EXIN CDCE study guide
EXIN CDCE · Work through your exam, one topic at a time.
The EXIN Certified Data Centre Expert (CDCE) is a vendor-neutral credential in the EXIN data centre certification family, positioned above foundation and professional level. It is aimed at experienced data centre professionals - facility managers, design consultants, operations leads, and engineers moving into decision-making roles - who already understand the fundamentals and need to demonstrate judgement across design, operations, standards, and strategy. Because the certification body's own page for this exam was unavailable at the time of writing, this page deliberately publishes no item count, duration, passing score, fee, or validity period; those parameters change between revisions and must be confirmed against the current official exam description before you book. Preparation should combine the official examination requirements and recommended reading with hands-on experience. The EXIN CDCE study guide has 4 sections and about 1,800 words.
01Data centre design
Domain 1 - Data centre design. In this domain the exam tests whether you can convert a business requirement (availability target, IT load, growth, budget, location) into a coherent facility concept - power topology, cooling architecture, space and cabling, fire suppression and physical security - and then defend the trade-offs numerically.
476 words, about 2 min02Data centre operations and maintenance
Domain 2 - Data centre operations and maintenance. Here the exam tests the operational discipline that preserves the availability the design promised: documented procedures, controlled change, planned and predictive maintenance, monitoring, capacity management, incident and emergency preparedness.
398 words, about 2 min03Data centre standards and compliance
Domain 3 - Data centre standards and compliance. The exam tests two skills: knowing what each standard actually covers, and mapping a client or regulatory requirement to a standard, a class and a piece of evidence.
481 words, about 2 min04Data centre management and strategy
Domain 4 - Data centre management and strategy. The exam tests the commercial and organisational layer: business case, lifecycle governance, sourcing decisions, capacity and refresh planning, SLAs, risk and sustainability reporting.
445 words, about 2 min