Installation, Cabling, and Hardware Replacement Procedures
This domain is procedural. Candidates must know safe handling, ESD control, rack mounting, cabling standards, labeling, and change management. Key concepts: use a wrist strap and grounded mat when handling components; power down and verify before servicing when not hot-swap; follow lockout/tagout for facility power work; and record changes in the ticketing/CMDB system.
Cabling: know structured cabling concepts - patch panels, horizontal vs backbone cabling, bend radius, cable management, and separation of power and data cables to reduce EMI. Fiber requires cleanliness and correct connector types; copper categories have distance limits. Label both ends of every cable and document port mappings. For hardware replacement, identify hot-swap versus cold-swap components (drives, fans, PSUs are often hot-swap; CPUs, memory, and motherboards are not).
Traps: pulling a drive from a RAID array without confirming it is the failed one; replacing a PSU without checking which feed it is on; and skipping documentation so the next technician cannot trace the cable. Also watch for questions that assume all components are hot-swappable.
Worked example / rule of thumb: before replacing a failed drive, confirm the slot via the management controller, verify array status, and only then remove the drive. Rule of thumb: if you did not label it, you did not install it - every cable and every change gets documented.