Active directory course?

EMT760

I was wondering if a course like MTA Window Servers Adminstration 98-365 would be good to put on a resume? I currently have a A+ and experience working as a desktop support tech Tier II at a school district. Eventually, my goals would be to get a N+ or a CCNA as I'd like to get into the networking side. I looked around on Indeed and some jobs are accepting the MTA certs. For me I just need more experience with active directory and administration to expand my skills.

shochan

You might just beef up your home system & create some server VM's (Virtualbox) (you can download trial versions of Server - like 180 day license)...then see if you can find some tutorials online at Udemy, YouTube, and even Microsoft Learning website (lots of free stuff out there) & select the IT Pro link & you will see a Server icon.

Hopefully this helps - Cheers & Hi5!

poolmanjim

Note: Previously I included some bogus exam information. That has been removed and updated.

I have had a couple of people tell me that they have seen MTA on a job description before, but I have never seen it. If you have worked with Windows any time at all, you'll probably know most of what an MTA would cover. The rest can be picked up with some careful labbing and some studying. I'm afraid the MTA covers AD more from a theory level and not any useful level, from what I can see at least.

If you are really interested in learning AD, pick up one of the exam books that covers AD. The 70-410 (Server 2012), the 70-640 (Server 200 and the 70-742 (Server 2016) all cover it in one way or another. Be warned though, with the exception of the 70-410 all these books go way deeper into AD than you may be prepared for. They will cover some of the deep and complicated topics about AD. Focus on the chapters about AD Domain Services proper and you'll get cover what most companies are going to be using day-to-day. Consider the "Server 2016 Inside and Out" book which has a decent section on AD (kind of an overview) as an alternative to a specific exam reference book.

Shochan mentioned virtualbox, which will work great. If you have Windows 8.1 Pro or Windows 10 Pro, you can actually install Hyper-V on your Windows device and use it as a Hypervisor instead of virtualbox. Download a free trial of Windows Server (180 days + 90 if you are clever) and you'll be able to start churning away at it. As a quick note too, that is 180 days per install. If you reinstall Windows you get another 180 days. Pretty nice if you are learning and not running a prod environment.

As a final note: You mentioned you want to get into CCNA/Networking type work. Active Directory isn't the most in-demand skill for networking. You'll want to know some basics as most IT roles overlap some, but you don't need to know how to administer AD on any deep level. I just don't feel that the MTA covers enough AD to qualify as any amount of AD training, but that is just my opinion.

Phalanx

70-740 doesn't covery very much AD at all I'm afraid. I just passed the exam, not one AD question. The reference book is about Installation, Storage and Compute. If you want to learn AD with 2016, I would suggest 70-742. I've done the MTA in question, and it's a good starting point. I feel better having done that, even with my own AD experience, that I came out with more than I knew going in.

poolmanjim

My bad. My mind swapped the 70-640 and 70-410. The 410 did cover some basic AD stuff. I have edited my original post.

A straight up AD Exam like the 70-742 is going to cover more detailed topics than the basics. Its the capstone exam for the MCSA 2016. Its going to touch on AD FS, AD RMS, AD CS, Trusts, Constrained Delegation, etc. Looking at the MTA stuff it is 20-25% AD and its all theory based AD stuff. I don't know if recommending the 742 is the best call but it is certainly more helpful than my suggestion of a non-AD exam.

Rather than mince over which curriculum is the best for it here are a couple of links that may provide some help.
Understanding Active Directory: https://mva.microsoft.com/en-us/training-courses/understanding-active-directory-8233?l=aErw3QJy_6904984382
AD for Beginners P1: https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/ashwinexchange/2012/12/18/understanding-active-directory-for-beginners-part-1/

EMT760

poolmanjim wrote: »

Note: Previously I included some bogus exam information. That has been removed and updated.

I have had a couple of people tell me that they have seen MTA on a job description before, but I have never seen it. If you have worked with Windows any time at all, you'll probably know most of what an MTA would cover. The rest can be picked up with some careful labbing and some studying. I'm afraid the MTA covers AD more from a theory level and not any useful level, from what I can see at least.

If you are really interested in learning AD, pick up one of the exam books that covers AD. The 70-410 (Server 2012), the 70-640 (Server 200 and the 70-742 (Server 2016) all cover it in one way or another. Be warned though, with the exception of the 70-410 all these books go way deeper into AD than you may be prepared for. They will cover some of the deep and complicated topics about AD. Focus on the chapters about AD Domain Services proper and you'll get cover what most companies are going to be using day-to-day. Consider the "Server 2016 Inside and Out" book which has a decent section on AD (kind of an overview) as an alternative to a specific exam reference book.

Shochan mentioned virtualbox, which will work great. If you have Windows 8.1 Pro or Windows 10 Pro, you can actually install Hyper-V on your Windows device and use it as a Hypervisor instead of virtualbox. Download a free trial of Windows Server (180 days + 90 if you are clever) and you'll be able to start churning away at it. As a quick note too, that is 180 days per install. If you reinstall Windows you get another 180 days. Pretty nice if you are learning and not running a prod environment.

As a final note: You mentioned you want to get into CCNA/Networking type work. Active Directory isn't the most in-demand skill for networking. You'll want to know some basics as most IT roles overlap some, but you don't need to know how to administer AD on any deep level. I just don't feel that the MTA covers enough AD to qualify as any amount of AD training, but that is just my opinion.

Understood. Thanks for the response. This is what I found from the MTA course.
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/learning/exam-98-365.aspx


"

• Understand accounts and groups
  • Domain accounts, local accounts, user profiles, computer accounts, group types, default groups, group scopes, group nesting, understand AGDLP and AGUDLP processes to help implement nesting
• Understand organizational units and containers
  • Purpose of OUs, purpose of containers, delegation, default containers, uses for different container objects, default hidden and visible containers
• Understand Active Directory infrastructure
  • Domain controllers. forests, child domains, operation master roles, domain vs. workgroup, trust relationships, functional levels, namespace, sites, replication, schema
• Understand group policy
  • Group policy processing, Group Policy Management Console, computer policies, user policies, local policies"