Which Elective

col24

I am unsure of what elective to choose from for my MCSE 2003.

I am intrested in doing either exchange 2003 (70-284) or ISA 2006 (70-351).

Would the exchange exam be more beneficial than ISA due to more companies using it or is security a better one to go for due to the up and coming security threats?

Any suggestions would be welcome.

mgeorge

Security+ can be used as an elective for MCSE 2003, and you get 2 certs from going that route.

But over all, the more benificial route would probably be exchange.

HeroPsycho

If you're just now getting certified, why not go for Exchange 2007? Less companies are using it, but even less people know how to admin it or are certified.

And yes, without a doubt, if you're choosing between ISA or Exchange, go for Exchange. Exchange is at this point the de facto messaging server on the market. I love ISA, am certified in 2004 and 2006, but honestly, it's not very commonly used.

And yes, 70-236 does apply as an elective for MCSE 2003...

http://www.microsoft.com/learning/mcp/mcse/windows2003/default.mspx

famosbrown

col24 wrote:

I am unsure of what elective to choose from for my MCSE 2003.

I am intrested in doing either exchange 2003 (70-284) or ISA 2006 (70-351).

Would the exchange exam be more beneficial than ISA due to more companies using it or is security a better one to go for due to the up and coming security threats?

Any suggestions would be welcome.

Yep...go Exchange Server 2003. There are SO many Sys Admins that don't really know how to administer a Messaging Environment. Messaging is almost breaking away from the normal titles of Systems/Networking Administrator/Engineers and being called Messaging Administrators/Engineers. Learn Exchange 2003 as it is mostly used and will be mostly used for a while (due to Exchange Server 2007 hardware requirements) and it will be a good start to learning Exchange 2007.

I've never been in an environment using ISA, nor do I know of anyone working in an environment using ISA.

sprkymrk

famosbrown wrote:

I've never been in an environment using ISA, nor do I know of anyone working in an environment using ISA.

That's what happens to those of us in the DoD environment with products not on the "Approved" list. We never get to use them, and we never come in contact with others who use them.

Really, ISA 2000/2004/2006 has a pretty decent sized user base. Mostly ISA 2004. Nothing like ASA/PIX/Checkpoint, but still decent sized and growing steadily.

famosbrown

sprkymrk wrote:

famosbrown wrote:

I've never been in an environment using ISA, nor do I know of anyone working in an environment using ISA.

That's what happens to those of us in the DoD environment with products not on the "Approved" list. We never get to use them, and we never come in contact with others who use them.

Really, ISA 2000/2004/2006 has a pretty decent sized user base. Mostly ISA 2004. Nothing like ASA/PIX/Checkpoint, but still decent sized and growing steadily.

Totally understand . I haven't seen it in either government or private. I'm going back to DOD soon actually. Are you a 2210? Have you converted to NSPS yet?

sprkymrk

famosbrown wrote:

Totally understand . I haven't seen it in either government or private. I'm going back to DOD soon actually. Are you a 2210? Have you converted to NSPS yet?

I've seen and administered ISA in a few private businesses, though that was a while back with ISA 2000.

And you'll have to forgive my acronym ignorance - I only speak English even though I work as a DoD contractor.

Not sure what 2210 or NSPS is.

famosbrown

sprkymrk wrote:

famosbrown wrote:

Totally understand . I haven't seen it in either government or private. I'm going back to DOD soon actually. Are you a 2210? Have you converted to NSPS yet?

I've seen and administered ISA in a few private businesses, though that was a while back with ISA 2000.

And you'll have to forgive my acronym ignorance - I only speak English even though I work as a DoD contractor.

Not sure what 2210 or NSPS is.

LOL! Okay, totally understand. That's the best response I've gotten back from that!! Well...DOD is adopting a new pay system called NSPS and some positions have already been affected. It's basically paid for performance with minimums and maximum pay ranges for a position. 2210 is usually the GS Classification of Information Technology workers under the Special Pay rate scale for GS employees. NSPS is replacing the GS Pay scale completely. There is a big uproar and fight to keep the GS pay scale. You are in good shape and won't have to worry about the mess since you are contracting. I just went back to DOD, but I'm under the GS system. I'm actually looking forward to NSPS as I can gain more by performance and wouldn't have to worry about time in grade or any other promotion hindering factor that the GS system has.

sprkymrk

Paid for performance ? Wow, we'll be saving trillions based on some of the ding-dongs I know in Gov't IT positions. Does averaging 90% or higher in freecell count as good performance? How about running a private business while on the clock using DoD equipment such as copy, fax, phone, and email? Is that good multi tasking performance? Sudoku, personal email correspondence, e-greeting cards to loved ones, long lunch breaks, multiple smoke breaks, wander-around-and-chat breaks, etc. Geez, perormance based pay scale? What are they thinking? :P

famosbrown

sprkymrk wrote:

Paid for performance ? Wow, we'll be saving trillions based on some of the ding-dongs I know in Gov't IT positions. Does averaging 90% or higher in freecell count as good performance? How about running a private business while on the clock using DoD equipment such as copy, fax, phone, and email? Is that good multi tasking performance? Sudoku, personal email correspondence, e-greeting cards to loved ones, long lunch breaks, multiple smoke breaks, wander-around-and-chat breaks, etc. Geez, perormance based pay scale? What are they thinking? :P

LOL...yep! It has already begun. Not many I.T. employees yet except supervisors. The majority of the new DOD postings will be NSPS for I.T. I think it will be a good thing to reward the hard workers that produce. The only downside is that now the hundreds of thousand supervisors have the power to say yay or nay on bonuses and raises, so you have to trust that the Government "Cliques" are broken up and people aren't rewarded because of other reasons except work related performance and metrics. We shall see!!

sprkymrk

famosbrown wrote:

The only downside is that now the hundreds of thousand supervisors have the power to say yay or nay on bonuses and raises, so you have to trust that the Government "Cliques" are broken up and people aren't rewarded because of other reasons except work related performance and metrics. We shall see!!

Ouch! Overall though, it might be a good way to weed out the under achievers.

famosbrown

sprkymrk wrote:

Ouch! Overall though, it might be a good way to weed out the under achievers.

Yep...and it has already began, LOL. There are a lot of people either jumping ship to other government agencies or simply retiring.