70-293 passed...MCSE!

rhelt100

Well ladies and gentlemen, after 26 months of studying in my spare time, I finally achieved the elusive MCSE. I sat 70-293 tuesday afternoon and walked out with a 945. I didn't think this test was too bad, just very heavy on CAs. I also managed to get SEVEN sims on this exam.

My employer is sending me to a class on Hyper-V next week so I can build out a Hyper-V POC to put up against our current VMware infrastructure. So, my next step will be the corresponding Hyper-V exam.

Study materials used were the microsoft press book and CBT Nuggets. I didn't have the 70-293 nuggets, but I used videos from other tests that were on the same topic. I also have 3 years of Systems Engineer experience so that helped a little as well.

dynamik

Huh, that's kind of a weird one to end it on. How'd you end up doing this one last?

No matter, congratulations

elaverick1981

Congratulations.

If you're looking at Hyper-V purely as a PoC then you might want to have a gander at the RC's of 2008 R2. That's got the new live migratation stuff that we know and love from VMware.

NetAdmin2436

Wow, nice score. Congrats!

doom969

Congratulations !

undomiel

Congratulations! Sounds like good times up for you.

rhelt100

dynamik wrote: »

Huh, that's kind of a weird one to end it on. How'd you end up doing this one last?

No matter, congratulations

There's a weird story to go with it too. The last two I had left for MCSE were 293 & 294. I used a microsoft voucher for a 70-293 class and wanted to take the class right away, but the logistics didn't work out. The first class I could make it to was several months out. So, I decided to work on 70-294 while I waited and I managed to squeeze it in.

One piece of advice for other MCSE seekers, take the slow route like I did. I know it's tempting to enlist one of the **** companies and pump out that cert in just a few months...but I've seen the end result of this method and it's easy to see the difference on the job.

rhelt100

elaverick1981 wrote: »

Congratulations.

If you're looking at Hyper-V purely as a PoC then you might want to have a gander at the RC's of 2008 R2. That's got the new live migratation stuff that we know and love from VMware.

That's exactly the plan. I sat through a Microsoft presentation last week and was a little shocked when he said that Hyper-V currently does not have a vMotion equivalent. He mentioned that it was out in beta and should be suppoted q3-q4 of this year. I'll definitely be going that route because, let's face it, if there's no vMotion it's a really easy choice regardless of the cost savings.

mikej412

Congratulations on the MCSE!!