Passed 70-649

Just passed my upgrade exam today. Still need 70-647 to complete MCITP: EA, but with 70-620 already done, I'm almost there!

Don't take this exam lightly, especially command line stuff.

Anyway, next is obviously 70-647 for me, and I think at that point I'm going to start going for more non-Microsoft certifications, likely Storage and Security exams.

Giggidy!

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dynamik

Whoa, you actually built up the motivation to take it down, eh?

Congratulations!

So did you have a similar experience to Undomiel?

NetAdmin2436

Good job, you psycho.

HeroPsycho

I found to be a very challenging exam actually, quite contrary to undomiel.

skrpune

HeroPsycho wrote: »

Giggidy!

Giggidy indeed! Congrats!

royal

What book did you get? I plan on getting this one when it comes out in March:
http://www.amazon.com/Self-Paced-Training-Exams-70-648-70-649/dp/0735626332/ref=pd_bbs_sr_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1231037297&sr=8-2

HeroPsycho

http://www.amazon.com/Real-MCTS-MCITP-Exam-70-649/dp/1597492345/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1231049893&sr=8-1

I didn't have a choice when I began studying as far as books went. It did an okay job, but I've never had these books get me well prepared just within them with the exception of the Tom Shinder book for ISA.

royal

Well, just ordered this:
http://www.amazon.com/Windows-Server-Active-Directory-Resource/dp/0735625158/ref=pd_bbs_sr_5?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1231051308&sr=8-5

It seems to go into a lot of detail. More than 60 pages alone on replication. It also includes chapter on ADLDS (ADAM), Certificate Services, ADRMS (Rights Management Services), and ADFS (Federation Services).

After that I plan on reading my PowerShell for AD book (was reading cookbook but I'll read it some other time) and then will start with the Server 2008 exam stuff.

HeroPsycho

Come on you pansy!

http://www.amazon.com/Windows-Server%C2%AE-2008-Resource-Kit/dp/0735623619/ref=pd_bxgy_b_img_c

Pash

Many congratz dude.

My train of thought is to pick up powershell while studying for the EA, I guess it's worth learning while going along, can create some useful admin time savers along the way

HeroPsycho

I'll be happy once I pass 70-647 and wrap MCITP: EA up.

Claymoore

Congrats, HeroPsycho. I bet you finish the MCITP:EA before I finish the MCITP:EMA!

royal wrote: »

Well, just ordered this:
http://www.amazon.com/Windows-Server-Active-Directory-Resource/dp/0735625158/ref=pd_bbs_sr_5?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1231051308&sr=8-5

It seems to go into a lot of detail. More than 60 pages alone on replication. It also includes chapter on ADLDS (ADAM), Certificate Services, ADRMS (Rights Management Services), and ADFS (Federation Services).

After that I plan on reading my PowerShell for AD book (was reading cookbook but I'll read it some other time) and then will start with the Server 2008 exam stuff.

I definitely recommend the AD ResKit for this and the 647 exam. The AD section on my 649 exam was very short and the last 4 chapters of the book are all you need. For the 647 Enterprise Admin exam, be sure to include chapter 5 on design and anything about RODCs. 60 pages on replication is a bit excessive, just read the 2 on RODC replication and move on if all you want to do is pass the exam.

Feel free to read the whole 2008 Resource Kit though, but don't forget about the Group Policy ResKit, Terminal Services ResKit, and the forthcoming Hyper-V ResKit which aren't included.

Slowhand

Congrats on the pass. I'll be hitting that milestone once these damn MCSE tests are out of the way. Good luck with the PRO exam, once you get there.

HeroPsycho

I'm thinking wrap it up by the end of the month. No since dilly dallying around, especially with the info fresh in my brain and my utter boredom for studying it. Doing it now will mean less studying to get it done in the end. Just tired of the MCSE/MCITP Microsoft stuff. I figure once I do this, I'm done with Microsoft certs for at least a year or two.

snadam

congrats HP, good luck with the rest of it!

royal

Claymoore wrote: »

Congrats, HeroPsycho. I bet you finish the MCITP:EA before I finish the MCITP:EMA!

I definitely recommend the AD ResKit for this and the 647 exam. The AD section on my 649 exam was very short and the last 4 chapters of the book are all you need. For the 647 Enterprise Admin exam, be sure to include chapter 5 on design and anything about RODCs. 60 pages on replication is a bit excessive, just read the 2 on RODC replication and move on if all you want to do is pass the exam.

Feel free to read the whole 2008 Resource Kit though, but don't forget about the Group Policy ResKit, Terminal Services ResKit, and the forthcoming Hyper-V ResKit which aren't included.

The reason I'm reading the book is to learn more deep knowledge. Couldn't care less about the exam. But either way, the book should help me pass the exam anyways.

I was debating on the Group Policy Reskit but I think I'm going to get Jeremy Moskowitz two books. His 1st book alone is longer than the MSPress Reskit and is only 1/2 in the series.

undomiel

Congratulations! So you found the exam to be a bit difficult? I was surprised and was expecting more out of it difficultywise. I'd definitely recommend zooming on into that 647 exam as there will be a lot of overlap. Have fun with it though!

royal

undomiel wrote: »

Congratulations! So you found the exam to be a bit difficult? I was surprised and was expecting more out of it difficultywise. I'd definitely recommend zooming on into that 647 exam as there will be a lot of overlap. Have fun with it though!

That's because undomiel > Heropsycho.

Claymoore

royal wrote: »

The reason I'm reading the book is to learn more deep knowledge. Couldn't care less about the exam. But either way, the book should help me pass the exam anyways.

I was debating on the Group Policy Reskit but I think I'm going to get Jeremy Moskowitz two books. His 1st book alone is longer than the MSPress Reskit and is only 1/2 in the series.

That's the great thing about reading ResKits - you learn more AND you can pass the exam! I stayed away from training kits (until the 647 exam) and read other material so I could learn 2008 in depth and use the information rather than just prep for the exam.

Having read the GP ResKit and several chapters of Moskowitz's Creating the Secure Managed Desktop book, I support your idea of skipping the ResKit and just reading both Moskowitz's books. I was disappointed with the GP ResKit overall, for example the TS ResKit has an in-depth discussion on loopback processing while the GP ResKit only shows an example event log entry from when it was applied. If you are more interested in actually using GP rather than writing ADMX files, stick with Moskowitz.

HeroPsycho

undomiel wrote: »

Congratulations! So you found the exam to be a bit difficult? I was surprised and was expecting more out of it difficultywise. I'd definitely recommend zooming on into that 647 exam as there will be a lot of overlap. Have fun with it though!

Well, remember if you fail one mini-exam, you fail the entire exam. One mini-exam was let's just say not very many questions. When a third of the questions are on a peripheral feature not used that often, asking in depth troubleshooting type stuff, I say that's a pretty challenging exam. LOL...

I honestly didn't know if I passed or not by the time I finished the exam.

In case anyone is curious, my scores were:

Active Directory configuring: 880
Application Infrastructure configuring: 760 (I don't work on Terminal Services a whole lot, and I have very little interest in it)
Network Infrastructure Configuring: 925

Your score on the exam is the lowest of the three, so technically I scored a 760.

I discussed the exam afterwards with a co-worker who passed it earlier this year at Microsoft TechEd. He said they definitely have ramped up the difficulty since he took it from the little I mentioned about it. Not sure when that happened.

And royal, refer to my avatar.

royal

HeroPsycho wrote: »

And royal, refer to my avatar.

Right back at ya!

HeroPsycho wrote: »

Application Infrastructure configuring: 760 (I don't work on Terminal Services a whole lot, and I have very little interest in it)

This will also be my lowest score. I don't care about Terminal Services at all.

HeroPsycho

It is boring beyond belief for us AD/Exchange guys. Plus, my virtualization interests mean I'm much more interested in virtual desktop infrastructure than comparatively Terminal Services.