Nickapedia- abstract your problems away -

Yesterday I officially passed my first EMC certification test. I am now a full fledged EMCPA! So I know, this isn’t the highest-level and I am not going to impress the ladies down at the civic center. But, this is the first *storage* certificate for me and I am happier than a tornado in a trailer park.

I am working towards the Technical Architect track and so this test (E20-001) was the first step. I went through the Web Classroom training which was good. But the real secret is studying the ISM book (Amazon link).

I really enjoyed the material on fibre-channel protocol and the in-depth work calculating IOPs/capacity. I ended up making a huge Excel spreadsheet so I could play with the formulas.

The test was challenging. Some of the questions were not in the book or Web training and instead required some careful thought. Knowing your data replication methods and SAN topologies (even FC-AL) is extremely important.

I take tests more to help advance my knowledge (forced studying goals) than to get a certificate. I think EMC certification tracks will definitely add value to you as an individual. The track I am on is for employee/partners only. But they have a multitude of tracks available for customers also.

Take a look at their certification framework here.

So what is next for me? Well my CCNA is expiring in October, so I am going to focus on the CCNP composite test next. I will be using a combination of Boson NetSim and Train Signal material.

.nick