Emc ISA exam advice

nowlan

Hello,

Not a lot of information regarding this exam, outside of EMC's website.

I have just finished reading the Information Storage Management book.
A lot of the older threads on this site, talk about the exam before this book was published I believe.
Other sites have said this is the best resource.

I am interested in hearing of any other resources people would recommend.
I am hoping to sit the exam sooner than later. Planning some chapter revision.
The book has a lot of referrals back to book.emc.com for updates.

So keen to hear if people think this book is enough, or any other tips.
I havent looked at the practice exam yet, plan to after revising chapters.

I know there are a lot of books on sans in general, oreilly/cisco/etc.
But only have 2 weeks before school starts up again.
Pursuing this for my own interest.

onesaint

Sorry I can't offer any info, but I'd be curious to know how your progress goes on the pretest and if find any more resources.

Good luck!

ETA: this might cover a lot of the same, but skim the index to see if it would be useful.
http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/redbooks/pdfs/sg245470.pdf

bdeloria

I took the old E20-001 Exam a few years back. The ISM book from EMC should give you a decent foundation to take the test.

Knowing the different raid types was relevant where as SE syntax was not.

Always take the practice exams, they will give you a good idea where you're weak.

labhesh

Hey all I Have completed EMC ISA exam in Jan 2012....with 95%

Reading of alok shrivastava book on EMC ISA is must You can try your luck with Practice Test as well

odysseyelite

labhesh wrote: »

Hey all I Have completed EMC ISA exam in Jan 2012....with 95%

Reading of alok shrivastava book on EMC ISA is must You can try your luck with Practice Test as well

Labhesh, how long did it take you to get through the material? I am giving myself 4 weeks, already booked the exam.

dave330i

odysseyelite wrote: »

Labhesh, how long did it take you to get through the material? I am giving myself 4 weeks, already booked the exam.

Passed the exam late March. Book was pretty easy to read through. Understand the material covered in the book and watch the videos presented. Took me about 3 weeks.

onesaint

dave330i wrote: »

Passed the exam late March. Book was pretty easy to read through. Understand the material covered in the book and watch the videos presented. Took me about 3 weeks.

Which videos are you referring to?

Congrats, btw.

dave330i

onesaint wrote: »

Which videos are you referring to?

Congrats, btw.

Thanks. Check out: https://education.emc.com/ISMbook/default.aspx Click any of the hyperlink on the right column.

nowlan

Just booked the exam this afternoon.
I got mucked around trying to book the exam earlier in the year, and then school got in the way.

---
Noticed this morning that there is a new version 2 of the exam.

https://education.emc.com/cust/certification/framework/stf/stf.aspx
Associate E10-001 Exam

"builds on it to include virtualization and cloud computing."

Module 4: Cloud Computing
- Cloud benefits, characteristics
- Services and deployment models
- Cloud infrastructure components
- Cloud migration considerations

---
New edition of book been released too.
Information Storage and Management-ISM-Book-Storage Reference

Quick glance seems to have added a section on Cloud.
"Cloud Computing and Converged Infrastructure"

---
E10-001 exam is aligned to ISM v2 and E20-001 exam (Retiring) is aligned to ISM
Retires end of the year from look of it.
For v1 "we recommend that you plan to take and pass the exam on or before December 31, 2012."

---
Information Storage and Management v2 (ISM v2) FAQs
https://community.emc.com/docs/DOC-16510

---
Hopefully can knock this thing over. Been revising long enough.

nowlan

Hi all.

Just passed E20-001 exam this morning. Read the book cover to cover 3 times over the past 12 months.
Not working with EMC product made the exam tough, but the pass mark was really low like 63%.

The current exam is retiring the end of the year. Thankfully I have it out of the way.
There is a new v2 replacing it, E10-001 exam.

There is also a new edition of the book, ISBN 1118094832
Looks to have added a section on cloud computing.

Probably not a worth while cert unless working with sans or emc reseller.
But I found the information to be very interesting.

Nice to see Enterprise ideas applied to storage and disaster recovery in particular.

Since EMC own vmware, i suspect more sans will continue to crop up in the future.
Gonna skip/pass on vmware cert, cant afford to pay for course out of own pocket.

ps: forum flagged me as spam earlier??

blargoe

Congrats on the pass!

Now that you have studied and passed the exam, how would you rate the experience, as it related to gaining understanding of storage fundamentals in the enterprise? I took the previous incarnation of this exam 5-6 years ago (Storage Technology Foundations I think was the name), and found a lot of things seemed to overlap knowledge acquired from systems admin experience.

I would think it would be a nice complimentary cert for a sysadmin, maybe enough to help land a dual hat sysadmin/storage role in a smaller IT shop if prior sysadmin experience is already present.

dave330i

nowlan wrote: »

Since EMC own vmware, i suspect more sans will continue to crop up in the future.
Gonna skip/pass on vmware cert, cant afford to pay for course out of own pocket.

Short-sighted thinking if you use VMware regularly.

Congrats on the pass.

meadIT

I think I may go for this exam soon. I took the practice exam and scored a 57%. Is the exam question difficulty close to the practice exam questions?

dave330i

meadIT wrote: »

I think I may go for this exam soon. I took the practice exam and scored a 57%. Is the exam question difficulty close to the practice exam questions?

I thought the exam questions were harder than the practice.

meadIT

Thanks. I ordered the new edition of the ISA book yesterday and will go through that. I've never actually touched EMC hardware, just the Uber series of VSA's.

thulasi39

Hi,

I was preparing for the E20-001 and came to know there is a new version v2 (E10-001).

So going through Cloud computing chapter is enough to pass this exam?

blargoe

meadIT wrote: »

I think I may go for this exam soon. I took the practice exam and scored a 57%. Is the exam question difficulty close to the practice exam questions?

From everything I have heard, just study the book and you will be golden.

meadIT

blargoe wrote: »

From everything I have heard, just study the book and you will be golden.

Agreed http://www.techexams.net/forums/storage-certifications/79839-passed-emc-isa-v2-cert.html

blargoe

Sorry... I must not have looked at the date and who posted that!

tprice5

nowlan wrote: »

Since EMC own vmware, i suspect more sans will continue to crop up in the future.

Sorry to revive an old thread but EMC owns VMware?? I feel like I should've known about this wayyy before now.

Asif Dasl

Holy necrothread batman!

Yeah did you not know that... there is talk of them breaking up though - BFF no-longer! A split has been on the cards for ages but nothing has happened up to now - there seems to be a hesitancy to go ahead with it. Not sure why, just know there is talk about it...

Swift6

Yes, EMC acquired VMware in 2004.
EMC Completes Acquisition of VMware | United States

There has been talk of splitting up but that is yet to happen.