How much longer will 2003 exams be available?

Seeing as how mainstream support for Server 2003 has now ended, how much longer do you think the exams will be around? I have 3 more exams to take before finishing the MCSE. I just wonder if I'll have enough time to get them finished before they are retired. I know there's no way to be sure, but what's a good educated guess based on past exam tracks?

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Ahilliker

To go along with that, I ask: If one has the MCSA, should one continue on with the MCSE or go on to Enterprise or Server Administrator on 2008? How much "weight" does the MCSE carry now as opposed to the newer MCITP certs?

My Supervisor is pushing for the 2008 Certs, but, I'm kind of leaning towards the MCSE, then the MCITP. My reasoning: Get it now while you can.

I realize different work environments have different OS's and what not. I guess if you were reviewing a resume, what would you prefer to see, as a peer? What do you all think?

Thanks,
Andy

Nobylspoon

Ahilliker wrote: »

To go along with that, I ask: If one has the MCSA, should one continue on with the MCSE or go on to Enterprise or Server Administrator on 2008? How much "weight" does the MCSE carry now as opposed to the newer MCITP certs?

My Supervisor is pushing for the 2008 Certs, but, I'm kind of leaning towards the MCSE, then the MCITP. My reasoning: Get it now while you can.

I realize different work environments have different OS's and what not. I guess if you were reviewing a resume, what would you prefer to see, as a peer? What do you all think?

Thanks,
Andy

I had to think long and hard about which path I wanted to go down which is why I took the Vista client exam since it would cover the OS requirement for both MCSE and MCITP so I would have time to decide. Because I still have a year left until my Associates degree is complete it will probably be a couple of years until I am in a network admin role (currently doing software testing) so I opted for the MCITP route because Server 08 knowledge is likely to be in greater demand by that time.

However, someone who wants it on the resume with plans of securing an admin job right now might benefit more from an MCSE since Server 2003 still holds such a large share of the market and HR filters are searching more for MCSE than MCITP right now.

Best of luck on what ever path you decide to take.

Technito

smg1138 wrote: »

Seeing as how mainstream support for Server 2003 has now ended, how much longer do you think the exams will be around? I have 3 more exams to take before finishing the MCSE. I just wonder if I'll have enough time to get them finished before they are retired. I know there's no way to be sure, but what's a good educated guess based on past exam tracks?

Well the required core exams for MCSA/E will probably still be around for at least another couple years before they'll even announce a retirement date. You will however start to see some of the elective exams go away, which some are due to be discontinued starting October of this year. So in your case, yes you will have time. For someone that's not even started working on their MCSA/E, I'd say bypass 2003 and for the 2008 certs. But in my opinion, if you're already half way there (such as an MCSA) or have passed several of the core exams already, I'd say go for it. The MCSA/E certification itself will never retire and even 5 years from now when most companies all use 2008 Server, this will still look good on your resume and prove you have a good understanding of Windows server, AD, and windows based networking services. And from I understand so far working with 2008, it doesn't differ all that much from 2003. The snap-ins look a little different but the functions are still based on the same concepts of 2003 with newly added features. There's some new things you can do in AD, DNS zones etc (I won't give the whole tutorial

) it's just a lot of things that Windows admins wished 2003 could do, 2008 is able to do or do better.

NT/2000 MCSA/E certs never really held much value because they didn't go as deep as the 2003. In fact they gave Microsoft a bad rep because companies hired people based off having an MCSE but realized they didn't actually possess the skill required for their job. So that's why Microsoft made the 2003 MCSE so difficult to achieve. And that's why it's highly reputable with most employers. So for you, go for it!

smg1138

Thanks Technito, that's exactly what I needed to hear right now. I actually scheduled my 293 exam for next Thursday. I'm going to do my best to finish the MCSE while I still can. I figure since it's still so well known, good for life, and the main concepts are still the same, it's definitely worth finishing. After that I'll get up to speed on the new features of Server 2008.

Super99

I heard that they just recently expired NT exams so I'm assuming 2003 will be around for a quite sometime.