Sbs 2011 is it worth it

darrengoldsmith

Im not in the industry.
but have a huge interest in computers and networking ect
I have A+,N+,Server+,Security+,MCP 2000 and MCDST.
Im currenlty studying win7.
Im thinking of which server exam to do.

either SBS 2011 because it based on win2008 r2 and includes exchange server and share point or
Network inf and exchange server. Not sure about the full MCITP. (only cos its for a hobby and price exams ect )

But if a job was advertised requiring server expeience. could i use SBS. It would cover the basics of active dir,networking,exchange server, 2008 server r2, r domain name, DHCP,DNS ect

Any advice

Daz

buzzkill

My advice would be to not take the SBS 2011 cert (70-169). And instead to take the MCITP:SA track.

The reason for this is that the companies who look favourably upon certs will tend to be larger enterprises and therefore would be more interested in the SA and EA qualifications than the SBS one.

I know you say it's a hobby and you're not in the industry but since you mention a job advert then it sounds like something you want to get into at some point.

Either way, it may be hard to explain the certs without any on-the-job experience.

IT Explorer

From my simple point of view, when you decide to expertise any new track ( and not a professional who want to prove his experience), you should consider three factors: knowledge resources, hardware requirement, and the area in which it will be applied.

For the resources: there is no single resource or any training kit in the official exam page, it seems that you're forced to read all the material or most of it from MS Technet and MCITP resources and other resources for exchange server and sharepoint, so you turned back to MCITP.

For the Hardware requirements: you should give it a serious look on the product official page.

Considering the area in which this cert will be applied, when you choose to take sbs 2011, you're talking about enterprises with employees about 1-75 users, what about other classes of enterprises, while taking mcitp will not prevent you from applying on small and micro interprises job post.

Finally, if you have huge desire it will push you toward the whole track of mcitp even if it will take some months to have it.

Bloogen

I think it would be worth it if your interest or potential employment/consulting will be with small business. SBS 2011 like you said is essentially Server 2008 R2, Exchange and SharePoint. You will learn the basics of all of the but the SBS management differs highly from the Standard deployments of Server 2008 R2. For example, creating AD users manually in SBS is a bad idea for multiple reasons and ends up wasting a lot of your time to ensure the users are configured properly.

I am personally planning on taking the SBS 2011 exam because I am working towards small business consulting where SBS is an ideal solution. Work towards your target market and passion.

Note that for pure academic purposes, the MCITP track will be much deeper as SBS 'holds your hand' through a lot of the configuration choices.

Good luck.

Slowhand

I've worked with SBS in the past, (the 2003 edition,) and for me it wasn't all that hard to learn after coming off the MCSA track, I just needed a couple of thick books to help me out. In the long run, I believe that having your MCITP: SA or EA will be far more valuable than taking a cert on SBS, (if you have to pick one or the other.) You'll learn more about Windows Server 2008 R2 and you'll be able to figure out what's happening if (when) SBS' wizards should choke or break and you have to fix things manually and get everything up and running again. As for Exchange 2010, I can say the same thing, taking the MCTS (70-662) or the full MCITP: Enterprise Messaging Administrator cert will be far more valuable to your career than focusing solely on SBS, as well as teach you more about the product.

saspro

SBS exams tend to be heavily based around sales. Most questions will be relating to the number of CAL's you need for a scenario, what kit spec you'll need for a server and if SBS is a suitable choice for a customer.
They're not tech heavy exams (in fact for a partner to be Small Business Certified you can do it with normal exams)

darrengoldsmith

shame microsoft doesnt still have EBS (300 users,multi server)
or they dont have a server solution 1-300- combo between SBS and EBS