Passed 411 today

Hi, i passed the 411 today after doing the 410 a couple of months back. It was definitely the harder of the 2. I'm going to be straight onto the 412 now. Does anyone know how the 412 compares compared the the other 2?
Also after I've finally done them all and got the MCSA, what types of jobs should i be applying for? I've got a degree in computer science and the CCNA to. At the moment i'm working 2nd line for a very big company in the UK but they don't pay particularly well.
Thanks

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greg9891

Congrats!what were your study methods?

Congrats!

Congrats.

Congrats!

First of all congratulations!

As for how the 412 compares with the 410 and 411, I can't comment because I opted for the 409 instead seeing as how most of the objectives outlined on the 412 didn't really fit with what I currently do or plan on doing in the future, and since I'm more interested in virtualization and currently in the process of trying to virtualize more of my infrastructure at my current company, I felt it more pertinent to do the 409 instead. I have heard from others on this forum though that the 412 is the hardest of the 3 exams but I can't say for sure since I've never sat for it.

As for jobs you can apply for, seeing as how you'll have the MCSA AND CCNA, you'll have opened yourself up to a wide variety of job opportunities. The MCSA for Server 2012 prepares you for work doing System Administration type work, while the CCNA is more for Network Administration/Technician work. So it really boils down to what you are more interested in doing. Good luck!

Louie1277

Congrats on passing the exam. Im in the process of just studying for the 411. Still need to find some good material to ready.

draker

Congrats! I'm just starting to study for the 411.

What did you use to study?

Also keep in mind, experience goes a long ways. I think you are ready for a sysadmin job, above Jr admin status for sure! The education is certainly impressive.. but there is still a lot to learn from real world experience.

joeswfc

Robbo777 wrote: »

Hi, i passed the 411 today after doing the 410 a couple of months back. It was definitely the harder of the 2. I'm going to be straight onto the 412 now. Does anyone know how the 412 compares compared the the other 2?
Also after I've finally done them all and got the MCSA, what types of jobs should i be applying for? I've got a degree in computer science and the CCNA to. At the moment i'm working 2nd line for a very big company in the UK but they don't pay particularly well.
Thanks

good work passing 411!

I did the 412, but kind of wish I'd have gone with 1 of the other options (either the hyper-v one or office 365). It took me 3 attempts to pass 412, it was the hardest microsoft exam I have done up to now! A lot of the subjects are difficult to lab, ADFS is particularly challenging.
After 412, I went on to exchange MCSE, and found these 2 exams much easier than 412... The mcse exams, especially the 2nd one, are supposed to be more advanced than 412!).

But good luck with 412!

clarkincnet

Congrats!

AvgITGeek

joeswfc wrote: »

good work passing 411!

I did the 412, but kind of wish I'd have gone with 1 of the other options (either the hyper-v one or office 365). It took me 3 attempts to pass 412, it was the hardest microsoft exam I have done up to now! A lot of the subjects are difficult to lab, ADFS is particularly challenging.
After 412, I went on to exchange MCSE, and found these 2 exams much easier than 412... The mcse exams, especially the 2nd one, are supposed to be more advanced than 412!).

But good luck with 412!

Would have any of the replacements helped you in any way? I ask because I'm seriously considering taking 70-462 (SQL 2012/2014 Admin) in place of the 712 simply because I got certified under SQL 7.0 and have worked with it since. In my current job, I'm running into a lot of clients using SQL Server 2008R2 and it seems to fit at the moment. A lot of the content of the 412 is being done without MS technologies in the field. I think I might have answered my own question. I may circle back for the 70-412.

joeswfc

AvgITGeek wrote: »

Would have any of the replacements helped you in any way? I ask because I'm seriously considering taking 70-462 (SQL 2012/2014 Admin) in place of the 712 simply because I got certified under SQL 7.0 and have worked with it since. In my current job, I'm running into a lot of clients using SQL Server 2008R2 and it seems to fit at the moment. A lot of the content of the 412 is being done without MS technologies in the field. I think I might have answered my own question. I may circle back for the 70-412.

It may have helped if I had done the office 365 exam instead, mainly because I am now looking at the office 365 certification and it would have meant doing 1 less exam doing it this way.
It probably also would have been useful looking at the hyper-v exam, a lot of the companies we work for have hyper-v or VMware, so virtualization would help with either of these.

If you are involved in sql currently, it seems a good idea to look into the sql exam instead of 412, then you've got windows server and sql exposure without having to do additional exams or study.

xrilek

Congrats!

I'd also suggest to go down the Hyper-V road unless you MUST take the 412 for whatever reasons.
Just glimpsing over the 412 material gave me a heart-attack! I found the 74-409 more enjoyable to study and easier to absorb plus you walk away with 2 certs at the end of the day. And of course difficulty wise was easier compared to 410 and 411.

Dakinggamer87

Congrats!!

AvgITGeek

Thanks for that. I'm probably going to go SQL/Hyper-V. Clients are all over the place at the moment.

poolmanjim

I'm little late to the party here but I thought I would toss in some of my 412 experience. The 412 was hands down the hardest exam in the MCSA track for me. The objectives it covers are all over the place and weren't exactly easy to lab. Additionally, there were holes, in my opinion, in what was being tested for and what showed up on the actual test.

All of that being said, the 412 is a rewarding exam. While the 74-409 may be easier from what I am hearing there are some topics covered in the 70-412 that are important to the roles being being filled and the expectations of MCSAs these days. With more and more companies leverging services like Azure, AWS, and things like Office 365 and other federated services the AD FS material for the 412 will at least help make sense of some of the work that may end up crossing your plate. The detailed iSCSI portions apply directly to integrating your environments with SANs and even if you don't use Microsoft iSCSI, understanding some storage technologies is beneficial to doing the job of an MCSA. Knowing the ins and outs of doing AD trusts is important as more and more organizations of medium to large size are deploying multiple forests to isolate different environments (e.g. Regular environment and PCI Environment for example).

Don't think I'm slamming the 74-409. Hyper-V is a huge competitor and depending on who you ask has overshadowed VMWare on features (I know the VMWare guys will argue this, I'm not picking fights.

). Understanding virtualization is essential to modern computing and even if you are in a VMWare shop, Hyper-V is huge. However, the 410 exam does cover, at least the basics, of Hyper-V. The 409 brings in SCVMM which a lot of smaller/medium sized companies haven't implemented which, in my opinion, somewhat makes the 412 outshine the 409 as far as skills taught. Both exams cover clustering which is all but unavaidable these days. Again, not slamming on the 409. It is a valid test with a valid skill set and I don't think anyone with the 409 over the 412 will struggle so much, but it may require some work to understand AD FS or some of the oddities that show up in the 412.

As a last and final point of my wordy response, If you plan to go on to get an MCSE with the 413 or 414 exams, both of these rely heavily on the content taught to you in the 412.

draker

I believe this month is the last month the 413 and 414 will count towards the MCSE.

Can anyone confirm?

poolmanjim

As far as I know the 413 and 414 are around for awhile. The MCSE Server Infrastructure certification is going away and being replaced with MCSE Cloud and Server Infrastructure. The new format for MCSEs only requires a single exam to acquie the MCSE and both the 413 and 414 are listed among those exams' ranks.

Neither exam is listed on the exam expiration page:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/learning/retired-certification-exams.aspx

New MCSE Information
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/learning/mcse-cloud-platform-infrastructure.aspx#cp-step2-content

draker

Good point! Thanks for posting that. I knew there were some changes.. but I'm a long ways from even looking at the 413 or 414!

AvgITGeek

poolmanjim has a point. There is some stuff on the 412 that you should at least have some knowledge on. Clustering, CAs etc. I'm only going the SQL route because of my client base and I will be circling back for the 412 afterwards now that I'm not writing queries on a daily basis. The 461 can wait.

It's amazing how much can change in such a little time when you switch jobs.

AndersonSmith

I always love reading Poolmanjim's posts because he always gets it spot on! I can say about the 409 is that it does cover a few of the objectives from the 412 such as Failover Clustering and VM Movement, however it does lack a lot of the other "higher level" administrative functions covered in the 409.

One thing I will say is that when I was doing my own research about which exam to take, I found that as far as applying for jobs goes, it seemed to me that very few employers even asked specifically which MCSA exams were taken. I have a couple of people I know personally who applied for System Admin jobs with their MCSAs being a major factor in the hiring decision and they weren't even asked which of the 3 exams they took to fulfill the certification requirements. That's not to say it would never happen but it's just something I thought was worth noting. You could/should do your own research in the area you're expecting to look for employment to see what employers in your area are requiring.

Another thing I'll add is that it seems to me that it really might not matter as much which exam you take to finish your MCSA requirements if you're willing to take the extra time to learn the objectives from the other(s). For example, I finished my MCSA by taking the 409 because I was more interested in Virtualization and it fit my current job role better than the 412. However, after I completed my MCSA I went back and learned a lot of the things covered in the 412 "just in case". You could always do the opposite of this as well and take the 412 but then learn the objectives of the 409. Just something I thought I'd throw in there anyway.

At the end of the day it's ultimately up to you and what you feel the most comfortable with/what you'll enjoy the most. I'm a huge advocate of loving what you do so do what makes you the happiest. Good luck in whatever you decide to do!

poolmanjim

I agree Anderson, no one often asks what tests you took. If you have a passion for this work you won't be content for long with the material in one test over another. In this case, I saw my career moving towards the content in the 412 whereas I know others found the content in 409 to be more important. When it comes down to it: the core content in 410 and 411 are the general knowledge nearly every IT guy will need to know. Everything else depends on what your job entails. I think it is important, as you said you did, to explore the content in the other exams over time as there is going to be a day when its going to come up.

It is advisable, in my opinion, to at least make sure you are familiar with a handful of solutions and how they work before sitting down for a interview. For example, if your interviewer start asking about 365 and you don't know anything about it - even on a surface level - it can look bad. Explore the technologies over time. Make sure you at least know a few of the keywords.

Ultimately, what exam you take to capstone your MCSA is very much a personal choice. They all have reasons for existing and if Microsoft didn't think they were all equal, they wouldn't be there.