives you a good idea of how the questions are structured and which areas Ruckus focuses on the most. It’s not about memorizing answers but understanding how they expect you to apply the concepts.
If you’re new to Ruckus but have general Wi-Fi background, I’d spend a bit of time in a lab first just to get used to the Ruckus workflow. But overall, a year or two of real-world experience plus some practice testing will put you in a good position for the RCNI.
