On tax day I started my morning by driving to a nearby testing center and taking the EMC Proven Professional exam. I took exam E20-001 in order to qualify for Associate Level Certification.
The good news is that I passed the test! This greatly improved my morning, having recently sent in a large donation to the US Treasury!
There were a lot of good reasons to take the exam, but the main reason I signed up was to find out what it was all about, especially in the context of recommending certification to the dozens of new hires that have joined my organization recently.
I also knew that I could blog about the experience. For those that may be interested in the process, here is what I went through.
- First of all, @gminks will hunt you down if she hears that you're interested in certification. That's how I got involved. I'm glad she asked.
- I had to decide which track I wanted to follow. I chose the Storage Technologist "Open" track. This is the track I would likely recommend to a new hire that wants to increase their knowledge of different industry technologies.
- I found that in order to pass the test I had to study four different areas: (1) storage systems, (2) storage networking and virtualization, (3) Business Continuity, and (4) Storage Security and management.
- I found out about practice exams. I decided to take a practice exam to understand where I stood. I flunked, which was good (forced me to take studying seriously).
- I decided to find a local testing site and sign up as a way of giving myself a study deadline. I found out about vouchers .
- I signed up for the online, internet-delivered training for all of the areas listed above. I took the sample exams at the end, and made note of the areas I was weak in.
- I read the Information Storage and Management book front to back and took note of the areas that I was weak in.
- I became a fan of the EMC Proven Professional community on Facebook.
- I re-took the sample exam and did much better, which led to a decent performance on the actual day of the test.
At the testing center I immediately found out how I scored in each of the four areas. I found out that I did well on the first three but for Storage Security I did not. I'm not sure what I got wrong but it could be that CHAP, in the context of storage security, is not a "sturdy pair of pants".
Overall there was no downside to the process. After many years of experience in the storage industry there were many topics that I already knew cold, but there were quite a few gaps in my knowledge when it came to areas such as business continuance and security. The experience definitely left me much more conversant in more technologies. I'm considering additional certification as a regular part of my career growth.
There are many ways to get started, but perhaps the wisest choice is to join the ECN community, perhaps by first reading the FAQ.
Steve
http://stevetodd.typepad.com
Twitter: @SteveTodd
EMC Intrapreneur
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