Going for 70-432

blargoe

And now for something totally different... (and because I think this forum needs some more activity)...

I'm going to attempt the MCTS for SQL 2008. I've been an "occasional/de-facto" SQL administrator off and on for 8 years now, so I'm not coming in totally green. I'm going to start studying in the next 2 or 3 weeks (gotta finish this EMC test first), and hopefully aim to take the 432 by mid-August.

I have access to plenty of equipment and software so I'll be labbing up some of the things of which I'm less familiar... performance, auditing, the centralized policy stuff, and implementing (non-clustering) HA features. Using the MS exam blueprint to guide my gap coverage, I'll be hitting Technet and some of RobertKaucher's recommendations as my study guide and lab materials. I will also be fortunate enough to attend a Microsoft Premier workshop next month focused on performance tuning and optimization (Yay, Premier support contract!) which should really help out in that area.

My aim is to validate my SQL Server administrative experience and bridge some knowledge gaps, as most of my experience has been in smaller environments (1500 users or less) meaning I haven't needed to use some of the available features over the years. I did pass the SQL 2000 Admin exam 8 years ago, but I do not list that on my resume any longer.

Overall, I'm trying to position myself as a storage/virtualization professional with an deep understanding of the system requirements of high-demand applications such as SQL Server and MS Exchange and a level of proficiency in design and implementation of such a solution in virtual environments... or maybe I'll enjoy this endeavor so much that I'll be fully pulled over to the dark side and become a fully fledged DBA (with a concentration in storage and VM performance)... hmmm...

Fun times.

bertieb

Sounds like a cunning plan!

I need to do some more SQL stuff also, so I very much look reading to your experiences and comments along the way. Good luck fella!