EXIN/EPI Certified

Data Centre Specialist

Preparation Guide Public

Edition July 2015

Edition 201607
Copyright © 2016 EXIN & EPI

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be published, reproduced, copied or stored in a data
processing system or circulated in any form by print, photo print, microfilm or any other means without
written permission by EXIN.

Preparation Guide EXIN /EPI Certified Data Centre Specialist [CDCS.EN]

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Content

1. Overview 4
2. Exam requirements 8
3. List of Basic Concepts 9
4. Exam Literature 13

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1. Overview
EXIN/EPI Certified Data Centre Specialist [CDCS.EN]

Scope
Certified Data Centre Specialist (CDCS®) is a certification that validates a specialist’s knowledge of
all relevant concepts concerning data centre facilities.

Summary
Enterprises today rely on IT for the delivery of business-critical services. It is vital that the mission
critical data centre is designed, maintained and operated with high availability and efficiency in
mind. The Certified Data Centre Specialist is a communication partner for suppliers and data centre
owners, and is able to verify offers provided by vendors for correctness, effectiveness and
efficiency. The competencies covered in the CDCS® certification are a must have for professional
data centre managers and personnel.
The job tasks are described in the EPI Data Centre Competency Framework.
The required competences are derived from the job tasks and are related to the exam
specifications (Chapter 2 Exam Requirements).
All EPI Data Centre Management certifications have a validity period of 3 years. Technologies
change very fast in the industry and in 3 years, certain technologies become obsolete while new
technologies have emerged.
The competencies covered in the CDCS® certification are required for individuals who wish to go
further to CDCE® certification.

Context
The certificate Certified Data Centre Specialist (CDCS®) is part of the EXIN qualification program
and has been developed in cooperation with EPI, www.epi-ap.com. EPI is the owner of the
Intellectual Property of the course content.

The CDCS® scheme is approved by the EPI Data Centre Management Scheme Committee on
28 July 2015.

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Target group
The examination for Certified Data Centre Specialist (CDCS®) is intended for a professional who is:
 working in IT, facilities or Data Centre Operations
 working in and around the data centre
 responsible for achieving and improving high availability, manageability and efficiency of
the data centre

Requirements
Requirements for certification:
 A valid CDCP® certificate, or other evidence of competencies covered in the CDCP®
certificate
 Evidence of training of CDCS® by an EXIN accredited training provider
 Successful completion of the CDCS® exam

Resits: If the candidate fails the exam three times, it is mandatory to do the training again.

Certification is valid for a three years period after which the candidate needs to recertify.

Requirements for recertification:

 A valid certificate of CDCS®. The expiry date can be found on the certificate.
 Evidence of training of CDCS® by an EXIN accredited training provider .
(Contact your Training Provider for a discount on the recertification training)
 Successful completion of the CDCS® exam.

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Recertification is required for the highest level certificate the candidate possesses.

Examination type
Computer-based or paper-based multiple-choice questions

Indication study effort

20-30 hours, depending on existing knowledge

Practical assignment(s)
Not applicable

Time allotted for examination

90 minutes

Exam details
Number of questions: 60
Pass mark: 75% (45 out 60)
Open book/notes: no
Electronic equipment/aides permitted: an (electronic) dictionary is permitted

The EXIN exam rules and regulations apply to this exam.

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Training
Group size
The maximum number of participants is 20.

Contact hours
The minimum number of contact hours for this training course is 21. This includes group
assignments, exam preparation and short breaks. This number of hours does not include
homework, logistics for exam preparation and lunch breaks.

Training provider
You can find a list of our accredited training providers at www.exin.com.

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2. Exam requirements
The exam requirements are specified in the exam specifications. The following table lists the topics
of the module (exam requirements), the subtopics (exam specifications) and the number of
questions of each subtopic in the exam.

Exam requirement Exam specification Number of Weight

questions
1. Data centre life cycle and standards 6 10%
1.1 Data Centre Life Cycle 2
1.2 Standards, Rating Level Definitions 4
and Requirements

2. Designing and implementing a data centre 48 80%

2.1 Building Considerations 4
2.2 Advanced Raised 4
Floor/Suspended Ceiling
2.3 Advanced Power 10
2.4 Advanced Electro Magnetic Fields 4
2.5 Advanced Cooling 10
2.6 Advanced Fire Protection 10
2.7 Designing and installing scalable 6
network cabling systems

3. Data centre environmental considerations and efficiency 6 10%

3.1 Environmental specifications and 3
Contamination Control
3.2 Data Centre Efficiency 3
total 60 100%

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3. List of Basic Concepts
This chapter contains the terms with which candidates should be familiar.

Please note that knowledge of these terms alone does not suffice for the exam; the candidate must
understand the concepts and be able to provide examples.

This list contains the terms and abbreviations with which candidates should be familiar.

 Data Centre Design

 Data Centre Life Cycle
 Planning, re-alignment and continuous improvement
 Tier Levels
 Tier level definitions, categories and measure points
 Redundancy options
 Maintenance options
 Operational processes guidelines/standards
 Skill development
 Building Considerations & Standards
 Floor loading requirements
 Fire rating for walls and glass
 Blast protection
 Bullet proofing
 Forced entry protection
 Advanced Raised Floor & Suspended Ceiling
 Raised floor
 contractors
 closed and leveled raised access floor
 tiles
 Seismic mitigating floor constructions
 Advanced Power
 Power infrastructure layout
 Single Line Electrical diagrams
 Over current protection devices: MCB/MCCB/VCB/ACB/Fuses
 Earth Leakage devices: RCB/RCD/ELCB/GFCI/ALCI/RCBO

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 Lightning strikes and surge protection devices: Transient Voltage Surge Suppressor (TVSS)
/ Surge Protection Device (SPD)
 Power cabling
 cable run
 Power Distribution Unit (PDU) / Distribution Boards (DB) setup and minimum requirements
 Generators
 Component make up
 device
 fuel storage tank capacity
 Paralleling of gen-sets
 Regulatory requirements
 Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) Systems
 data sheets
 parallel configurations
 pitfalls
 single point of failures
 parallel installation
 Harmonic Filters
 Battery Banks
 charger
 parallel battery banks
 cell
 block
 string
 Battery casing choices: ABS, V0, V1, V2
 Alternative energy storage: flywheel, re-useable cell
 Advanced Electro Magnetic Fields
 single, three phase and bus-bar EMF
 single axe measurements
 composite measurements
 Calculation of EMF attenuation factor for shielding
 material permeability
 saturation factors
 Advanced Cooling
 dry-bulb, wet-bulb, dew-point,

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 RH, sensible- and latent heat
 Environmental class definitions and thermal specifications
 tile surface
 supporting structure
 the flow performance impact
 Rack door construction
 the flow performance impact
 Equipment Delta-T
 Thermal units conversions
 air volume displacement: Cubic Feet per Minute (CFM) / Cubic Meter per Hour (CMH)
 Cooling capacity
 Air-conditioning
 De- / humidifying options
 Air conditioning efficiency
 Set points
 calibration
 Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD)
 Advanced Fire Protection
 Fire triangle
 Detection systems: VESDA, VIEW, Smoke sensors
 water based systems
 dry-pipe
 pre-action
 Inert
 Halocarbon
 fluorinated systems
 gas based systems
 release times
 hold times
 pipe
 fire panel
 Installation verification
 fire suppression techniques
 Cable Management
 In rack power

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  network cabling
 Labeling
 TIA-606
 Environmental Specifications
 Acoustic noise
 contamination
 Electro Static Discharge (ESD)
 Data Centre Efficiency
 Power efficiency indicators
 power savings
 application/system level
 cooling
 power distribution

For further information on the concepts of CDCS® we refer to the CDCS® Course Syllabus of EPI,
the course provider: www.epi-ap.com

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4. Exam Literature

During the CDCS® course candidates receive a Student Course Manual.

For further information we refer to www.epi-ap.com.

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Contact EXIN

www.exin.com