I take offense at the brevity and lack of justification to your e-mail. There are no details about what you found difficult in the exam and draw an incorrect conclusion that certification candidates must work at NetApp to safely pass. This simply isn't true.

We've had two people pass all sections of the CA on the first attempt at our company, I'm sure others have had similar success. As someone who has worked on almost all hardware platforms NetApp has released and ONTAP versions from 4.* up, it was a very challenging exam when taken at their corporate HQ. A good score requires a combination of experience and diligent study - it is not one that can be taken lightly.

Both of our certifications were obtained during the previous method of on-site examination at NetApp. The Prometric exams may be harder. If that is the case, I'm confident that NetApp Educational Services would love to hear some detailed feedback from you regarding your experience. Be sure to let them know how long you've worked with filers and tell them *exactly* what was hard about the exam. They will probably weigh your feedback with that of others and evaluate the need for modifications to affected exams.

As a customer who is a CA, I appreciate that the exams are challenging. Once you too are NetApp certified, you'll realize that this protects your investment in the certification track by validating its authenticity as an accurate indicator of filer knowledge and perseverance.

-- Jeff

-- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jeff Krueger, NetApp CA E-Mail: jeff@qualcomm.com Senior Engineer Phone: 858-651-6709 NetApp Filers / UNIX Infrastructure Fax: 858-651-6627 QUALCOMM, Inc. IT Engineering Web: www.qualcomm.com

On Fri, May 11, 2001 at 11:44:37AM -0400, Honeycutt, Michael wrote:

Fundamental? I just took the first test, and they have made it very hard for anyone that does not work for NetApp to pass this test. In my opinion, you should not offer this cert to customers.

-----Original Message----- From: Fairchild, Peter [mailto:Peter.Fairchild@netapp.com] Sent: Friday, May 11, 2001 11:24 AM To: Honeycutt, Michael; 'toasters@mathworks.com' Subject: RE: NetAppCertTest

There are three 1 hour tests **The Hardware Test covers the 700 and 800 series filers, FC7-9 and DS14 storage shelves, the basics of racking and connecting them, and a bit on back up technology. **The General Knowledge Test looks at elements of Unix and NT, networking, DOT 5.x & 6.x (Normal Commands only), and some break/fix scenarios. **The Configuration Test examines just that: Can you configure a filer, storage shelf, and basic back up system? Volumes, qtrees, quotas, security styles, VIFs, snapshots, autosupport, OS upgrade, dump/restore, etc.

Nothing tricky in these tests. Just the fundamentals. Tricky comes at the Professional level where troubleshooting and performance tuning come into play.

How to prepare? Take the Hardware and ONTAP System Administration classes and DO THE LABS. Keep up with the NOW site and toasters (you guys are a great source of material ;->) and you should have no problem. Oh, and there is a grid covering all of the above in greater detail on the NOW site.

Peter W. Fairchild Technical Certification Program Manager Educational Services NetworkAppliance, Inc. Desk (408) 822-3320 Cell (408) 877-1596

-----Original Message----- From: Honeycutt, Michael [mailto:MichaelHoneycutt@NC.SLR.com] Sent: Friday, May 11, 2001 5:23 AM To: 'toasters@mathworks.com' Subject: NetAppCertTest

Has anyone taken the NetApp Associate cert test since the move to Sylvan Prometric? If so, can you give me a hint to what kind of questions are asked. Thanks.

Michael Honeycutt MCSE/A+ NT/Exchange Engineer IBM Global Services