Pass DES-1B31 Certification Exam Fast

DES-1B31 Exam Has Been Retired

This exam has been replaced by EMC with new exam.

EMC DES-1B31 Exam Details

The EMC DES-1B31 exam is associated with the Specialist - Systems Administrator, ECS (DCS-SA) certification. This test confirms the knowledge of the management and monitoring of EMC solutions. This covers the configuration of ECS components, data client access, and the integration of ECS products with Dell EMC Data Protection products.

Introducing Specialist - Systems Administrator, ECS (DCS-SA) Certificate

The Specialist - Systems Administrator, ECS (DCS-SA) designation targets IT specialists who manage ECS solutions. It is built around a comprehensive curriculum that focuses on the ECS critical features, components, and product integrations as far as the management of the ECS system goes. To fulfill the eligibility requirements for attaining this certificate, candidates must first excel in at least one of the following tracks:

  • Associate-Information Storage and Management Version 1.0;
  • Associate-Information Storage and Management Version 2.0;
  • Associate-Information Storage and Management Version 3.0;
  • Associate-Information Storage and Management Version 4.0;
  • Associate-Cloud Infrastructure and Services Version 2.0;
  • Associate-Cloud Infrastructure and Services Version 3.0.

DES-1B31 Test Details

In all, the official DES-1B31 exam brings a total of 60 items within a test duration of 90 minutes. The passing score is 63% and candidates should demonstrate proven experience working with the products listed below before registering for the actual test:

  • Elastic Cloud Storage (ECS) 3.6;
  • Networker CloudBoost 9.1;
  • Isilon Cloud Pools 8.0x;
  • OpenStack;
  • Data Domain Cloud Tier 6.2;
  • Amazon S3.

DES-1B31 Exam Topics

Now let’s see what this exam focuses on, in particular:

1. ECS Overview (13%)

The first tested domain requires candidates to describe a wide range of concepts including the features, functions, and capabilities of the Elastic Cloud Storage (ECS), the architecture and components of ECS, and the ECS solution, covering hardware configuration, case scenarios, and single and multi-site deployments.

2. ECS Management and Monitoring (38%)

This topic is the largest and contributes to various exam questions. All in all, it starts by confirming if the student is well versed with the concepts for describing how the ECS is involved in packing and protecting data in a site, and the ECS failover as well as handling scenarios within the single and multi-site environments. Then, it will address the knowledge of configuring ECS with the portal, covering the creation of RGs, VDCs, namespaces, buckets, users, and storage pools. After that, the last three concepts include describing the configuration of ARM, quotas, retention policies, and ACLs, defining the features and functionalities of ECS D@RE and integrating Active Directory with ECS, and finally, describing the metering and monitoring capabilities of the ECS and the support operations for Syslog.

3. ECS Data Client Access (29%)

The topic of ECS Data Client Access is centered on the skills needed to describe the integration of ECS with Amazon S3, configuration and management with the ECS portal, REST APIs, and Amazon S3 browser. What is more, this domain covers the skills related to describing the integration of ECS with OpenStack Swift, configuring and monitoring by using APIs and management interfaces. Finally, your expertise in describing the features and functionality of the ECS NFS file and the ECS assisted configuration of object client applications including Hadoop HDFS & Centera CAS is thoroughly investigated.

4. ECS Integrated Solutions (20%)

ECS Integrated Solutions is the last topic that you should master to attempt the final EMC DES-1B31 exam. In more detail, it will check if you can describe the integration that exists between ECS and a wide range of technologies and solutions such as the Data Domain Cloud Tier, Isilon CloudPools, and Networker with CloudBoost. More so, the configuration process & use cases for these three will also be looked at by such an objective.

Career Opportunities

When you are considering your job prospects in IT, you will be spoilt for choice. Such is the wide range of selections that many people struggle to make an informed decision, keeping their income goals, career ambitions, and personal objectives in mind. At the moment, system administration is one of the most popular tracks for such a test and we are not convinced these jobs will be declining anytime soon. But that’s not all. Passing the DES-1B31 exam also clears your path to become a storage engineer, an exceptional role that gives a never-ending feeling of satisfaction. Some of the most common duties & salaries for these two posts you can assume after passing the DES-1B31 exam are covered below:

  • Storage Engineer

    In a nutshell, storage engineers are responsible for designing and implementing solutions to ensure data storage & maintenance. Also, they are tasked with upgrading software, applying patches, and ensuring data security. In many organizations, these individuals may work closely with other IT professionals to streamline the company’s processes by evaluating system input and output, assessing the general architecture, and recommending improvements where necessary. According to the latest information from the PayScale official website, a typical storage engineer gets an average annual salary package of $92,270 as compensation for their skills.

  • System Administrator

    By and large, system administrators participate in the installation, upgrading, and monitoring of the computer software and hardware. These individuals are responsible for maintaining the company’s vital assets such as business applications, operating systems, web servers, PCs, security tools, LANs, WANs, and email to mention just a few. Becoming entrusted with so many responsibilities also means that system administrators should never lack resourcefulness. Thus, they should demonstrate their ability to not only diagnose but also resolve computer issues quickly by mastering every single detail within their job scope. And towards that end, many companies will be willing to compensate these individuals by giving an average salary of $62,885 per year as PayScale puts it.

Career Path

Get advanced skills by enrolling for high-level programs within the Storage certification track. For example, the management path gives you two expert-level options including the DCE: PowerScale Solutions and the DCE: VMAX3 Solutions. The first certification focuses on advanced-level skills related to the Dell EMC PowerScale scale-out of storage platform and its role in specific customer environments at a more advanced level. These include advanced systems integration, data protection, and networking configurations. The DCE: VMAX3 Solutions, on the other hand, suits all individuals tasked with performing analysis of VMAX3 and VMAX All Flash solutions, designing and implementing VMAX security, FAST.X, non-disruptive migrations (NDM), multi-site SRDF, and SRDF/Metro.