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Exam Information
Official specifications published by Dell
Exam Format
Registration
Skills this practice test covers
- Compare traditional IT with digital IT and name the impediments to IT transformation.
- Plan a cloud service from first concept to end of life, including its finances.
- Shape a cloud-native organization with the culture, governance and risk controls it needs.
- Compare hybrid clouds with multi-clouds and plan how services integrate across them.
- Apply infrastructure as code, value stream mapping and twelve-factor principles to cloud services.
- Develop data protection and disaster recovery strategies for cloud services.
Explore related topics
D-CS-DS-23 exam content
7 domains · 27 topics · 200 questions
Transforming Traditional IT to Digital IT20 questions
This domain explains why organizations change how IT works. Candidates describe the need for IT transformation, common transformation initiatives, and the approaches and impediments that decide whether a change succeeds.
Skills tested
- Explain the business reasons that push an organization toward IT transformation.
- Describe common IT transformation initiatives and what each one changes.
- Identify the impediments that slow a transformation, and approaches that get past them.
Questions by topic
- IT transformation initiatives5
- Impediments to IT transformation8
- Traditional IT vs Digital IT3
- Holistic Cloud Transformation Strategy4
Cloud Services Lifecycle and Management26 questions
Here candidates plan a cloud service and manage it over its life. The domain covers planning and design considerations, lifecycle and management considerations, and the financial planning that funds the service.
Skills tested
- List the planning and design questions to settle before a cloud service is built.
- Manage a service through its lifecycle, from design and launch to change and end of life.
- Compare CapEx and OpEx funding, and explain showback and chargeback.
Questions by topic
- Financial Planning10
- Cloud services planning and design considerations7
- Cloud service lifecycle and management considerations8
- Cloud Operating Model Components1
Workforce Transformation for Cloud Services29 questions
This domain is about people. Candidates describe how to build a cloud-native organization, the cultural changes it requires, and the governance and risk management that keep it under control.
Skills tested
- Describe team structures for a cloud-native organization, such as cross-functional and platform teams.
- Explain the cultural changes cloud services need, such as collaboration across silos and continuous learning.
- Set governance policies and manage the risks of cloud adoption.
Questions by topic
- Building a cloud-native organization12
- Governance and risk management9
- Cultural transformations8
Multi-cloud Strategy for Cloud Services24 questions
This domain compares ways to use more than one cloud. Candidates describe and compare hybrid clouds and multi-clouds, give their benefits and use cases, and apply best practices for multi-cloud integration.
Skills tested
- Tell a hybrid cloud apart from a multi-cloud.
- Match multi-cloud benefits to business use cases.
- Apply best practices when integrating services across several clouds.
Questions by topic
- Compare hybrid clouds and multi-clouds6
- Considerations for multi-cloud integration12
- Benefits and use cases of multi-clouds6
Cloud Services Operating Model42 questions
The largest domain covers how IT runs once services move to the cloud. Candidates compare traditional and digital IT, describe the cloud operating model and cloud product development, and explain infrastructure as code and value stream mapping.
Skills tested
- Compare traditional IT and digital IT in how they deliver and fund services.
- Describe the parts of a cloud operating model, such as a service catalog and self-service.
- Explain product thinking in cloud product development, compared with one-off projects.
- Describe infrastructure as code with tools such as Terraform and Ansible.
- Map a value stream to find delays and waste in service delivery.
Questions by topic
- Infrastructure as Code (IaC)11
- Value Stream Mapping13
- Holistic Cloud Transformation Strategy2
- Cloud Operating Model Components8
- Traditional IT vs Digital IT2
- Cloud product development considerations6
Cloud-native Applications40 questions
This domain covers building and running applications for the cloud. Candidates weigh approaches to modernizing traditional applications, describe cloud-native technologies, apply the twelve-factor principles, and deploy and manage apps across hybrid clouds and multi-clouds.
Skills tested
- Weigh the benefits and challenges of modernizing a traditional application.
- Choose among rehosting, replatforming and refactoring for an application.
- Describe microservices, containers and Kubernetes as cloud-native building blocks.
- Spot which twelve-factor principle a design breaks, such as config stored in code.
- Plan how to deploy and manage cloud-native apps across clouds.
Questions by topic
- Twelve-Factor App Principles20
- Application Modernization10
- Deploying and managing cloud-native apps4
- Cloud-native Technologies6
Business Resiliency Support for Cloud Services19 questions
This domain keeps cloud services running through failures. Candidates describe business resiliency and development considerations, and develop data protection and disaster recovery strategies.
Skills tested
- Describe business resiliency considerations for cloud services.
- Develop a data protection strategy for data held across clouds.
- Develop a disaster recovery strategy with recovery point and recovery time objectives.
Questions by topic
- Business resiliency and development considerations6
- Data protection strategy6
- Disaster recovery strategy7
Requirements
- No formal prerequisites: anyone can book the exam.
- Recommended: hands-on experience with cloud services and knowledge of cloud architectures.
- Recommended: an understanding of IT transformation concepts and DevOps practices.
- Recommended, not required: a foundation-level cloud exam such as Cloud Infrastructure and Services Foundations.
About the D-CS-DS-23 exam
Cloud architects take D-CS-DS-23 to show they can plan, design and manage cloud services from first concept to end of life. Besides technology, it covers the people, governance and financial side, such as workforce change, operating models and funding. Every objective asks the candidate to describe or develop an approach, not to configure a product. Passing earns the Dell Cloud Services Design 2023 certification, which does not expire.
Cloud Services Operating Model is the largest domain, and it has the most questions in the PlanetCert practice test, many on value stream mapping and infrastructure as code. The twelve-factor principles take a large share of the cloud-native questions, and the explanations show which factor a scenario breaks. Flashcard Mode suits pairs that sound alike, such as hybrid cloud and multi-cloud, or showback and chargeback. Brainy AI Assistant can explain how a value stream map exposes waiting time, or why keeping config in code breaks a twelve-factor rule.
How to earn the certification
- Earns
- Dell Cloud Services Design 2023Professional
The certification does not expire.
- Before
- D-CIS-FN-01 Cloud Infrastructure and Services Foundations
Dell's foundation-level cloud exam. It is recommended before this exam, but not required.
- D-CIS-FN-01 Cloud Infrastructure and Services Foundations
How to prepare for D-CS-DS-23
- 1
Turn each objective into a question
Dell's exam description lists one line per objective, and nearly all start with Describe. Rewrite each line as a question, such as 'What is value stream mapping for?', and answer it in plain sentences.
- 2
Map one real value stream
Pick a process such as ordering a virtual machine. Draw every step and wait from request to delivery, then mark where automation or self-service would cut time. The operating model domain carries the most weight.
- 3
Learn the twelve factors by failure
Write each twelve-factor principle next to a design that breaks it, such as a password stored in the code. The practice test asks many questions of this kind.
- 4
Compare the paired concepts
Build a table of hybrid cloud and multi-cloud, CapEx and OpEx, showback and chargeback, and rehost and refactor. Knowing which side of each pair fits a scenario rules out wrong answers quickly.
- 5
Sit a timed run, then review
Take the D-CS-DS-23 practice test in Timed Mode, then sort the missed questions by domain. Ask Brainy AI Assistant to restate any objective that still feels abstract, with a business example.
Start a timed D-CS-DS-23run
Dell recommends its on-demand Cloud Services Management course (ESOCMD03118) for this exam.
Who D-CS-DS-23 is for
- Cloud architects who design an organization's cloud services and decide how they are run.
- IT managers and transformation leaders who plan the move to cloud services.
- Technical consultants who advise organizations on multi-cloud and cloud-native strategy.
Typical job titles: Cloud architect · Cloud services designer · Cloud solutions architect · Technical consultant · IT manager
D-CS-DS-23 glossary
18 terms from the exam objectives and the vendor's official material, each defined in a sentence.
- CapEx
- Capital expenditure: up-front spending on assets, such as buying data center hardware.
- Chargeback
- Billing each business unit for the cloud services it actually uses.
- Cloud operating model
- How an IT organization runs cloud services: its people, processes, tools and funding, such as a service catalog and self-service ordering.
- DevOps
- A way of working that joins development and operations teams around shared goals and automated delivery.
- Digital IT
- IT that delivers services on demand through self-service and automation, in contrast to traditional IT built on manual, ticket-driven work.
- Hybrid cloud
- A setup that joins a private cloud with one or more public clouds, so workloads and data can move between them.
- Infrastructure as Code (IaC)
- Defining servers, networks and settings in files that tools such as Terraform or Ansible apply automatically, the same way every time.
- Microservices
- An application design built from small, independent services that are deployed and scaled one by one.
- Multi-cloud
- Using cloud services from more than one provider under one strategy.
- OpEx
- Operating expenditure: ongoing spending, such as monthly fees for cloud services.
- Refactor
- Changing an application's code and structure so that it can use cloud-native features.
- Rehost
- Moving an application to the cloud with few or no changes to its code.
- RPO
- Recovery point objective: the most data, measured as time, that a business accepts to lose in an outage.
- RTO
- Recovery time objective: the longest time a service may be down before it must run again.
- Service catalog
- The list of cloud services that users can order, often through a self-service portal.
- Showback
- Reporting each team's cloud use and cost back to it, without billing the team.
- Twelve-Factor App
- A set of twelve principles for cloud-native apps, such as storing config in the environment and running the app as stateless processes.
- Value stream mapping
- A lean method that draws every step from a request to its delivery, so delays and waste become visible and can be removed.