70-463 - anyone written it?

RHONEDOG

One left to MCSA - who here has written 70-463 and how did they do? I have the book on its way from amazon - should be here in about a week. I'm gonna do my usual read the book, try out anything I haven't done before in a lab, then practice tests. I'm strangely nervous - maybe because this is where my interests actually lie?

DatabaseHead

Failed the first time, set to take it on the 15th.

RHONEDOG

Obviously still respecting the NDA, any study tips?

RHONEDOG

Also, I thought this one would be easier for me than 462 because I've done a bunch of SSIS and SSAS stuff before. I have to say, the DQS stuff is all new. Hoping once I install and play with it a bit, it gets less daunting

DatabaseHead

Haven't taken 462 yet, from what everyone has said on here, it seems to be the easiest of the 3.

461 is a weed out exam, most can't get passed that one. 463, is on par with 461 maybe a tick more difficult because of all the new tools available that quite frankly I don't use or need to use for my packages or tabular/cubes/mining structures.

I studied for 3 weeks about 5 hours a week and missed it by a 100 or so. This time I am mission focused and plan on knocking it out.

I wouldn't worry to much to be honest, keep with your routine and don't second guess yourself, you got this.

If memory serves me correctly lots of questions in regards to script task when to use them etc. Obviously some questions in regards to containers and configurations. Script components where on there as well.

Hope I am not breaking the NDA, just trying to be helpful.

DatabaseHead

Rhone

Just curious do you build time series forecast solutions in SSAS?

If so how to you handle forecast that go crazy, such as one's that get divisor by 0 errors and/or NaN/infinity?

Thanks

RHONEDOG

In short... I haven't!

I work for a company that's rather primitive in data needs. We got bought by an investment group last year and it's getting more sophisticated, but we're still not there. I work for a manufacturing company, and most of the reporting I do is vs plan (labour usage, production attainment, sales) or vs same year prior period. We're getting closer to having some of these discussions, especially when it comes to PPV for our raw materials, but we aren't there. It's been a good place to learn the basics.

EagerDinosaur

I bought the MS book, which I think is reasonably good. I installed all the SQL Server components on my PC, which was quite a challenge because this exam covers a lot of components I never use in my day job. Then I worked through the book. I think I focused mainly on SSIS and data warehouse design. It's important to try out all of the SSIS features. Some of the components (DQS, MDS) felt a bit like 3rd party products that hadn't been fully integrated into SQL Server yet, so I found those quite difficult to learn.

RHONEDOG

I wish I'd ordered the book earlier. Or paid for faster shipping. Chomping at bit here!

DatabaseHead

@ Rhonedog sorry for the late reply. Thanks for chiming in, I was just curious, in my day to day I was hoping there was a transformation that would help manage SSAS Output from time series predictions, currently I use the Excel flat file task to manage the NaN's. It works but......

Back to the exam. I found this book helpful (SQL Server 2008 Integration Services Book), but spent most of my time using the CBT Nuggets. Maybe that is why I failed the exam.

*Failed to mention my environment. We have a staging environment with 2012 BI edition and SSDT. I can build packages, mining structures, cubes etc till I am blue in the face.

Currently I am wrapping up a time series forecast for ~3,900 products which is using ARIMA, ARTXP and MIXED to forecast out 4 quarters. This is for volume.

I am also building out pricing / spend mining structures for other price points as well. Eventually we will look into forecasting new product launches. By the end of 2017 I should have the VERY least 4 SSAS/SSIS projects deployed and operationalized.

*I ended up going to a second handstore and purchased SQL Server 2008 Integration Services Book from WROX. It was 9.99 and has a lot of useful information. With my wife not working at the moment I am on a tight budget.

Back to studying myself!

RHONEDOG

Wahoo! The book arrived! I have the Christmas - NY week off, hoping I can dig in and fill my brains

and 9.99 is a good deal on that book - just make sure you watch the prep video and cover the "new" stuff they mention online - MDS, DQS, project vs package abilities are three that leap into my head right now.

RHONEDOG

I had a fair bit of time to read and play over the break. Scheduled to write next Thursday!