Hello all, my first post here even if I've been lurking the board and learning quite a bit from it. I've scheduled my E20-001 exam for upcoming Wednesday which I hope to pass on first try (fingers crossed!) and i'm already looking forward to what's next.

I'm a Linux SE which started the ISM book to reinforce my storage world knowledge and I eventually fell in love with all the concepts covered which also helped me a lot to better perform on my job and understand better what I was already doing on my infrastructure with the help of the storage guys, for this reason I would like to proceed further in the certification path...

My company is not a customer nor partner with EMC so this restricts my scope for certification so I was wondering if someone could help me out choose the "right" track, as I've mentioned I'm a *nix guy but as a consultant I work more often than not with a wide range of technologies (VMware, Networking etc.) so I can't really make my mind about he right track for me.

Another question would be is it worth/possible to go the self study track for speciality exams? Simply put I don't care much about the certification itself but more about the knowledge I can acquire during study but if I have to be a "paper" tiger I will just give up on further exams and wait for when I will have more chances to get more "hands on" on the various technologies.

Last but not least, is there any e-learning/virtual class offering for courses by EMC? I'm asking as it is usually difficult for me to find a suitable shcedule to attend in person coruses...

Forry for the lenght of the psot but I've tried to give as much information as possible to get the correct answer to my needs.

I will look forward your kind suggestions.

Cheers Daniele.