Certified Data Centre Expert (CDCE)

Certified Data Centre Expert (CDCE®)

CDCE® Overview

In today’s digital era, enterprises depend on IT infrastructure to deliver critical services. At the heart of this infrastructure is the data centre, where availability, efficiency, and resilience are non-negotiable. However, many data centres fall short of meeting the rigorous demands of modern workloads, from AI to high-performance computing, putting businesses at risk.

Ensuring a high-availability environment demands expertise in power management, cooling strategies, fire protection, security, structured cabling, and industry best practices.

The CDCP® (Certified Data Centre Professional) course is a comprehensive 2-day program designed to equip participants with essential knowledge of the data centre infrastructure’s vital components.

This course provides insights into power and cooling systems, security measures, cabling structures, safety protocols, and efficiency enhancements to empowering the data centre professionals to confidently support and enhance today’s data centres while preparing for future advancements.

Audience

The primary audience for this course is any IT, facilities or data centre professional, who are involved in the design/build, renovation or relocation of a mission-critical data centre.

Prerequisites

Participants must hold a valid CDCS^® certificate in order to register for the CDCE^® class.

Course Benefits

After completion of the course the participant will be able to:

Choose an optimum site for mission-critical data centres based on current and future needs.
Describe all components important for high-availability in a data centre and how to effectively setup the data centre.
Understand the design lifecycle stages for data centre build projects and the phases involved in project execution.
Analyse a business case and develop a project brief that is aimed at fulfilling the business resilience, site selection and design requirements for a fit-for-purpose and suitably redundant mission-critical data centre.
Conduct technical level design reviews for a given set of preliminary design documents and perform a technical compliance audit of a set of final design development documents compliant to TIA standards.
Understand how to read electrical Single Line Diagrams (SLD) and other related design documents, and be able to detect the most common design mistakes.
Evaluate product datasheets and discriminate amongst technical specifications and functional requirements for suitability against a set of given design requirements for a given site and business case.
Correlate equipment specifications to site design constraints, such as room size and space, floor loading capacity, cooling capacity, power quality conditions and maintenance requirements while ensuring equipment selection does not compromise desired tier level compliance.
Develop Individual Equipment Test (IET) and Integrated Performance Validation Test (IPVT) plans for a mission-critical data centre.
Develop guidelines and checklists for handover of a mission-critical data centre facility, its architectural, mechanical, electrical, IT elements and documentation.
Develop retirement plans for decommissioning and handover of an aged mission-critical data centre facility.

Course Syllabus

Data Centre Life Cycle

Data centre lifecycle stages and phases
Exercise: Stage/Phase/Milestone/Document mapping

Design Preparation

Creation of a SON – Statement Of Need
Technology review
Conceptual sizing
How to calculate for computer room space
How to calculate facility space
How to calculate incoming power
Exercise: Conceptual sizing building and power
Analysing capacity of existing facility
Analysing investment options
Site selection
Permits and approvals
Exercise: Site selection
Conceptual design
Budget and project timeline
Business case preparation
Project delivery structure
Project management options
Project manager and team

Design Planning

OSRA – Operational Systems Requirement Analysis
TFRA – Technical Facilities Requirement Analysis
Operations and maintenance review
RFP – Request For Proposal process
Vendor selection

Design Development

Project planning
Design development
PDR – Preliminary Design Review
Equipment selection
FDR/V – Final Design Review/Validation
Exercise: Full design validation of power, cooling, floor plans, fire suppression
Design freeze and LLTI
Creation of construction documents
BOM/BOQ – Bill Of Material/Bill Of Quantity
Exercise: Equipment selection

Acquire

Requirements of purchase orders
Shipping terms
FWT/FAT – Factory Witness Test/Factory Acceptance Test
Sequencing
Incoming goods inspection and handling
Asset management

Construct

Temporary essential services
Erection of the building
Permanent essential services
Building inspection
Snag list
COF – Certificate Of Fitness

Fit-Out

Fit-Out
Builders cleaning
As-Built Drawings

Test & Commissioning

IET – Individual Equipment Test
IPVT/IST – Integrated Performance Verification Test/Integrated Systems Test
Common mistakes with IET/IPVT
Deep cleaning
Exercise: IET/IPVT scripting

Hand-Over

Facility hand-over requirements and documents
PCC – Practical Completion Certificate
DLP – Defect Liability Period
Defect Management
ICT Systems Installation
ICT Systems Testing
Hand-Over/DLP Expiry
FCC – Final Completion Certificate

Retirement

Reasons and definitions of retirement
Building the business case and project plan
Sequencing
Transfer of site
Demolishing of site
Legal matters
FCC – Final Completion Certificate

Delivery Structure and Methods

The CDCE^® course is lectured by an EPI Certified Instructor using a combination of lectures and question-and-answer sessions to discuss participants’ specific needs and issues experienced in their own environment. The CDCE^® course is approximately 60% hands-on and 40% lecture. Participants are able to tap into the trainer’s extensive experience to enable them to solve practical problems in their current environment, thus adding tremendous value.

CDCE^® course available in the following delivery formats:

ILT – Instructor Led Training
VILT – Virtual ILT

Exam

Exam: Certified Data Centre Expert (CDCE^®)

The CDCE^® exam is in two parts: Part A is a 90-minute closed book exam, with 60 multiple-choice questions. For Part A, the candidate requires a minimum of 45 correct answers to pass the exam. Part B is a 90-minute closed book exam, with 25 open questions. For Part B the candidate needs to obtain a minimum of 75% to pass.

Certification & Accreditation

CDCE^® is world-wide accredited by EXIN.

Attendees who pass the exam will be awarded the internationally accredited and recognised ‘Certified Data Centre Expert’ certificate (CDCE^®).

The CDCE^® certificate is valid for 3 years, after which recertification is required. Please see the EPI Recertification Program for available options.

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CDCE Resources