How to prepare for NetApp Certified Data Administrator, ONTAP 162 TIPs and TRICKS

[Jerry2]

Hi all,

my question is how the efficient preparation for the Netapp exam should look like. To be honest, I have no practical experience with storage devices. Neverthless, I have done some Netapp labs, which I find cool.

So, what is better? Just read the 3000+ pages of documentation? Doing some labs? The thing is that the questions starts with the hypothetical claim - what would you do if you experienced this and that issue? I have no clue about this possibilities and how to solve them. Even the Netapp virtual course is not much helpful, since it doesnt prepare for the exam itself.

Then, I would say, it is fair to create a prerequisite certification or course or whatever, which should be interstage between no experience and full NCDA knowledge.

Then, I can read hundreds of text, but I do not know what is important what not. Simply, I can not measure my improvement, which is higly frustrating.

Maybe it would be wiser to have 3 levels of NCDA, lets say Bronze level, Silver level and Golden level of knowledge within one NCDA certificate.

Cheers!

[SpindleNinja · Accepted solution]

There's a reference  list of docs that we create/publish when writing the NetApp Cert. - https://www.netapp.com/pdf.html?item=/media/12176-ncp-reference-documentpdf.pdf

 
Which is better?  labs or docs?   
 - depends,  i personally learn hands on and ref docs when needed.  

Re: prerequisite - for the NCDA we say it's someone with 6 months of ONTAP admin experience.   but not required to take the test.  

If you're interested in how we write these cert tests, here's some reading on it - https://spindleninja.org/2020/05/15/certifications-being-a-sme/

[Jerry2]

Hi @SpindleNinja ,

thank you so much for sharing your own personal experience.

Your blog is very useful to gain an insight into Netapp philosophy.

I wish I had so deep technical overview!