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Guidance Needed: Should I pursue SCP SolarWinds Observability Fundamentals or SAM?

Hi All,

I’m planning to take a SolarWinds certification, but I'm a bit confused about the current direction of the program and would appreciate your guidance.

I was originally preparing for the SCP – Server & Application Monitor (SAM) exam. However, I noticed there is also a SolarWinds Observability Self-Hosted / Hybrid Cloud Observability Fundamentals exam and study guide available.

Before I commit to one path, I want to know:

Is SAM scheduled to be retired soon, similar to the NPM/NCM exam retirement notices?
Is the Observability Self-Hosted Fundamentals exam the newer or preferred certification going forward?
For someone mainly working with on-prem infrastructure monitoring (servers, apps, network devices), which exam provides the most relevant and future-proof value?

If anyone has recent experience with these exams or knows SolarWinds’ certification roadmap, I’d really appreciate your advice.

Thanks in advance!

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Accepted answers

All comments

vinay.by

Its totally upto you, but then I would suggest to go with "Observability Self-Hosted" exams rather than the traditional module exams.

rwijesooriya

Hi Vinay, Thanks for the information. Yes, I’m happy to go ahead with the latest exam module. However, my main goal is to deepen my knowledge of Server & Application Monitoring (SAM). From what I understand, the Observability Self-Hosted Fundamentals exam does not focus as deeply on SAM, even though both exams share some common content.

Am I understanding this correctly?