Passed 70-743!

Title says it all. Took the 70-743 (Upgrade to Server 2016) at Ignite and passed with a 708.

I won't lie, I was not as prepared as I should have been for this and really depended on my "testing experience" to help me through it. However, that being said I knew more than I thought.

Prep Materials
1. Pluralsight Videos. I watched all of the section for the 70-740 and a few for the 70-741. Unfortunately, most of the stuff isn't finished yet.

2. Server 2016 Inside and Out (https://www.amazon.com/Windows-Server-Inside-Current-Service/dp/1509302484). I read about half of this and was finding most of the content to be a little shorter than the 2012R2 version. I would honestly recommend reading the 2012R2 version first and then picking some of the new/what's changed stuff and focusing on that.

3. Technet/Microsoft Docs - If you didn't know, Technet is being retired, slowly. Content is being moved to docs.microsoft.com and new content is being published there. Read the "What's New" page (https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/get-started/what-s-new-in-windows-server-2016) and focus on a lot of that. However, it isn't going to be comprehensive - DNS is missing, for example.
What's New in DNS: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/networking/dns/what-s-new-in-dns-server
RAS: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/remote/remote-access/remote-access

4. Marius Sandbu Blog - exam 70-743, studyguide 70-743 | Marius Sandbu - Covers a lot of the major hitting points for the upgrade. Helped me a ton.

Gotchas/What I saw:
1. IPAM is still a thing. WHY IS IPAM STILL A THING?! Know your RBAC for IPAM.
2. AD FS/Web Application Proxy - Always tricky stuff, know it.
3. Constrained Delegation - Know when to use it and what is expected.
4. SDN - Microsoft is SUPER proud of this one and trying to rub our faces in it. I didn't put much into this one but it came up.
5. Powershell, Powershell, Powershell. Lots of new Powershell cmdlets. Get used to them, learn them, and know them.
6. Know about Containers, docker, and how to set them up.
7. Know how to create Nano Images.

Good luck those of you looking into it. This was an interesting test and I still plan to study some of the content moving forward.

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Comments

Pseudonym

Nice! Well done.

aaronchristenson

Good job. I thought about taking an exam at Ignite but after taking a practice test, I was not ready. Nice to see that we can use a 40% code for a few months.

djrabes

Well done!

I cannot say how important point 5 is. Luckily its quite simple to single out the wrong cmdlets. Got to admit the 2016 upgrade was A LOT better than the Server 2012 exams I done previously.

greg9891

Congrats!

clarkincnet

Congrats!

Bill2nice

congrats!! what exam are you doing for MCSE?

relegated

Why did you upgrade your MCSA? From my understanding it is one exam to upgrade or also one exam to get MCSE?

poolmanjim

@Bill2Nice:
I already have an MCSE. I got it earlier this year. Since MCSE is bound to the year you take it and not so much to a technology, there isn't a lot of sense in recertifying in the same year. That being said, in a year or two I'll probably go for the 70-744 to keep current.

@Relegated:
Yeah. It is one exam to upgrade from MCSA 2012 to MCSA 2016.

There isn't an upgrade path for MCSE. You only need to pass one test for an MCSE but there isn't an upgrade necessarily. You can re-certify for the MCSE yearly now and that is still only one test.

exam24

I have passed my mcsa exam 70-743 with 800 with the study material from it-pruefungen.de. It has the materials in english and also in geman.

backtracker

Congratulations on the achievement! I can imagine the cumulative single upgrade exam is quite a challenge.

aaronchristenson

this is a **** site. ban please