CCAE-Architect Exam Information and Outline
Cohesity Certified Architect Expert (COH500)
CCAE-Architect Exam Syllabus & Study Guide
Before you start practicing with our exam simulator, it is essential to understand the official CCAE-Architect exam objectives. This course outline serves as your roadmap, breaking down exactly which technical domains and skills will be tested. By reviewing the syllabus, you can identify your strengths and focus your study time on the areas where you need the most improvement.
The information below reflects the latest 2026 course contents as defined by COHESITY. We provide this detailed breakdown to help you align your preparation with the actual exam format, ensuring there are no surprises on test day. Use this outline as a checklist to track your progress as you move through our practice question banks.
Below are complete topics detail with latest syllabus and course outline, that will help you good knowledge about exam objectives and topics that you have to prepare. These contents are covered in questions and answers pool of exam.
Exam Number: COH500 / CCAE
Exam Name: Cohesity Certified Architect Expert
Number of Questions: Not specified (the exam is proctored and adaptive- so the exact count may vary based on performance)
Time Allotted: 90 minutes
Passing Marks: 60% (candidates must achieve at least this score to pass)
Format: Multiple-choice questions- delivered and proctored through a third-party testing organization. Options include onsite testing at designated centers or remote proctoring.
Language: English
- Overview of Cohesity products- technology stack- and common use cases (e.g.- backup- recovery- file services).
- Limitations of Cohesity solutions and when to recommend alternatives or expansions.
- Designing the architecture of the Cohesity DataProtect Platform- including hardware nodes- software-defined storage- and scalability considerations.
- Integration of core components like storage- compute- and networking in on-premises and cloud deployments.
- Cohesity Data Cloud: The unified platform for data management- security- and protection across environments.
- SpanFS: Cohesity's proprietary distributed file system for efficient data storage and deduplication.
- Cohesity DataProtect: The primary backup and recovery solution for protecting virtual- physical- and cloud workloads.
- Cohesity Cloud Services: SaaS-based services for management- analytics- and orchestration in the cloud.
- Nodes and Clusters: Hardware/software building blocks for scaling Cohesity deployments (e.g.- C4000 series nodes).
- Sizing the Cohesity Data Platform using tools and methodologies to match customer requirements (e.g.- capacity planning for TB/PB-scale data).
- Selecting protection techniques (e.g.- continuous replication vs. scheduled backups) for diverse workloads like databases- VMs- and NAS shares.
- Designing comprehensive solutions spanning on-premises- public clouds (AWS- Azure- GCP)- and hybrid environments- including data mobility and orchestration.
- Using Helios for managing clusters in isolated or "dark site" environments (e.g.- air-gapped networks).
- Identifying business problems (e.g.- data silos- ransomware risks) and mapping Cohesity features to solve them- including gap analysis in existing strategies.
- Helios: Cohesity's cloud-based (or self-managed) console for centralized cluster management- monitoring- and analytics.
- Cohesity Replication: Policy-based data replication for disaster recovery and high availability.
- Cohesity CloudArchive: Long-term archival to cloud storage (e.g.- S3-compatible) for compliance and cost optimization.
- Cohesity CloudTier: Automated tiering of data to cloud object storage for secondary backups.
- Cohesity Organizations: Multi-tenancy feature for segregating data and access in shared environments.
- The Cohesity Web Sizing Tool: Online calculator for estimating cluster size based on workload- retention- and growth projections.
- Workloads: Protected entities like VMs (via VMware vSphere)- databases (SQL- Oracle)- or file systems (NFS/SMB).
- Key security features of Cohesity Data Cloud- including encryption- access controls- and threat detection.
- Design considerations for cyber resiliency- such as immutable storage- isolated recovery environments- and rapid restore processes.
- Architecting solutions for threat detection- response- and recovery in enterprise-scale deployments.
- Integrating security with data management (e.g.- locking policies for backups).
- MFA (Multi-Factor Authentication): Layered security for user logins to the Cohesity UI and APIs.
- SSO (Single Sign-On): Integration with identity providers like Okta or Azure AD for seamless access.
- RBAC (Role-Based Access Control): Granular permissions for users and service accounts.
- DataLock: Immutable- WORM (Write Once- Read Many) storage to prevent ransomware tampering.
- Cyber Vaulting: Isolated- air-gapped storage for clean backups.
- Cohesity FortKnox: Secure- logical air-gapped vault for ransomware recovery.
- Cohesity Anomaly Detection: AI/ML-based monitoring for unusual backup patterns indicating threats.
- Cohesity Threat Hunting/Scanning/Detection: Tools for proactive malware scanning and forensic analysis in backups.
- Cohesity Data Classification: Automated tagging and policy application based on data sensitivity (e.g.- PII- PCI compliance).
- Methods for integrating third-party tools (e.g.- orchestration platforms like Ansible- monitoring tools like Splunk).
- Using Cohesity's RESTful API for custom scripts- automations- and workflows (e.g.- automating backup policies).
- Best practices for API authentication- error handling- and scaling integrations.
- Common integrations with hypervisors (VMware- Hyper-V)- cloud providers- and security tools.
- Cohesity API: REST-based interface for programmatic control of clusters- policies- and data operations.
- Third-Party Integrations: Connectors for tools like Veeam (for hybrid backups)- ServiceNow (ticketing)- or SIEM systems (e.g.- Splunk for logging).
- Automation Workflows: Custom scripts using Python or PowerShell via API for tasks like alert notifications or data migration.
- Capturing and analyzing capacity/performance metrics from clusters to assess utilization (as-built vs. as-used) and forecast growth.
- Performing gap analysis on customer data protection strategies (e.g.- identifying single points of failure or compliance risks).
- Using diagnostic tools for pre-deployment checks- health monitoring- and troubleshooting.
- Common troubleshooting scenarios- such as replication failures or performance bottlenecks.
- Siren: Cohesity's diagnostic and health-check tool for cluster validation- pre-install checks- and issue resolution.
- Gap Analysis: Systematic review of current vs. ideal protection strategies- including RTO/RPO (Recovery Time/Time Objective) assessments.
- Capacity Planning: Metrics like IOPS (Input/Output Operations Per Second)- throughput- and deduplication ratios for sizing expansions.
- As-Built vs. As-Used: Comparing designed architecture against actual runtime behavior for optimization.
- Data Management Fundamentals: Deduplication (global reduction of redundant data)- Compression (reducing data size)- Erasure Coding (fault-tolerant storage)- Retention Policies (scheduling data lifecycle).
- Deployment Models: On-Premises (self-hosted clusters)- SaaS (Cohesity-managed cloud)- Hybrid (mix of both).
- Use Cases: Ransomware Recovery- Disaster Recovery (DR)- Dev/Test Environments- Analytics on Backups.
- Compliance and Standards: GDPR- HIPAA- SOC 2 (Cohesity's platform certifications for security controls).
- Performance Metrics: RTO/RPO- Bandwidth Optimization- Parallel Processing for restores.