MCITP:EA as well as MCSE???

Bob_the_Goon

Hi all,

I've already begun down the path of the MCITP:EA and was wondering that when (or if!!!) I achieve the MCITP:EA, it would be worth then studying for the MCSE?

I would love to hear what you guys thought about this? Would this be a waste of time and money?

Thanks in advance!!

Essendon

It would have made more sense to complete the MCSE and then upgrade to the MCITP. The MCITP : EA supersedes the MCSE, in time the MCSE will be phased out and HR goons will be looking for the MCITP in their resume keyword searches. I'd say you'll be better off by completing the MCITP and then branching into a specialisation (Exchange/SQL/Sharepoint) rather than "backtracking" to the MCSE.

gateway

Essendon wrote: »

It would have made more sense to complete the MCSE and then upgrade to the MCITP. The MCITP : EA supersedes the MCSE, in time the MCSE will be phased out and HR goons will be looking for the MCITP in their resume keyword searches. I'd say you'll be better off by completing the MCITP and then branching into a specialisation (Exchange/SQL/Sharepoint) rather than "backtracking" to the MCSE.

+1
Although if you do choose to complete the MCSE first, there are only 2 upgrade exams to take to complete the MCITP:EA

Devilsbane

Never heard of someone going backwards. If you wanted to you certainly could, but I don't know that you would learn a whole lot from it.

ciscog33k

Waste of time imo.

Just do what i'm doing. I put (2008 version of MCSE 2003) next to the cert on my resume. This way you'll still be hit on keyword searches and HR won't have any reservations about not giving you a call b/c you don't have the mcse.

Beyond that, any technical interviewer should realize that there is vast similarity between 2003/2008 and not really care. I've gotten two unsolicited calls since putting it on my resume (yesterday).

Bob_the_Goon

Like the resume idea there ciscogeek!!! I'll have to remember to do that in the future.

Thanks for all of your replies. My feeling too was that it wouldn't be worth it, but it's good to hear what you guys had to say. What got me wondering was hearing a couple of people saying that there wasn't a great demand for 2008 and many companies are sticking with 2003, potentially missing 2008 altogether. Personally, I haven't noticed this, as the company I work for has been using 2008 for a little while. Is there a lack of interest in 2008???

earweed

It's more of a financial thing. Why pay money to upgrade when 2003 is still working fine. If you use 2008 where you currently work I'd probably not bother with getting MCSE.
If you just want the MCSE then it'll be easy for you but there is not an easy upgrade (downgrade?) path from the MCITP:EA as there is from MCSE to MCITP:EA. You'll have to take all the regular tests.

ciscog33k

Bob_the_Goon wrote: »

Like the resume idea there ciscogeek!!! I'll have to remember to do that in the future.

Thanks for all of your replies. My feeling too was that it wouldn't be worth it, but it's good to hear what you guys had to say. What got me wondering was hearing a couple of people saying that there wasn't a great demand for 2008 and many companies are sticking with 2003, potentially missing 2008 altogether. Personally, I haven't noticed this, as the company I work for has been using 2008 for a little while. Is there a lack of interest in 2008???

I doubt it. I haev seen it requested on a few postings. MCSE is requested more, obviously. Companies are always slow to adopt new server OSes so I wouldn't have expected much uptake before now. Anyone buying new servers today has few reasons to buy 2003. After all, there's nothing stopping you from running your servers at a 2003 functional level if yuo need the interoperability.

It's probably not worth doing a full upgrade of all your servers, but again it's going to really depend. You might want 2008 on all your domain controllers, for instance, but a lot of the improvements in 2008 most benefit larger companies. A small company that's got DNS/DHCP on their DCs won't get much out of 2008. A university could get a lot more out of it because replication is much better in 2008, and you can stick infrastructure servers on Server Core. There are lots of features in 2k8 that provide better scalability for large environments.

Devilsbane

earweed wrote: »

You'll have to take all the regular tests.

Unless you have taken them already. If you have already taken the 70-680, for example, you can use that for your client os test and knock one test off. Also, if you already have an A+/Net+ or a Sec+, (or already plan to get them before 1/1/11 anyway) then you can knock off an elective exam as well.

It probably isn't worth it for you. But if you deem it is (and only you can be the judge of that) then you can probably get it over the course of a couple months. You should already have most of the knowledge needed, just need some time to fill in the holes.

ciscog33k

hey guys, for what it's worth, I was on the job market for less than a week after getting my mcitp: EA before i was offered a job. In the short time i was looking i got lots of unsolicited calls, so let mcse 2003 die already imo! It seems that putting the mcse in () like I suggested above is definitely all you need to do, aside from being able to back up the cert with you experience/technical knowledge at the interview.

St3yr

ciscog33k wrote: »

Waste of time imo.

Just do what i'm doing. I put (2008 version of MCSE 2003) next to the cert on my resume. This way you'll still be hit on keyword searches and HR won't have any reservations about not giving you a call b/c you don't have the mcse.

Beyond that, any technical interviewer should realize that there is vast similarity between 2003/2008 and not really care. I've gotten two unsolicited calls since putting it on my resume (yesterday).

Wouldn't TOTALLY agree with this. MCSE required an elective and a design exam. MCITP doesn't require those; although the 647 is probably the design.

Agree however that you'd be best to have the MCITP; then do some Exchange, ISA or other MCTS exams to complement it.

ciscog33k

St3yr wrote: »

Wouldn't TOTALLY agree with this. MCSE required an elective and a design exam. MCITP doesn't require those; although the 647 is probably the design.

Agree however that you'd be best to have the MCITP; then do some Exchange, ISA or other MCTS exams to complement it.

HR won't know the difference imo, so while you're technically correct, I don't think it matters much. The important thing is to get MCSE on there for keyword searches since that's what HR people still look for. The general purpose of the two certs is the same. And yes, 647 is the design.

That said, definitely do an exchange cert, especially if you're not strong on exchange. It's such an important part of any sysadmin job that it would be silly not to.

Today was my first real day of work and someone nuked an entire public folder and I had a bunch of other exchange issues to deal with. If I didn't know how to get it back and deal with that other stuf, I would have looked like a jerk.

gateway

ciscog33k wrote: »

That said, definitely do an exchange cert, especially if you're not strong on exchange. It's such an important part of any sysadmin job that it would be silly not to.

+1
I'm finding this more and more. Any sysadmin job I come across mentions exchange knowledge as mandatory. I really should study exchange!

ipconfig.all

Get you MCITP EA. Most job advertisements ask for MCSE because most companies use Server 2003 but Server 2008/R2 is slowly catching on and within a year or so most companies out there will use Windows Server 2008/R2 rather than Server 2003. If you do MCSE it will expire soon and then you will have to upgrade and in I.T it is all about staying up to date with the latest technologies.