Server 2008 Virtualization exam code (free) 71-652

Slowhand

snadam wrote:

yea but if I do take this thing on our vacation , my wife would be royally PISSED off....On second thought, let me look at some test centers...

Ah, spoken like a true cert-geek. Well done!

BeaverC32

I've never liked the idea of these beta exams where everybody and their mother takes the exam just because it is free and there is a *chance* they score well enough to get another certification. Personally, I would rather take my time and learn the material properly, and only then sit the exam to prove my knowledge.

Megadeth4168

That sucks! I caught on to this a bit too late apparently. The promotion code has exceeded the maximum blah blah blah.

*sigh* I've been slacking....

Slowhand

Megadeth4168 wrote:

That sucks! I caught on to this a bit too late apparently. The promotion code has exceeded the maximum blah blah blah.

*sigh* I've been slacking....

Don't beat yourself up. You can still get some freebie training for the next test you're going for.

Technomancer wrote:

I am reposting these links from Trinka's blog.

Free Clinic
https://www.microsoftelearning.com/eLearning/courseDetail.aspx?courseId=84700

Course
https://www.microsoftelearning.com/eLearning/courseDetail.aspx?courseId=92459

You can use this link to take the course for free.
http://www.microsoft.com/learning/elearning/free/default.mspx

That promotion code is good for any Microsoft e-Learning course.

JJbiggle

So should one purchase the E-Learning Course?

J

snadam

Megadeth4168 wrote:

That sucks! I caught on to this a bit too late apparently. The promotion code has exceeded the maximum blah blah blah.

*sigh* I've been slacking....

well at least i dont have to worry about a test on vacation.

sthomas

Megadeth4168 wrote:

That sucks! I caught on to this a bit too late apparently. The promotion code has exceeded the maximum blah blah blah.

*sigh* I've been slacking....

I would try again later. That same thing happend to me with one of the Vista beta exams and I tried again a few days later and was able to sign up.

whistler

This would have been a interesting test. But, no Prometric's near enough to me are offering it.

Oh well... definetly something to add to the list.

Thanks OP.

royal

nvm. Please delete!

Megadeth4168

Alright! Promo code is working again!

dynamik

Megadeth4168 wrote:

Alright! Promo code is working again!

Get on it snadam!

Anyone gone through the eLearning yet? I'm almost done, and I'll post my thoughts in a bit.

Technowiz

Worked for me too. Glad they opened it up again! Better sign up while you can!

dynamik

I haven't had a chance to look at these Technet Videos yet, but I figured I'd through them out there before I forget.

Server Core Hyper-V Prereqs: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/windowsserver/2008/bb981214.aspx

General Overview: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/windowsserver/2008/bb896049.aspx

Solution Scenarios: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/windowsserver/2008/cc465191.aspx

Random Blog that linked to the great resources you guys posted: http://blog.hznet.nl/2008/06/04/free-course-to-prepare-for-the-71-652-ts-windows-server-virtualization-configuring

edit: I just noticed that blog is the same as in the first post.

Sie

Had to cancel my test, things have changed so I wont have time for this now.

Someone go nail it for me too!

Good Luck Everyone!

dynamik

I've gone through the free and the $40 eLearning courses. Here are my thoughts:

I would encourage everyone to go through the free course. You could probably skip this if you're more familiar with the technology, but it's a good primer for people new to the technology. There was a decent amount of material to work through, and I felt like it got me up to speed quickly. I definitely got my money's worth (can you believe I'm in IT and not a comedian?).

The $40 course really wasn't worth it IMHO. I'll say that it was worth $5 for me. It's kind of a continuation of the free course, but it's only about 20% (maybe less) of the content, with a tiny amount of overlap. It'll probably take you an hour, two max, to get through. The one nice thing about it is that it has a few labs at the end which allows you to get some quasi-hands on experience with the product. A lot of it is next > next > next > finish time of work though, and it's pretty basic. If you are able to install this and play around with it, I don't see this course as having any value for you. You can easily make up the other material from TechNet or the documentation.

Edit: Sorry Sie

astorrs

I agree with you dynamik. I'm not impressed with the $40 course, the clinic was a much better "value".

Only wish I hadn't bought the course last night... or that you had posted this yesterday - yes, it's your fault - there that feels better.

whistler

astorrs wrote:

I agree with you dynamik. I'm not impressed with the $40 course, the clinic was a much better "value".

Only wish I hadn't bought the course last night... or that you had posted this yesterday - yes, it's your fault - there that feels better.

I just got the course using the free code from the MCP site.

For those going HUH.. https://mcp.microsoft.com/mcp/Default.mspx almost to the bottom of the page. "Register to receive a promotional code that you can redeem for one free Official Microsoft E-Learning course. This free offer is available for a limited time. " US only.

astorrs

whistler wrote:

I just got the course using the free code from the MCP site.

Yeah, I had already used mine for the 70-297 course.

7lowe

Awesome! I might have to give this a try. I love VMWare and have been wanting to try out Microsoft's Hyper-V. Even if I don't, I'll surely use the links you guys provided to learn more about it. So big thanks to all of you!

7

Sie

dynamik wrote:

Edit: Sorry Sie

Cheers mate, things at home have just changed, nothing too serious so nothing to worry about but 17th would be too soon and was the only date available.

Best of luck with yours thou!

slerickson01

Just wanted to pass along my experience with the virtual labs. The VirtualPc is really nice and easy to setup. I installed a couple 2003 servers on it. All was well except for running simulations with GPO's. My remote workstation would authenticate to the domain server but never apply the gpo. There was some sort of communication error. I figured it was a limitation of the VirtualPC technology. I got VirtualServer installed. Had a bit of a problem with it because my VNC server service was interfering. (running on the same port) A little bit more configuration with the Virtual Server software but once running it works really well. The GPO's operate as they should and so far I can't see anything that is not fully functional. So I'd recommend if you're simming a server/domain lab that you use the VirtualServer application.

astorrs

slerickson01 wrote:

Just wanted to pass along my experience with the virtual labs. The VirtualPc is really nice and easy to setup. I installed a couple 2003 servers on it. All was well except for running simulations with GPO's. My remote workstation would authenticate to the domain server but never apply the gpo. There was some sort of communication error. I figured it was a limitation of the VirtualPC technology. I got VirtualServer installed. Had a bit of a problem with it because my VNC server service was interfering. (running on the same port) A little bit more configuration with the Virtual Server software but once running it works really well. The GPO's operate as they should and so far I can't see anything that is not fully functional. So I'd recommend if you're simming a server/domain lab that you use the VirtualServer application.

slerickson01, you should really start a new thread for this so others will find your post (rather than have it buried on page 3 of an existing thread).

darkerosxx

Anyone taken this yet?

I've only used the two online courses so far to study for this. I'm hoping to find out if that's enough or if we need more.

dynamik

darkerosxx wrote:

Anyone taken this yet?

I've only used the two online courses so far to study for this. I'm hoping to find out if that's enough or if we need more.

I'm going to go with no. I've been playing with this for awhile, and gone through the courses, and here are the things I am still unsure of or haven't even come across yet:

=========================================================

Microsoft Assessment and Planning tool: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb977556.aspx (haven't had a chance to read it yet)

Disk structure (RAID, quorum, shared storage) for high availability

SCVMM vNext

Authorization Manager

Release Key

Performance monitoring of 2k8

The following for remote administration: WMI, WinRM, Firewall settings, and RDP considerations (I think I read somewhere that you can manage hyper-v via RDP, but you can't connect to the VMs through RDP/terminal services, but that might just be a bug/limitation and not a feature)

Import VMs from virtual server, 3rd party/Acronis, Virtual PC

Intel and AMD virtual machine state

SCVMM vNext for p2v and v2v

pxeboot (legacy network adapter) - this is mentioned somewhere in one of the main technet articles down at the bottom of the page

manage the self service portal

WDS

SCVMM for isos, vhds, templates, profiles, deployment from library

hypercall adapter availability requirements

Proc. (NT 4.0)

Actual configuration for high-availability, not just concepts (failover clustering)

=========================================================

I'm installing SCVMM right now, and I'm going to work with that, failover clustering, performance settings, WDS, and try to figure out what some of the other miscellaneous terms are. I'm guessing SCVMM is going to be a big part of this as I'm looking at a few of the items I hadn't seen before right on it's installation screen.

I got it through my Technet subscription, but it looks like anyone can download the beta: http://www.microsoft.com/systemcenter/scvmm/default.mspx

Be sure to check out the exam objectives here: http://blogs.msdn.com/trika/archive/2008/06/02/register-for-beta-exam-71-652-ts-windows-server-virtualization-configuring.aspx

I'm going to post my notes soon, probably tomorrow. I was going to put a lot of time into it, but I think I'll just post what I have and edit it throughout the week, so people can at least start going over them.

Tyrant1919

I was going to take this exam Friday along with 299 and 298, but me being unable to install it on any of my computers has left me completely unprepared.

Hyper-V requires the hardware virtualization feature on your processor. My laptop has a Intel Core 2 T5300 and it doesn't have it. MY FX-60 sure doesn't, so, I'm out of luck. Neither have Intel VT or AMD-V.

:^( I guess I'll just have to settle with only two exams this time.

dynamik

I believe you can install it. You just can't get a VM up and running since you don't meet the requirements for the hypervisor, and a running VM is really a small part of the entire process. Basically, you just do the following with a running VM: start, stop, suspend, take a snapshot, and install the integration tools.

Are you sure that core2duo doesn't support hardware virtualization? You might just not have hardware DEP enabled.

This utility wasn't designed with Hyper-V in mind, but it coincidentally tells you whether or not you have compatible hardware: http://www.grc.com/securable.htm

The CPU in my laptop supports it, but my bios doesn't give me an option to turn hardware DEP on. You'll be looking for the execute disable (XD) option with Intel or no execute (NX) option with AMD. I haven't followed AMD CPUs for awhile, but revision F2 or later supports hardware virtualization. I'm not sure where the FX-60 falls on that spectrum.

astorrs

Dynamik (and others) here is a link to the Microsoft Assessment and Planning 3.1 beta program which adds support for Hyper-V:
https://connect.microsoft.com/InvitationUse.aspx?ProgramID=2307&InvitationID=MP31-GT76-X98X&SiteID=297%20

Tyrant1919

I know my laptop Proc doesn't support Hardware Virtualization. I looked up Intel Procs with support for Intel-VD and Core 2 Duos do for the most part, except for certain ones. And my specific one T5300 was on the list of ones that don't. fx-60 doesn't have the AMD V either. I think all the procs on Socket AM2 do, but not my 939 fx-60. I felt if I couldn't install everything I wouldn't try.
I'll play around with 2008 later, but I really need to focus on 298 and 299. I feel I'd be pressing my luck studying for a test that I shouldn't be focusing on right now. I'd be pissed if I failed one of the 290s if I wasted time on this one. I'm going at a good pace as it is right now for mcse:s.

astorrs

Great source of Hyper-V performance oriented information

http://blogs.msdn.com/tvoellm/archive/tags/Hyper-V/default.aspx

Some recent posts have included:

* Hyper-V Performance FAQ
* Performance Counter Details
* Performance oriented bugs (memory, timers, …)

dynamik

For anyone following this thread, my notes are here: http://www.techexams.net/forums/viewtopic.php?p=230892