Certification is a way or a process that helps a company to have and establish credibility of their product in terms of quality and standards set by the certifying authority. There are different types of certifications done and provided by certifying authorities like VMware, Citrix, Microsoft etc. Storage or Virtualization companies who wish to opt for getting their storage arrays, hardwares certified need to subscribe with any of the certifying partners. Once they subscribe for the same, they need to fill in their profile information. The certifying partners validate the profile information. As this process is done the storage or virtualization companies can configure their hardware, storage arrays accordingly. Certifications are available and can be done in and for NAS, SAN, FC, iSCSI, Hyper-V protocols and many more. The storage arrays need to be setup according to the protocols that they want to get certified for and for the primitives that their storage arrays or hardwares support. It is of utmost importance to choose the correct set of hardware while undergoing the certification program. The actual hardwares that are to be used during the certification program have to be listed on the certifying partners’ website. Eg: VMware has something called Hardware Compatibility list (HCL) that lists down the most recent, and relevant hardwares & their versions that can be used for the certification program.
Based on the readiness of the test setup and according to the test setup done, the certifying team needs to execute the verified tests. They also need to carry out some basic tests which can be termed as Sanity tests that just check the compatibility part. Once these tests are done and are successfully passed, the certifying team can then go ahead for the rest of the tests that need to be executed. These tests are predefined and based on the primitives and protocols that were chosen to help the companies know what tests are to be executed and their type. These tests are executed from a test suite referred to as Workbench, Certification kit. etc .Once the test execution is complete, the certifying team needs to submit evidences of test cases execution in form of logs, screenshots and test results to the certifying authority.
If the tests fail then the certifying authority may ask the certifying team to re-run/re-execute the test. In case there is an issue from the certifying authority’s side the certifying team may make exceptions or waivers for such tests. Once the activities are completed the product gets listed on the certifying authority’s website and is accredited with logs like VMware ready, Citrix ready etc
Certification helps storage and virtualization companies to gain the end user’s confidence for their products and catch more eye balls thus helping the business to grow.
[Certification for Storage or Virtualization Companies ~ via @CalsoftInc”]
