NetApp Certifications, What’s New and What You Need to Know.

If you’re a NetApp nerd like myself or if you prefer to call yourself an “avid NetApp user”, then you’re probably familiar with their annual conference, NetApp Insight and the fact that is is just around the corner. Since you’re reading this article at all, you may already have or have at least considered getting certified. There’s not a lot new since the major update back in April when the exams were updated to reflect the release of 8.3 but there is at least one completely new exam and certification, the NetApp Certified Storage Installation Engineer, Clustered Data ONTAP NS0-180, which becomes available on September 23, 2015.

This year at Insight, there’s going to be a whopping 14 separate exam prep sessions at both the Las Vegas and Berlin versions of the conference covering the following:

  • NS0-155, NCDA 7-Mode
  • NS0-157, NCDA cDOT
  • NS0-505, NCIE-SAN E-Series
  • NS0-506, NCIE-SAN cDOT
  • NS0-511, NCIE-Data Protection

The beauty of Insight is that during the course of the conference, you can take as many exams for free as you’d like as long as it falls within their exam retake policy. If the exam centre is anything like year’s past, then it will be very busy and I highly recommend you pre-register for up to there of your exams now over here.

While we’re on the topic of certifications, NetApp is going to show the proverbial love to those of us who are already certified as well as to those who get certified while at Insight. I won’t give away all the details, but there will be different schwag based on what certifications you already hold. They’re also going to hold the first ever Appreciation and Recognition event for the NetApp Certified.

So with all this talk about certifications, lets talk about getting prepared for getting certified. The first thing you should do is follow @NetAppCertify on Twitter, join in the discussion over at the NetAppU Community and peruse the materials and sample exams available here. Sample exams are available for NS0-157, NS0-506, NS0-511 and the latest addition, NS0-180. If you’ve already have your NAIPCDOT, you’ll need to to earn the NCSIE cDOT by November 1, 2016, so I’m sure this will be a popular one. For the complete low-down on what NS0-180 might mean to you, check out this NetApp Community entry here. Lastly, be sure to check out The Value of NetApp Certification Video as well, especially since some of my friends are in it.

Finally, to further emphasize the value of NetApp Certifications, starting in October you’ll be able to add all new digital badges to your LinkedIn profile which will help job-seekers and recruiters find each other.

AddTo

This new Digital Badge helps protect the value of your certification as well as providing easy verification of your NetApp Certifications.

Badgers

Insight is just over a month a way as of this writing, and it’s time to start studying so that you can take advantage of those free exams which by now you’ve registered for, right? I know I have.

At the Las Vegas version of Insight, make sure you stop by The Geek & Greet Certification Appreciation Event, Wednesday at 5:15 and say hi to me and my fellow A-Team members, we may even buy you a beer.

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.