Passed 70-412 - second attempt
I'll share my experiences with this exam now that it is behind me. I didn't take this test quite as seriously as I should have the first time.
I am coming from a background that was very Microsoft heavy earlier in my career, but added VMware and Storage later on, and have tried to decouple myself from being "Windows Guy" ever since. Last year they fired the Windows admin, and have not replaced him, so I have been picking all of this back up again. So I was at a point where I was very comfortable with Windows 2012 as an operating system and core infrastructure, but I wasn't deep into the Windows platform like I had been years ago, with the exception of immersing myself in Powershell learning to help save time with system maintenance and VM deployments. The last Windows exam I took was nearly 10 years ago. So, I decided it was time to update.
On to the exam. Probably ill advised, but I decided that this was the exam that had all of the services with which I was least familiar, and would be the hardest, so I chose to knock it out first since doubted I would have time to dedicate to it later in the year. My last point of reference on exam toughness was quite a while ago, but this was the hardest Microsoft test I have taken, and one of the hardest overall. The coverage of the different application services and the depth as well as breadth that could be tested here makes it challenging. Many of these services are things that I have completely ignored, none of the companies I have worked for use other vendors for network load balancing, DLP, FCI, backup/restore, hypervisor, etc..., so it was a bit uphill for me.
I went through the exam blueprint and used TechNet and labbing (some self, some on TechNet) to work with the File Services role services, ADFS, ADRMS, Hyper-V, and NLB roles that I hadn't really used in production and at least skimmed over the documentation and got my hands on the GUI for the other areas and thought I was ready. I failed the first time with a score around 680. I had a surprisingly high number of questions on Azure Online Backup. I will tell you, if you haven't used it, you will not likely know the answers to the questions that I was asked. That was probably the difference in passing and failing for me, though I tanked on the Identity/Access section also.
Here is what I did the second time around:
I watched various videos on YouTube. The itfreetraining series on ADFS is great for actually UNDERSTANDING the different bits and pieces and terminology, which I felt like help me retain when I set up my own lab (instead of using the TechNet virtual lab like before) and did as many scenarios as I could.
I labbed up everything again that I thought I struggled with the first time. If I was already proficient in something, then I did as much of it using only powershell/command line (DHCP failover, WSFC, Active Directory, Certificate Services, etc).
I signed up for a free Azure account and played with Online Backup and learned the Powershell for that.
I bought the Transcender practice test and found some more weaknesses.
If you come in with pretty good understanding of Powershell in general, the common verbs and how they are normally used, how the pipeline works, etc, you can often rule out a couple of wrong answers right off the bat, and then it comes down to remembering the nouns that are used for a particular role service. I could see how this could seem daunting for someone with little to no Powershell background. I think taking a primer self-study in just Powershell would be valuable for any aspiring Windows admin at any rate, and would help with this test.
I'll take a short breather, then on to 410.
