What was the HP2-K38 exam?
HP2-K38 was “Selling HP Enterprise Storage Solutions and Services,” a web-based sales exam in HP’s ExpertONE certification program. According to HP’s own exam datacard, it ran 1 hour 15 minutes, contained 40 questions, and required a 60 percent passing score. It was aimed at HP channel and distributor partners, sales representatives, and presales consultants with at least one year of experience with HP storage products. The exam is retired and can no longer be taken.
This Was a Sales Exam, Not a Technical One
That distinction matters more than it might seem, and it is the thing most third-party listings get wrong.
HP’s ExpertONE program used two broad exam code families. HP0 codes were generally proctored technical exams sitting in the AIS, ASE, and Master ASE tiers. HP2 codes, including this one, were web-based exams, and many of them certified sales and presales capability rather than hands-on implementation skill.
HP’s datacard for HP2-K38 is explicit about the audience: HP channel and distributor attended partners, sales representatives, and presales consultants who want to understand how to better sell HP enterprise storage solutions and services to their customers. The stated experience expectation was at least one year working with HP storage products and services, and the datacard notes candidates were expected to have experience selling those solutions, not merely to have completed the associated training course.
If you hold this credential, you are holding evidence of commercial capability in enterprise storage, not evidence that you configured arrays. Presenting it accurately means describing it as a sales certification.
The Exam Format, From HP’s Own Datacard
HP’s archived exam datacard records the following:
- Exam type: web-based online exam used in certifications
- Duration: 1 hour 15 minutes
- Length: 40 questions
- Passing score: 60 percent
- Question types: matching, multiple choice with multiple responses, and multiple choice with a single response
- Delivery languages: Brazilian Portuguese, Castilian Spanish, English, Simplified Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Russian, French, and German
The nine delivery languages are worth noting. This was a global channel enablement exam, built for HP’s worldwide partner network rather than for a niche technical audience.
The datacard also carries a caution that applies to any certification: successful completion of the training alone does not guarantee a pass, because exam items are based on knowledge gained from on-the-job experience as well as from training.
Why This Certification Disappeared
Two things ended it.
The product portfolio changed. Sales certifications are tied tightly to a specific product lineup, far more so than architectural or conceptual credentials. When the storage portfolio a sales exam covers is refreshed, renamed, or discontinued, the exam’s content stops being accurate and the credential is retired rather than updated indefinitely.
Hewlett-Packard split. On November 1, 2015, the company separated into HP Inc. and Hewlett Packard Enterprise. Enterprise storage, along with servers, networking, and the enterprise certification program, went to HPE. Credentials tied to the pre-split ExpertONE portfolios were largely retired rather than carried across into HPE’s restructured program.
Unlike some vendors, HPE does not publish a consolidated document listing retired exams with their retirement dates and named replacements. That is why a specific retirement date for HP2-K38 is not stated here: HP’s original exam pages are no longer published, and no authoritative source records one.
What This Credential Is Worth Today
As a current certification, nothing. It cannot be verified as active and satisfies no present-day partner requirement.
As evidence of channel experience, something real. Sales certifications are often undervalued by technical readers, but in the channel they meant something specific: HP required partner staff to hold current certifications to maintain partner status and access to programs. Holding HP2-K38 indicates you worked inside that partner ecosystem during that period.
The transferable substance is commercial rather than technical. Understanding how enterprise storage is positioned and sold, how a presales conversation runs, and how storage solutions map to customer requirements is durable knowledge. The specific product families in the 2014 HP storage lineup are not.
How to present it. On a CV, name it accurately and give it a year: “HP2-K38, Selling HP Enterprise Storage Solutions and Services, 2014, retired.” Better still, put the capability in an experience bullet where it does real work, describing the presales or channel storage work you actually did. A retired sales exam code on its own communicates very little to a reader who does not know HP’s coding scheme, which is most readers.
Do not present it as a technical storage credential. Anyone familiar with the ExpertONE program will know the difference, and the misrepresentation is unnecessary because the genuine commercial experience is worth stating plainly.
Where a Storage Sales Background Leads Now
HPE runs current certification tracks organised around present-day portfolios, and the partner and sales enablement structure still exists in updated form. If you are still working in the HPE channel, current partner requirements are set by HPE’s partner program rather than by anything that carries over from ExpertONE, so check those directly.
If you have moved on, the honest assessment is that a storage sales credential from this era is not worth recertifying for its own sake. The value you carry forward is the commercial capability, and that is evidenced better by results than by a retired exam code.
For anyone whose work moved toward cloud infrastructure sales, the vendor-specific storage knowledge from that period matters less than understanding consumption models, since the commercial conversation shifted substantially from capital purchases of arrays toward subscription and consumption pricing.
A Note on Researching This Exam
If you search for HP2-K38, most results will be exam dump sites offering question banks. Those sites frequently misstate what an exam covered, and several describe HP2 series exams inaccurately.
The details on this page come from HP’s own ExpertONE exam datacard, preserved in the Internet Archive. Where HP’s documentation does not survive, this page says so rather than repeating third-party claims. That is the standard worth applying to any retired certification you are researching: prefer the vendor’s own surviving documentation, and treat unsourced exam descriptions with suspicion.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I still take HP2-K38? No. The exam is retired and no longer available.
Was HP2-K38 a technical certification? No. HP’s datacard describes it as a web-based exam for channel partners, sales representatives, and presales consultants, testing knowledge of selling enterprise storage solutions and services.
What was the passing score? 60 percent, on a 40-question exam with a 1 hour 15 minute duration, per HP’s exam datacard.
When exactly did it retire? No authoritative retirement date is published. HPE does not maintain a public retired-exams list equivalent to those some other vendors publish, and HP’s original exam pages are no longer online.
Is there a direct replacement? No named replacement is documented. HPE’s current partner and certification structure was rebuilt after the November 1, 2015 company split, and current requirements should be verified directly with HPE.
References
HP. ExpertONE Exam Datacard: HP2-K38, Selling HP Enterprise Storage Solutions and Services. HP ExpertONE, archived October 2015. https://web.archive.org/web/20150914233155/http://h10120.www1.hp.com/expertone/datacard/Exam/HP2-K38 (Primary source for exam type, duration, question count, passing score, question types, delivery languages, audience, and experience expectations)
HP. ASE Server Integrator Certification Change. HP ExpertONE, archived April 2015. https://web.archive.org/web/20150406233944/http://h10120.www1.hp.com/expertone/ASE-ServerIntCertChanges.html (Primary source documenting how HP handled certification version transitions, including automatic grants to existing holders)
Hewlett Packard Enterprise. HPE Certification and Learning. https://certification-learning.hpe.com/ (Current HPE certification tracks and requirements)