Passed 70-680 70-685 70-686!

Hi all, I've been lurking for a while and thought I would finally join up... I've set myself a fairly intensive certification path for the remainder of the year and have found this site to be both interesting and informative!

I passed the 70-686 two days ago on Saturday after having passed the 70-680 and 70-685 in the previous two months... I'm now reading up on the 70-642 and have booked that exam for the end of next month... I'm currently aiming for one exam per month on average...

A quick bit of background (in the unlikely event that anyone is vaguely interested), I have been in the industry for nearly 11 years, having been promoted from Technian to Network Administrator to ICT Technical Manager within the first three years at my place of work. I now manage a small team and maintain a (I deem very large and complex) network for the amount of staff I have (18 servers, 500 clients, 1500 users).

I started an MCSE way back in early 2000 but didn't have enough experience to complete it (I ultimately gave up which is a shame becuase I should have pursued it with more enthusiam, although the college course I did at the time wasn't very good and confidence in my abilities was much lower than it should have been) - I'm now on track to complete over 20 certifications, for one, to expand my knowledge and brush up on technologies I don't neccessarily use, and secondly to prove to myself, others (and future employees) that I do have the knowledge and experience required to run an enterprise network!

So, next on the list are:

MCITP: Server Administrator
MCITP: Enterprise Administrator
MCITP: Enterprise Messaging Administrator
CCNA
MOS: Master (to relax and for good measure)

Had thought about doing some CompTIA certs but I don't know if there's any point really? I was also thinking about possibly completeing my MCSE or at least doing the MCSA too, any thoughts?

Then I'll see where I go from there...

Richard

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Comments

bigmantenor

Congratulations to you! Keep knocking them out!

parttimetechie

Congrats..how did you find the 680 exam? I'm studying from that right now, and getting destroyed by it..so much to learn, so little of it I actually use.

rjs_essex

Thanks! I didn't find the 70-680 too bad really... Scored 975 on the day... I thought the 70-686 was easier but I only scored 880 so I slipped up on few more questions...

My experience of these exams is:

70-680 - The design of the questions was simple and for the most part if you don't know the answer then use a process of elimination.
70-685 - Heavy, scenario based questions, lots of information to read, BUT, the answer is in the scenario information which I thought made it a bit easier.
70-686 - Very similar in question design to the 680 exam except the grammer and depth were IMO terrible... Poorly written questions and it isn't completely obvious what they are asking for.

Richard

Dr IT

Congrats on the Pass 3 tough exams i would say . i am preparing to the 680 and find it extremely tough .

good luck on your next cert

camaro684

I'm actually taking the 70-642 today after already passing the 70-640. They have allot of overlap in them.

Killermac

That is just impressive, I don't know that you need any of the Comptia unless you require them for work. You are clearly o n a good path.

Psoasman

Congrats on your passes!

Xantcha

Congrats on the passes.

At this stage in your career the Comptia certs would be a waste of time.

jyrki.arpiainen

rjs_essex wrote: »

... A quick bit of background (in the unlikely event that anyone is vaguely interested). ...

I started an MCSE way back in early 2000 but didn't have enough experience to complete it (I ultimately gave up which is a shame becuase I should have pursued it with more enthusiam, although the college course I did at the time wasn't very good and confidence in my abilities was much lower than it should have been).
...

I was also thinking about possibly completeing my MCSE or at least doing the MCSA too, any thoughts?

Richard

MCSE is well known brand and i understand it is tempting to get that as well.
I started studying certificates in 2006 when i sit XP test, 70-270. Courses that i was taking handled also Server 2003 with two tests, 70-290 and 70-291 and i decided to get MCSA certification. At 2007 i got it and decided to aim towards MCSE.
Back then i noticed that those few days educations (one day and couple chapters in a week) per exam were not nearly enough, even though we had time to read and practise a lot with that speed.

Still, IMHO that education was just 2-3% of the whole studies that was needed for beginner as i was back then, to pass exams.
I used huge amounts of time studying at home. Especially in case of 70-291 when i read that MOAC book three times and used practice test a lot.

So i am not surprised that college course was not enough in that phase of your career.
Maybe now, when you have impressive amount of experience you could pass exams with few days intensive courses..? I still can't.

BTW. I completed MCSE last year after 5 years of studying. From time to time it was pretty frustrating to concentrate only Srv2003 material when i knew that Vista, Win7, Server 2008 and 2008 R2 were already in use. Especially when i had to study migrations from NT4 domains to 2003 domains in 70-297.

I made my plan long time ago that i complete MCSE first and then upgrade to MCITP: EA.
Long and painful road... for me at least.
But now only exam that is missing from that is 70-680 and after passing it i'm "ready"!

Then it's time to study some other things that i have ignored in last few years because of my obsession with certificates...
I've not done anything except studying in last couple years so it's about time to get a new job again!