Certified Software Diagnostics Professional

There are hundreds of individuals and companies who attended our memory dump analysis training sessions or bought training courses directly from us. There are even more who bought them in paperback format from bookstores or read online from content providers.

We now offer a certification in pattern-oriented software diagnostics for software technical support and escalation engineers, software engineers and quality assurance engineers with the following assessment areas:

  • pattern-oriented memory dump analysis
  • pattern-oriented software trace and log analysis

The focus is on unintentional software behaviour such related to crashes, resource consumption (CPU, memory leaks), and hangs. For intentional software behaviour there is Memory Forensics Professional certification under development. The Windows track tests the ability to recognise patterns using the following analysis tools: WinDbg from Microsoft Debugging Tools for Windows and Process Monitor.

The certification has the following features:

  • Two-factor certification:
    1. The first phase is based on real software execution artefacts, not on questions
    2. The second phase involves questions about analysis results to assess understanding
  • Each certificate has its own verifiable CID (Certificate ID)
  • Each assessment score transcript has its unique PID.TID (Performance ID and Transcript ID)
  • Each candidate gets a set of unique memory dumps and software traces
  • Evaluation by individual and overall exam group performance (when there is a sufficient number of candidates and may be postponed initially until the right group size)
  • Second free attempt after one month if the applicant does not pass an assessment

How it is done: after payment, we prepare unique set of memory dumps and software logs together with the short problem descriptions. The preparation may take from two days to a week based on the number of applicants. Then we send these execution artefacts. There is a week to prepare an analysis report. We then evaluate it and ask additional questions during next week. Then we send the final score report. We send the certificate only the applicant recognises 75% of patterns and provides an explanation. The whole certification process may take up to three weeks. An applicant can try again after a month with a new set of memory dumps and traces.

Price: 123 USD (including VAT).

Study materials: Accelerated Windows Memory Dump Analysis (base); Accelerated .NET Memory Dump Analysis(optional); Accelerated Windows Software Trace Analysis (optional). “Optional” means that if patterns from optional courses are identified this may improve overall score especially if the base course score is below acceptance.

Please use the contact form to enroll.