Mcsa o365

Entmta

Does anyone know anything about this cert? I see the key technologies are 365, Exchange, Skype and SharePoint. It looks fairly interesting. Is it considered a cloud cert in the same vein as AWS or Azure? Or is it more in the lines of a "traditional" server certification? Not exactly interested in cloud in a devops role but this seems to me this isn't exactly that. Thkughts, opinions?

Entmta

Sorry for bad grammar, etc, typing it out on my phone.

Chinook

Sure do.

It's a few years old but the training material on it was terrible until recently. Things are constantly changing O365 so it takes some real practical labbing.

I won't comment on the exam but KNOW YOUR POWERSHELL.

I think this compliments Azure a great deal. This is also a great MCSA for the enterprise as many companies are moving toward O365. It was primary the realm of the SMB until recently. Good stuff.

UncleB

I'm studying this at the moment as a new role I took on uses it extensively.

The MCSA page is here:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/learning/mcsa-office365-certification.aspx
exams are:

70-346 Managing Office 365 Identities and Requirements
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/learning/exam-70-346.aspx

70-347 Enabling Office 365 Services
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/learning/exam-70-347.aspx

From the training material I've seen so far these are pretty lightweight exams compared to some of the server ones or Azure, but I'm used to using this stuff so my perspective would be very different to someone coming in without any experience.

The CBT Nuggets video training for 70-346 for example is only a few hours long - most other Microsoft exams are several times this at least.

It skims over the material as it is more of an overview and would certainly not qualify you as a support specialist in the subject. In this light I would think it is a useful one to have to give a broader knowledge, but you would benefit from covering one of the subject areas in much more depth through something like one of these courses:
Microsoft Office Specialist
70-533 Implementing Microsoft Azure Infrastructure Solutions
70-345 Designing and Deploying Microsoft Exchange Server 2016
70-339 Managing Microsoft SharePoint Server 2016

Just my thoughts on it - hope it helps.

Entmta

Thanks everyone for the replies! It sounds like I may get more ROI from the MCSA in Server 2012 or 2016 then? Relatively short term goals, I plan on getting my MCSA in Windows 10.

UncleB

your ROI is very much going to depend on the following:
1 - what you want to work with in your career
2 - what is available for you to work with in your job
3 - whether you are willing to make changes to go after a role that lets you use your new skill set

Most companies won't hire you just because you have the qualifications - they want experience which is why point 2 is relevant here.

urstuffplz1

Are you working with Office 365 now? If not, there is no point going for the MCSA in it at this moment until you get some hands-on experience with the product, and have a requirement for the certification. If you are, then how much do you have to do?

I passed the MCSA fairly quickly, but I have a vast amount of Office 365 experience and found the exams very straight forward compared to the server ones. As UncleB said, the exams are more of an overview of the product and different component rather than making you a true specialist in Office 365.