HCE-3700 exam contents - Hitachi Vantara Certified Expert - Performance Architect Updated: 2024

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The charts below show your cumulative results based on all tests taken to date, in addition to how well you performed on each individual test. Click on the test number to review a snapshot of how you fared in each board category and subtopic for that individual test, in addition to how well you performed compared to your colleagues.

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Soaring demand for low-impact, energy-efficient technologies is far from the only megatrend which Proterial is addressing. The company makes products for many of the technologies integral to the Fourth Industrial Revolution, from robotics and 3D printing to artificial intelligence.

Take factory automation as an example. Proterial makes high-performance magnets, linear motors and cables for the industrial robots that are helping industry deal with a global labor shortage. Using its materials know-how, Proterial has created uniquely flex-resistant cables for the moving parts of robots which have the capability to withstand repeated bending and twisting that is part and parcel of machines performing complex tasks at superhuman speeds.

Nowhere is the same combination of durability and reliability more crucial than in aerospace, where lives are at stake. Here, Proterial has deployed its metallurgical mastery to create structural components for landing gear that can withstand repetitive heavy loads, and for aero-engines that can withstand high-temperature, high-pressure combustion gasses and high-speed revolutions. As the pandemic recedes and air travel gets back to normal, demand is starting to take off.

Coming back to Earth, we live in a world where electronic devices such as smartphones and tablets permeate our lives 24/7. Here too, Proterial has a crucial role to play, creating materials for the metal masks of organic electroluminescent displays, and clad metals that help reduce the thickness, weight and number of components in mobile devices, making them more portable and user-friendly.

All students participating in a Master of Science or Doctor of Philosophy degree program must complete a thesis or dissertation proposal for approval by the members of the student's steering committee. The major professor and each of the graduate steering committee members must approve the proposal using the Graduate School's proposal approval form. MS thesis proposals should generally be completed two semesters prior to defense of the thesis; PhD dissertation proposals must be completed to achieve candidacy (in concert or in parallel with the candidacy examination process). Each Department/Program may have requirements that exceed those specified broadly in this policy; however, they must be consistent with the Graduate School's requirements. Departmental requirements beyond the minimum stated here must be specified in writing and submitted to the Graduate School as well as listed in departmental web pages. It is the responsibility of the student to be aware of, and comply with, all Graduate School and Departmental dissertation proposal requirements.

The objectives of this examination are to confirm the student's breadth and depth of knowledge in their chosen field of study as well as the student's understanding of the scientific process. The doctoral candidacy examination should be administered upon completion of the majority of coursework, and successful completion of the exam signifies readiness to undertake the research and dissertation component of the doctoral program. This examination must be taken within three years from the first date of matriculation, and at least one year prior to the dissertation defense.

Upon the recommendation of the appropriate Department Chairperson, the Associate Provost for Instruction and Office of the Graduate School appoints the doctoral candidacy examination committee consisting of the student's major professor, the student's steering committee and an additional faculty member from an appropriate area. Additionally, the Associate Provost for Instruction and Office of the Graduate School appoints a committee chair who is not from the department of the student's degree program. The role of the examination committee chair is to manage the examination, ensure its integrity and represent the interests of the faculty and student.

The examination must have both written and oral components, described below.

Written Examination

The purpose of the written exam is to assess the readiness of the student to move beyond the coursework stage of the doctoral program, into the development of a substantial research project and dissertation. Traditionally, questioning should verify sufficient breadth and depth of knowledge to successfully undertake such research, and then communicate the results in a scholarly manner appropriate to the discipline.

To initiate the examination process, the examining committee shall convene at a planning meeting with the student. During the first part of the planning meeting, the committee determines the form and schedule for the process and establishes the date for the oral component (reported on form 6E). The student is then excused from the meeting and the committee develops and discusses the exam content. There are three alternative forms for the written component, as follows:

• Form 1: Each member of the committee (excluding the chair) submits one distinct question, set of questions, or problem related to the objectives of the exam. The questions are discussed and agreed upon at the planning meeting. The major professor administers the written examination. Typically, each question or set of questions must be completed within a prescribed period of time, not to exceed approximately 8 hours each, with additional time permitted for reasonable breaks, meals, etc.. No more than one question or set of questions should be administered per 24 hours. Upon completion by the student, the examination questions are reviewed and graded by the committee members who prepared them. The committee then collectively reviews the entire examination.

• Form 2: The student prepares a written report on a topic or problem assigned collectively by the examining committee as a whole. The topic or problem must meet the objectives of the examination and its content cannot be directly related to the student's dissertation research topic. The student has approximately one month to develop a thorough understanding of the assigned topic and prepare a written report. The report is reviewed by the committee members and committee chair.

• Form 3: The student prepares and defends a written proposal of future research likely to be carried out during their Ph.D. project. This research prospectus must be presented to the examining committee two weeks prior to the oral candidacy exam and should include preliminary studies supporting the feasibility of the proposed research. The exam will test the candidate's understanding of concepts directly related to his or her immediate area of research, knowledge of prior related research that has been conducted by others, their ability to design and interpret experiments in this area, and capacity to think and write independently and to present work plans orally in a clear and rational manner. The report is reviewed by the committee members and committee chair. Form 3 is available only to doctoral students in the Department of Chemistry and Environmental Resources Engineering.

At least 3 business days prior to the oral exam, the major professor shall confirm with the chair of the examining committee that the oral examination should proceed as scheduled. The written exam is thus considered to be "provisionally successful." If the written examination component does not meet the standards established for the candidacy exam, the committee has two options.

1. If the deficiencies are relatively minor, or in the case of Form 1, limited to a minority of the written questions, the oral exam may be postponed by the Office of the Graduate School at the recommendation of the chair of the exam committee. The student may then be provided with an additional time period, the length of which should be determined by the full examination committee in consultation with the chair, to address deficiencies identified in the written examination. This time period should be no less than 8 hours (typically for Form 1), and may extend up to 5 business days for Forms 2 and 3. This action is treated as a suspension and extension of the written exam "in progress," and, if ultimately successful, does not constitute a failure of the entire exam, nor count toward the limited number of attempts prescribed by Graduate School policy below.

2. If the deficiencies are severe, the major professor, in consultation with the examination committee may decide to fail the candidate without performing the oral component. This latter action does constitute a failure of the candidacy exam in its entirety, and does count toward the limited number of attempts prescribed by Graduate School policy below.

Oral Examination

The purpose of the oral examination is to further confirm the fitness of the student to apply the skills and knowledge acquired to date toward a successful and significant research project. The oral examination provides the opportunity for the student to demonstrate their ability to think synthetically and critically in a manner conveying their readiness to commence the dissertation project.

The oral component of the candidacy examination is typically scheduled for a period of approximately two hours, and is broken in to two distinct rounds of questioning. The first round, lasting approximately 60 minutes, consists of questions from each of the members of the examination committee, including the chair should they choose to contribute questions. Time should be shared equitably among the questioners, with interjections or interruptions by other questioners prohibited during the first round. The second round of questions may be more flexibly structured, with broader discussion and interchange among questioners is encouraged.

Any member of the faculty may be a silent observer for the oral component. The candidate may also invite a silent student observer to attend the oral examination. At the completion of the oral examination, the candidate and observers are excused from the room and the examination committee determines whether the student has successfully completed the oral component of the exam and achieved the status of "doctoral candidate." The committee chair has the option to vote. Unanimous agreement is required to pass the student on the first attempt. If less than unanimous agreement is reached, the student is considered to have failed the first candidacy examination. A student who fails the first candidacy exam may request a second exam, which must take place no more than one year from the date of the first examination. The second candidacy examination may, or may not include a new written component, at the discretion of the student's major professor and examination committee, in consultation with the examination chair. At the second exam, the student has passed if there is not more than one negative vote. A student who is determined to have failed the second candidacy examination is terminated from the doctoral program.

Scheduling the Candidacy Exam

To schedule a doctoral candidacy examination, the student should complete the following steps:

1. In consultation with your major professor, complete Form 6B for your Department Chairperson to review, sign, and forward to the Office of Instruction and Graduate Studies. Form 6B should be submitted according to the academic year deadlines for defense exams.

2. The Associate Provost for Instruction and Office of the Graduate School will assign a faculty member outside of your degree program to serve as chair of your examination committee. When you receive a copy of Form 6C which officially appoints your examination committee, you must consult with all members of your committee (major professor, steering committee, additional examiner, and defense chair) to arrange a mutually convenient date, time, and location for a planning meeting.

3. You must inform the Office of Instruction and Graduate Studies of the agreed upon date, time, and location for your planning meeting at least two weeks in advance of the date. This Office will confirm in Form 6D these arrangements with all concerned individuals.

4. At the planning meeting, your exam chair and the committee complete Form 6E, the committee chair will sign it and return it to the Office of Instruction and Graduate Studies, which will distribute copies to you and the committee.

5. If you are using Form 1 of the examination, you and your major professor should arrange for a time and location to administer the questions.

6. The last step is to meet with your committee and complete the oral examination at the designated date. At the end of the oral examination, your committee will ask you and any observers to leave the room while it determines if you have satisfactorily completed the doctoral candidacy examination. You will be invited back to receive the decision of the committee which will also be reported on Form 6F and returned by the exam chair to the Office of Instruction and Graduate Studies.

The core function of a VPN is to hide a user’s real IP address while keeping data safe. Both CyberGhost and ExpressVPN achieve this goal. While both VPNs share some commonalities, they each have unique features.

Encryption

VPNs encrypt user data by passing it through encryption tunnels to turn readable information into scrambled ciphertext that can only be understood if someone has the corresponding key. This process is important to the added security VPNs bring to customers and depending on the encryption technique used, it can make or break the security capabilities of a given VPN.

CyberGhost and ExpressVPN use AES-256 encryption—the gold standard for VPN encryption—because it is nearly uncrackable with current technology. Both VPNs also employ ChaCha20 encryption in their lightweight VPN protocols as it provides a significant increase in speed without sacrificing security.

VPN Protocols

When your device makes a connection to a VPN server, it does so based on a set of instructions to ensure speed, privacy and stability. These instructions are called VPN protocols and they can affect performance as much as they do security. Using a safe and fast VPN protocol is important for VPNs looking for an edge in the market.

CyberGhost and ExpressVPN both use OpenVPN and IKEv2 protocols, which are reliable and have their uses for different scenarios. OpenVPN is known to excel in security and its open-source nature allows its code to be monitored by savvy users to identify bugs or exploits. IKEv2 is primarily used on mobile phones or on devices that constantly switch networks and it provides decent security but much faster speed.

Users looking to maximize speed in their VPN usage have the option of the Lightway protocol with ExpressVPN or the open-source WireGuard protocol with CyberGhost. ExpressVPN created Lightway which offers similar speeds as WireGuard but with added security.

Lightway also supports obfuscation which can mask VPN usage and make it easier to bypass VPN blocking from companies or governments—giving ExpressVPN an advantage over CyberGhost for streaming or users in regions, such as China, where using VPNs are forbidden.

DNS Blocking

DNS blocking software is used by both ExpressVPN and CyberGhost to block known IP addresses that contain malware, trackers and ads. ExpressVPN users gain access to the Threat Manager tool for domain name server (DNS) blocking as long as they are on Android, iOS, Mac, Linux or using the ExpressVPN Aircove router. CyberGhost customers can activate the “block content” feature within security settings to block ads and malware. This feature is available only on MacOS, Windows, Android and the CyberGhost private browser.

Antivirus

CyberGhost provides Windows users with full access to Intego Antivirus software, which comes with all the features you would expect in a premium antivirus solution. Combined with the aforementioned DNS blocker, users could potentially treat CyberGhost as a full security solution which could be cost-effective for individuals or small businesses looking to beef up security at a competitive price—given they are on the Windows platform.

Kill Switch

Whenever an internet connection is interrupted, most devices or PCs are programmed to reestablish a connection automatically. This becomes a problem for VPN users if a VPN connection gets disrupted and the device decides to connect to an unencrypted source, possibly exposing your data and identity. This occurrence is known as a DNS leak.

Kill switches are designed to prevent DNS leaks by cutting your internet connection completely when your VPN connection drops until the VPN-protected connection is available again. CyberGhost and ExpressVPN each provide kill switches and also have built-in DNS leak protection.

The Virtual Storage Platform 5000 comes stocked with a full suite of data storage services as well as a new AI platform, the Hitachi Ops Center, to help simplify management and orchestration of storage on-premises and in the cloud.

Hitachi Vantara Wednesday unveiled the Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform 5000 series storage arrays and threw down the gauntlet at other storage vendors by calling it the fastest, highest-capacity and most reliable storage array on the planet.

The VSP 5000, previously code-named Project Jupiter, was introduced on stage during the opening of the Hitachi Next 2019 conference, held this week in Las Vegas.

It is the fastest NVMe array on the planet, said Dan McConnell, senior vice president of product management for enterprise infrastructure at Hitachi Vantara.

[Related: HPE Steals Major Storage Market Share, Dell EMC Still On Top: IDC]

"How fast is it?" McConnell said. "An industry-leading 21 million IOPS. Capable of sub-70-microsecond latencies, the VSP 5000 can accelerate any workload."

The VSP 5000 is also the most scalable NVMe array, and can be configured from two controllers to 12 controllers and over 69 petabytes of capacity, McConnell said. "That's over eight times [that] of our competitors," he said.

It also has a strong emphasis on reliability. McConnell said the VSP 5000 can provide eight nines, or 99.999999 percent, availability.

"So if you're keeping score, that's the biggest, that's the fastest, and that's the most reliable," he said. "That's one heck of a combination."

The VSP 5000 is aimed at businesses looking to find a way to keep up with the growth of their data and data lakes but do not have the resources to deal with the growing complexity to manage that growth, McConnell said.

"We don't think you have to sacrifice choice for complexity," he said. "At Hitachi, our approach to an intelligent core is unique, and is based on being flexible to meet the demands of all workloads with no trade-offs. AI-driven to drive simplicity, efficiency and reliability. Orchestrated to intelligently manage copies and data movement, both on-prem and off. And transformative, enabling our customers to get more from their existing assets. The VSP 5000 is designed to enable our customers to leverage the technologies that they need without trade-offs."

To do so, Hitachi designed a new architecture, the Hitachi Accelerated Fabric, which McConnell said is an innovative design leveraging FPGA (field programmable gate array) acceleration for maximum performance with maximum flexibility.

"Customers can take advantage of the high-performance, low-latency NVMe technologies like flash or SCM (storage class memory), as well as taking advantage of the lowest dollar-per-Gbyte of spinning media," he said. "We know you have a variety of workloads, from bulk data to high performance, from legacy applications to cloud-native applications, and all points in between. With full support and integration in a container and virtualization environments, as well as pulling forward support for mainframes, the VSP 5000 can ensure you can consolidate any workload from mainframe to containers."

The VSP 5000 can also orchestrate copies and data mobility on-premises with what McConnell called "drag and drop simple" integrated copy data management capabilities. It is also cloud-connected, with the ability to seamlessly tier file and object workloads to the cloud, with a variety of cloud-based software integration including management integration with Amazon Web Services, he said.

Hitachi Vantara has also integrated its patented AI engine to give the VSP 5000 root cause analysis, predictive recommended remediation actions, and AI-assisted resource placement and balancing and forecasting, McConnell said.

The VSP 5000's smart dedupe optimizer provides up to 7:1 total data reduction, McConnell said.

"What's smart about it?" he said. "It looks at the data streams in real time to determine whether to leverage in-line or post-process deduplication algorithm, giving you maximum efficiency with maximum performance."

The virtualization capabilities of the VSP 5000 let customers leverage its advanced data services across existing storage infrastructure to drive higher return on existing assets to, for instance, provide an NVMe layer on existing storage or use the smart dedupe capabilities to free up capacity, McConnell said.

With the VSP 5000, Hitachi Vantara also introduced the VSP Cloud Connect Pack, which adds an HNAS 4000 file storage gateway to move data to public clouds.

Also new is the Hitachi Ops Center, which is aimed at helping customers build an autonomous data center by applying AI to infrastructure management, as well as the Hitachi Storage Virtualization Operating System, the software behind the VSP 5000 that lets customers mix NVMe and SAS flash media in the same system and bridge to the latest storage technologies including storage class memory and NVMe over Fabrics, or NVMe-oF.

The VSP 5000 is an exciting offering, said Joe Kadlec, vice president and senior partner at Consiliant Technologies, an Irvine, Calif.-based solution provider and longtime Hitachi Vantara channel partner.

"Hitachi has leap-frogged in technology on all fronts, including performance, scalability and reliability," Kadlec told CRN. "It scales from two nodes to 12 with up to 69 petabytes of capacity, while claiming eight nines of reliability and a quadruple redundant fabric. This covers every area customers are looking to address."

The focus on the VSP 5000 seems to be on ease of use, Kadlec said. For instance, customers will be able to fold their existing infrastructure under the VSP 5000 to take advantage of NVMe while continuing to leverage their previous investments.

"Now customers don't have to worry about workloads," he said. "Today, customer workloads are all over the map, but can be managed with the VSP 5000."

Hitachi Vantara impressed Kadlec with its live demonstration of the Hitachi Ops Center.

"What resonated with me was how it can automate and simplify the management," he said. "It can analyze the data, and the automation will let businesses do a lot more with their data. This takes complexity out of the market."

The VSP 5000 is currently available.

Dylan Martin contributed to this story.