DCCA Certification

adman29 · November 20, 2019

DO YOU WANT TO BE A BETTER DATA CENTER TECHNICIAN?

TAKE THE DCCA EXAM

Well here's how. This is the guide becoming a better Data Center Technician.

I am in no way guaranteeing that you're gonna pass. This is just how I did it, and it might work for other people

1. Register For Schneider Energy University (It's Free)

Go to this website https://www.schneideruniversities.com/energy-university/
Create you an account
Register for the "Data Center Certified Associate" course

2. Complete the Coursework

To complete the coursework, there's a total of 16 lessons.
- There's 2 intro lessons to figure out how to use the course, and 14 actual lessons of material.
- In the actual lessons you'll cover a decent array of material -- basically anything that a datacenter would use to operate. This includes, but is not limited to:
  - Cooling
  - Racks
  - Fire Protection & Safety
  - Physical Security
  - How electricity and electrical systems work
Take all of the lessons
- Do this by:
  - Watching the slide show & listening to the audio track (Notes are arguably not needed)
  - Taking the Quiz
    - These are usually ~11 questions, all pretty easy. It's nothing too difficult, just what was gone over in the slideshow. Usually the question's answer will be directly stated in the slideshow.
  - Filling out the feedback form
    - You can be as detailed as you feel like being.
Download the Course Transcript at the end. I have included a copy of the course transcript with this post as an example.

3. Take the Test

First, register for the test
- This is gonna cost you $250.00 USD
- And after buying it you have 30 days to take it
  - Once you start you have 120 minutes to finish. This does not stop
  - There's also 100 Questions
  - Also do not open the slides; your test stops and you cannot restart it.
Second, Get all your notes ready.
- Turns out that 90% of the test material is in the Course Transcript. If you've ever taken a college course, you'll know how to Ctrl-F your way through most of those questions.
- The problem is, at least for me, there were 10-ish questions not in the transcript
  - First one was in a WhitePaper, but also possibly on the slides -- It's basically a diagram with arrows and racks that differentiates Rack, Row, and Room cooling.
  - The others were basically all around electrical distortions -- again, they were probably on the slides, but I had no way of checking.

If you take this test and feel like more needs to be added, please feel free to add it below. Unfortunately, I couldn't find too much about it online, but my job wanted us to get this certification. Let me know if you have any questions!

DCCA Course Transcript.pdf