It is great that the COH100 Cohesity Certified Protection Associate – DataProtect certification exam is available. So professionals have taken notice that Cohesity certifications are available for improving their skills. But do you know Cohesity?

Why Cohesity certifications matter

Cohesity has become a key player in modern data security and data management, especially for organizations protecting workloads across on‑premises and multicloud environments. Cohesity Academy’s certification program is designed to prove that you can deploy, operate, and secure these platforms in real‑world scenarios. Earning these credentials helps you stand out for roles in backup administration, data protection engineering, and cyber‑resilience operations.

How many Cohesity certifications are available

Cohesity organizes its certifications into three levels:

• Associate
• Professional
• Specialist

Each level builds on the skills from the previous one, giving you a clear growth path from day‑to‑day operator to advanced protection and security expert.

Associate Level: building your Cohesity foundation

The Associate level is where most people start. These certifications validate fundamental knowledge of Cohesity Data Cloud and core data‑protection concepts. They are ideal for administrators, operators, and support engineers who work with backups and restores on a regular basis.

Cohesity Certified Protection Associate – DataProtect (COH100)

This certification focuses on Cohesity’s flagship backup and recovery solution, DataProtect. It proves that you understand how to protect workloads using the Cohesity Data Cloud platform.

Key skills you demonstrate:

• Understanding Cohesity Data Cloud architecture, cluster components, storage domains, and views.
• Creating and managing Protection Groups and protection policies for virtual machines, databases, NAS shares, and other workloads.
• Running and monitoring backup jobs, handling job failures, and validating successful protection using SLAs and RPO/RTO concepts.
• Performing restores, including file‑level, VM‑level, and application‑level recovery, while minimizing impact on production systems.
• Using dashboards and reports to track backup health, capacity consumption, and performance.

This is the best starting point if you are new to Cohesity or if your primary responsibility is backup and recovery operations.

Cohesity Certified Protection Associate – Multicloud (COH150)

As more organizations adopt hybrid and multicloud strategies, the Multicloud Associate certification proves you know how to use Cohesity across cloud platforms.

What it focuses on:

• Core multicloud concepts and how Cohesity is deployed in public clouds such as AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud.
• Tiering, archiving, and replicating backup data between on‑premises and cloud environments.
• Using cloud‑native capabilities (for example, protecting cloud VMs or cloud databases) with Cohesity.
• Managing and monitoring distributed Cohesity deployments through SaaS‑based management and policy‑driven automation.

If your company is moving backups to the cloud or running mixed on‑prem and cloud workloads, this certification shows that you can manage protection end‑to‑end in that environment.

Professional Level: advanced deployment and protection expertise

Once you have Associate‑level skills, the Professional level validates your ability to design, implement, and troubleshoot Cohesity‑based solutions at scale. These certifications are more in‑depth and often map to architect, senior engineer, and implementation‑focused roles.

Cohesity Certified Implementation Professional – SmartFiles (COH125)

SmartFiles is Cohesity’s scale‑out file and object solution, used for NAS consolidation, archive storage, and unstructured data services. The Implementation Professional – SmartFiles certification proves that you can plan and deploy these services correctly.

Typical capabilities covered:

• Designing SmartFiles solutions for capacity, performance, and availability requirements.
• Installing and configuring SmartFiles for file and object workloads, including share and export configuration.
• Migrating data from legacy NAS platforms to SmartFiles with minimal downtime.
• Integrating SmartFiles with directory services, security controls, and existing backup strategies.

This certification is especially relevant if your organization is replacing traditional NAS appliances or consolidating unstructured data onto Cohesity.

Protection Professional

Protection Professional is a broader, platform‑wide credential that represents advanced knowledge of Cohesity data‑protection solutions. Compared with the Associate level, it emphasizes architecture, design choices, and complex troubleshooting.

You typically validate skills such as:

• Designing protection architectures for large environments with many workloads and SLAs.
• Optimizing backup performance, scheduling, and resource usage across clusters and locations.
• Implementing advanced workflows, including replication, disaster recovery, and long‑term retention with cloud targets.
• Diagnosing and resolving complex issues involving jobs, infrastructure, or integrations.

This is an excellent certification for senior backup engineers or architects overseeing enterprise‑scale Cohesity deployments. Earn the Protection Associate – DataProtect, Protection Associate – Multicloud, and Implementation Professional – SmartFiles certifications to receive your Cohesity Protection Professional credential, demonstrating your ability to help organizations achieve their data goals.

Cohesity Certified Protection Professional – NetBackup (COH284)

Many enterprises rely on Veritas NetBackup alongside Cohesity. The Protection Professional – NetBackup certification recognizes expertise in environments that combine these technologies.

What it demonstrates:

• Deep understanding of NetBackup architecture and how it integrates with Cohesity for backup storage or protection workflows.
• Configuring and managing backup policies, storage units, and lifecycle rules in NetBackup with Cohesity as a target.
• Troubleshooting job failures, device issues, and performance bottlenecks in NetBackup‑to‑Cohesity setups.
• Implementing best practices for scalability, high availability, and compliance when NetBackup is part of the overall protection strategy.

If you are a NetBackup specialist expanding into Cohesity, this credential directly aligns with your experience.

Cohesity Certified Protection Professional – NetBackup and NetBackup Appliances (COH285)

This certification goes one step further by focusing on NetBackup Appliances in Cohesity‑enabled environments. It is aimed at professionals who deploy and maintain appliance‑based backup infrastructure.

Core responsibilities covered:

• Planning and installing NetBackup Appliances and integrating them with Cohesity solutions.
• Configuring storage, networking, and backup policies on appliance platforms.
• Monitoring and tuning appliance performance for backup and restore workloads.
• Performing hardware and software troubleshooting, including disk issues, connectivity problems, and appliance‑specific errors.

For organizations standardizing on NetBackup Appliances, this certification is a strong differentiator for engineers responsible for infrastructure reliability and performance.

Specialist Level: security and cyber‑resilience focus

At the top of the hierarchy sits the Specialist level, currently represented by a security‑focused credential. This level is about depth in a specific critical domain rather than broad platform coverage.

Cohesity Certified Security Specialist (COH350)

The Security Specialist certification validates advanced skills for securing data on Cohesity and improving your organization’s cyber‑resilience posture. With ransomware and cyberattacks increasingly targeting backup systems, this credential is highly relevant.

Skills you prove with this certification include:

• Implementing Cohesity’s zero‑trust security controls: strong authentication, role‑based access control, least‑privilege administration, and secure auditing.
• Using immutability features, write‑once‑read‑many (WORM) policies, and other safeguards to protect backup data from tampering or deletion.
• Detecting and responding to potential ransomware or anomalous activities using Cohesity’s built‑in security and monitoring capabilities.
• Designing secure backup and recovery architectures that align with organizational governance, compliance, and incident‑response processes.

Security Specialist is a compelling choice if your role spans both backup operations and security operations, or if you are responsible for cyber‑resilience strategy.

How to choose your starting point

If you are planning your Cohesity learning path, here are some practical recommendations:

• New to Cohesity or backup administration: start with Protection Associate – DataProtect, then move to Protection Associate – Multicloud if your environment uses public cloud platforms.
• Focused on file/object consolidation and NAS modernization: aim for Implementation Professional – SmartFiles after completing at least one Associate certification.
• Working as a senior backup architect or engineer: target Protection Professional, and add the NetBackup or NetBackup Appliances professional certifications if those platforms are in your stack.
• Specializing in security and ransomware defense: build a strong protection foundation first, then pursue the Security Specialist certification to formalize your expertise.

By aligning these certifications with your role and career goals, you can create a clear growth path: gain foundational knowledge at the Associate level, deepen implementation and design skills at the Professional level, and finally specialize in high‑impact areas like security. This structure also makes it easy for employers to understand your capabilities and trust you with critical data‑protection responsibilities in Cohesity environments.