Alternatives to 70-412

powerfool

I see more folks here passing exams and even completing their MCSA on Windows Server 2012 [R2]. Good work to all of those folks. I am still preparing for my upgrade exam and will not be doing the three exam course (70-410, 70-411, and 70-412, but rather just 70-417). That being said, I have seen some folks talk about the difficultly of 70-412 or even desire to do the Office 365 MCSA (especially if considering MCSE Messaging, Communications, or Collaboration). The Office 365 MCSA can entirely substitute the MCSA on Windows Server 2012, if you are going down that road. However, you can even substitute other exams for just the 70-412.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/learning/mcsa-windows-server-certification.aspx

According to this page, under "Additional Options", you can substitute 70-346 (the first of the two MCSA Office 365 exams), 70-409 (Server Virtualization with Windows Serer Hyper-V and Systems Center), or 70-462 (Administering SQL Server 2012 Databases).

So, this gives you some additional routes that you can take. If I weren't doing the upgrade exam, I would have probably opted to substitute the 70-346 for 70-412 as I intend to eventually do the MCSA Office 365, anyhow. This makes it so I would only have one additional exam to accomplish that, 70-347.

Others have commented that having the Office 365 material in your back pocket also helps with the Exchange exams (and if so, would likely help with Lync and Sharepoint). As I have not sat the Office 365 exams, I can't know for certain, but there were Office 365 related questions in my Exchange exams and will be some in my remaining Lync exam.

Hope that helps.

gespenstern

Thanks for information and good luck with your 417. I passed mine in May 2014 after failing once. Got exactly 700 points on one section of this exam so I barely passed lol. Incredibly tough and exhausting exam and that's me who's there since NT 3.51 and has tons of Microsoft infrastructure exp.

Looking forward for "Passed 70-417" thread from you, let's see how much time and effort will it take in your case.

powerfool

I am having issues focusing on it due to work, so I have competing priorities... trying to study for 70-417, but I have Skype for Business Online work that mostly applies to study for 70-337, but not entirely. I am all over the place. My biggest time crunch is for 70-337 now, as I have to get that before the end of March. I was trying to do 70-417 before the end of Second Shot, but that didn't happen.

gespenstern

Well, don't worry about second shot. They tend to reintroduce second shot back almost every year.

powerfool

gespenstern wrote: »

Well, don't worry about second shot. They tend to reintroduce second shot back almost every year.

Yeah, I am not really worried about it now. One, I got student status re-verified, so I can get the discounted exams. Two, I have been doing fairly well, thus far. I think what I use Second Shot for is to go into the first exam without much in terms of expectations; I don't do exhaustive study and if I fail, I have at least seen the content. Now that I am doing Lync/SfB, I don't have quite as much experience there, so I am doing more up front study.