{"id":1944,"date":"2011-10-18T10:51:49","date_gmt":"2011-10-18T17:51:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/greg.porter.name\/wordpress\/?p=1944"},"modified":"2011-10-20T07:47:36","modified_gmt":"2011-10-20T14:47:36","slug":"netapp-certified-implentation-engineer-ncie-%e2%80%93-passed-ns0-502-netapp-certified-implementation-engineer-san-virtualization-today","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/greg.porter.name\/wordpress\/?p=1944","title":{"rendered":"NetApp Certified Implementation Engineer (NCIE) \u2013 Passed NetApp Exam NS0-502 Today"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I passed the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.netapp.com\/us\/support\/university\/certifications\/nso-502.html\">NS0-502 NetApp Certified Implementation Engineer-SAN and Virtualization<\/a> test today.\u00a0 I had the good fortune to take some instructor led courses for this from Fastlane &#8211; <a href=\"..\/?p=1237\">Data ONTAP 8.0 7-Mode Administration (DOT87M)<\/a> and <a href=\"..\/?p=1482\">Accelerated NCDA Boot Camp Data ONTAP 8.0 7-Mode (ANCDABC87)<\/a>.\u00a0  They were good preparation.\u00a0 The exam was 62 questions, 90 minutes.\u00a0 I  passed it with a 82% and it took me 40 minutes.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/greg.porter.name\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/10\/20111019_porter_ncie_cert.pdf\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-1947\" title=\"NCIE_Logo\" src=\"https:\/\/greg.porter.name\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/10\/NCIE_logo-300x226.jpg\" alt=\"NCIE_Logo\" width=\"300\" height=\"226\" srcset=\"https:\/\/greg.porter.name\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/10\/NCIE_logo-300x226.jpg 300w, https:\/\/greg.porter.name\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/10\/NCIE_logo-1024x774.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/greg.porter.name\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/10\/NCIE_logo.jpg 1080w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Read more&#8230;<!--more-->These NetApp tests are &#8220;low volume&#8221; &#8211; that means that there&#8217;s not  enough people taking them to justify publishers to write prep books, or  test prep publishers to make practice exams.\u00a0 Therefore there is little  official test preparation material available  short of instructor led  training.\u00a0 I was fortunate to get ILT, but each  of my one week classes  cost something like $5000, pretty pricey for  those on a budget.<\/p>\n<p>If possible you should get to some instructor led training.\u00a0 My Fastlane instructor recommended the hands-on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.netapp.com\/us\/media\/strsw-ilt-sanimp-r1-course-description.html\">SAN Implementation Workshop<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>So what did I do?<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>I went to instructor led training.<\/li>\n<li>I studied my course books and the <a href=\"https:\/\/media.netapp.com\/documents\/nso-502-study-guide.pdf\">NSO-502 study guide<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>I did the semi-cheesy NetApp practice exam for NS0-502 until I was blue in the face.<\/li>\n<li>I did hands on practice with ONTAP 8 simulators (you have to have an active NOW account to download these).<\/li>\n<li>I googled around online for other test help, but didn&#8217;t find much.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The test is really for NetApp engineers that go to customers and help them with installing a new storage area network.\u00a0 Pretend you are an engineer at a customer&#8217;s site and you&#8217;re getting ready to help them.\u00a0 You need to know the questions to ask them, and what kind of drawings and diagrams they expect you to generate.\u00a0 Look at <a href=\"https:\/\/media.netapp.com\/documents\/nso-502-study-guide.pdf\">the NSO-502 study guide<\/a>, you will be asked about cabinet diagrams, power requirements, etc.<\/p>\n<p>The test assumes that you have some experience with fibre channel switches.\u00a0 You should have passing familiarity with common commands on common switches, like Brocade and Cisco.\u00a0 You should know how to look at zoning, make zoning changes, save zoning changes, look at general switch health, etc.\u00a0 I use Brocade at work, so I peeked at the Cisco documentation for their switches.\u00a0 Just simple things like &#8220;Cisco switches always preface commands wth show, like &#8216;show version&#8217;.\u00a0 Brocade switch commands often use one word with show at the end like &#8216;supportshow&#8217; &#8221; will help you out.\u00a0 You should also know what management software packages are typically used with these switches.<\/p>\n<p>Know something about how these switches are used in the enterprise.\u00a0 Know what various topologies (mesh, switched, etc.) look like.\u00a0 Know how large groups of switches are tied together.\u00a0 Look at how you use switches in highly available configurations.\u00a0 Know about the different kinds of zoning (hard, soft, etc.) and why you might use one or the other.<\/p>\n<p>Don&#8217;t forget about iSCSI, either.\u00a0 They will ask you some iSCSI related questions, mainly about ONTAP commands used with iSCSI.\u00a0 Like the practice exam shows, there&#8217;s questions that list some possible ONTAP commands and then ask you to pick the one that correctly does a function.<\/p>\n<p>There&#8217;s some virtualization questions, again from a NetApp perspective.\u00a0 The study guide and practice test give you some idea of the type and scope of these questions. I used the practice test as an exam outline.\u00a0 For every question on the practice test, I assumed that was a topic, and then did some research into that whole area.\u00a0 For example, it mentions NPIV, which I&#8217;ve never used.\u00a0 I dug into that and learned all about assigned a virtual WWPN to a VM and then zoning the VM and its virtual HBA to a RDM datastore.<\/p>\n<p>For me, practical hands-on experience was very helpful.\u00a0 I knew some of the answers, not because I studied for them, but because I had seen the issue in my day to day work.\u00a0 I doubt that someone that doesn&#8217;t have any experience would pass, mainly from the lack of actual study material available.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I passed the NS0-502 NetApp Certified Implementation Engineer-SAN and Virtualization test today.\u00a0 I had the good fortune to take some instructor led courses for this from Fastlane &#8211; Data ONTAP 8.0 7-Mode Administration (DOT87M) and Accelerated NCDA Boot Camp Data&hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/greg.porter.name\/wordpress\/?p=1944\" class=\"more-link\">Continue Reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1944","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-content"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/greg.porter.name\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1944","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/greg.porter.name\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/greg.porter.name\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greg.porter.name\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greg.porter.name\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1944"}],"version-history":[{"count":22,"href":"https:\/\/greg.porter.name\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1944\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1968,"href":"https:\/\/greg.porter.name\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1944\/revisions\/1968"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/greg.porter.name\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1944"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greg.porter.name\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1944"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greg.porter.name\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1944"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}