E20-001 exam objectives

The exam description really describes all of the topics on the exam.  I can offer you this additional information:

EMC Proven Professional Associate Certification

The EMC Proven Professional Associate level certification evaluates a candidate’s knowledge on concepts and principles of storage technology, rather than on specific products. Areas tested are: Storage subsystems, SAN, NAS, DAS, CAS, emerging technologies, Backup/Recovery, Local Replication, Remote Replication, BC/DR, Infrastructure management and monitoring. Upon successful completion of the Storage Technology Foundation exam, students are awarded the Associate (EMCPA) level recognition. The Associate level certified professional will have an understanding of various storage technology components and solutions to make informed storage decisions. This certification is the foundation for individuals to build their career in the Storage Industry.

What you might want to do is attempt the E20-001 free practice exam.  That will give you some feedback about your readiness for the exam.  Although passing the practice exam doesn't guarantee that you'll pass the exam, it may give you a good idea of where to spend your time learning / studying.

Please let me know if I can help further.

Thanks for the reply. So does that mean that there are no official "Exam objectives" other than a broad description of the exam topics. I am looking specifically for item by item listing of the objectives similar to the ones, for example, that snia has for thier exams.

After taking the exam today, I think you will have a hard time defining an objective for this exam, since you are not taking a test that is steering you toward a certain objective. For example with an expert Symmetrix certification you will find that objectives can exist that are focussed on a certain part of the symmetrix, say for example performance and the tools that can support you in that area.

The ISM exam is not really like that. The objective, if you will, is to get a broader understanding of those technologies and principles that will help you get a basic understanding on most technology tracks that build up on this basis. You could get certified for just the Symmetrix technical track, but you will be more effective if you understand how this system may interact, that it could be used as an array in a gateway NAS solution (just as an example) or that it might be part of a different topology. The ISM curriculum will at least make sure that you have a comprehension of how the interaction, or for example that there is most likely an ILM strategy behind it, or it can give you some security considerations.

Be assured though that there is quite a bit of in depth knowledge that will be asked during the exam, even though it's an exam that covers very broad topics such as security or RAID.

Our exam descriptions used to contain exam objectives per se (Describe this, Explain that, Contrast these ...) .  However, we moved away from doing this based upon candidate feedback and criticism.   The language of exam objectives is part of the internal discipline of training and exam development.  Terms like "identify," "explain," and "describe" have a common understanding to training and testing professionals.  We found that such terms -- and the differences among them -- were not helpful to the majority of exam candidates.  Indeed, candidates found them confusing: "what do I have to know/do to explain something vs describe it or identify it."

For such reasons, our descriptions emphasize the overall focus on an exam and the topics (typically technologies and products) that are covered.  Most candidates seem to find this helpful, perhaps because of the close connection between our exams and our training offerings.

Regards,

Gene