EMC SA Exam content question

tenrou

I'm trying to skirt round this because I'm trying to not be too specific on what I'm looking for and thus creating NDA issues

Basically I am looking to take the EMCISA then following onto the EMCSA for VNX.

I've been doing work for a couple of months specifically around this and have worked on VNXs together with the last 3 iterations of clariion. However there are various things that I haven't worked on from EMC that I see have come up in the EMC ISA exam. I am still getting 80-90% on the tests even thoguh I don't know what rainfinity is for example but I am more worried about the VNX exam as it is going to of a higher level and I suspect any indepth questions on products I wont know I wont be able to answer.

Has anyone done the EMCSA level exams?

blargoe

The EMCSA test is no joke, you really need to have a good all-around understanding of everything that you could be asked to administer, and a decent understanding of how their features work, not just how to use them. I failed it twice before finally getting the pass. The first time I took it I was not as experienced and didn't expect the exam would so heavily test the replication products as deeply as it did.

If you can convince your company to pay for the official VNX course, do so. I know that the exam closely related to the material from the class. I didn't get the class, but after a couple years of using the Clariion/VNX, a trip to EMC World, and studying the PDF documentation on PowerLink for the area on the exam blueprint that I was weaker on, I managed to pass with a decent score. I have a thread in this subforum from when I passed that might have more info that is not coming to mind at the moment. Good luck.

tenrou

Hmm, I've used Recover Point and Mirror view but I have to say that I am not a guru on the snapshot products. Depending on cost I may give it a bash and see how I get on but I can't see my work paying for the course.

Snapshotting is really the main issue that I see coming up.

When I say a few months, that is specific studying for the exam. I have worked on EMC for a few years now; CX3-40, CX500, CX700, CX4-120, CX4-240, VNX has been the path. Used SAN copy and LUN mirroring as well.

blargoe

I don't recall seeing RecoverPoint on the exam (though I think it was on the blueprint, so maybe its fair game), but SnapView was tested heavily. Very Heavily. But you should be able to play around with that on your existing system as long as you are licensed for it. I don't think you can pass without knowing the snapshot and cloning features in addition to MirrorView and San Copy.