Passed 70-640

Hi everyone,

After a lot of studying and labbing, I passed the 70-640 today with a 858/1000. Surprisingly, I nailed every single one of the ADCS questions.

I used the MS Press Training Kit, Transcender, and Technet for the areas which I felt the training kit did not sufficiently cover (ADCS, ADFS, ADRMS). I studied on an off for about four months. I used my normal technique when studying for an exam, which consists of reading the chapter, taking hand written notes, typing those notes up, and studying them each night. In addition, I used flash cards to help memorize commands and basic concepts.

For labbing I used VMWare Workstation with about 8 virtual servers and two clients broken into two different domains and multiple sites. I practiced configuring and maintaining ADCS over and over until I was familiar with the concepts and the menus. The Step-by-step guides on Technet are a life saver for helping to reinforce concepts and procedures.

My suggestions for the exam would be to lab like crazy and spend a lot of time on Technet. Make sure you are familiar with the Powershell cmdlets used in each role. You don't need to know every option, just be able to recognize the most important options and the cmdlet itself.

As was expected, I ran into a ton of AD CS and DNS questions. There were a few very obscure questions about ADRMS and ADFS that I knew from Technet.

I've placed PDF versions of my notes in my public DropBox folder (https://dl.dropbox.com/u/31694156/70-640%20Notes.zip). Feel free to use them for your own studies.

Thanks again to Techexams community! Now on to to 70-642

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Comments

pizzaboy

Congrats on the exam, and the score. And thanks for the notes.

Dakinggamer87

Congrats on pass!!

Moobs09

Cheers for the notes!... and Well done on the pass!

Especially.. the commands pdf's! I was looking for a centralized resource for these!

cruwl

Grats on the pass and thanks for the notes, those will come in handy

kj0

Awesome timing. Thanks for the Notes, and congrats on the pass. Is it just another cert, or is this something you will be using at your work place?

jdancer

Thanks for the 70-640 notes. Looking forward to the 70-642 notes.

Everlife

Thanks everyone! I hope the notes come in handy.

kj0 wrote: »

Awesome timing. Thanks for the Notes, and congrats on the pass. Is it just another cert, or is this something you will be using at your work place?

I've actually be transitioning our company from an SBS 2003 to a Server 2008R2/Exchange 2010 environment, so I was utilizing the concepts and procedures pretty regularly.

kj0

Ahh nice, Definitely a leg up if you are labbing it in real time.

Psoasman

Congrats on your pass!

claytonw1980

Those notes are gold - taking 70-640 soon

Uncle_Dave

Congrats on your passing score, wishing you the best and all the success in your career.

Keep it up, way 2 go.

davipton

I have been studying 70-640 for the past year on and off. These will be very hand for a catchup and consolidation.

Thanks for sharing.

Devilry

Congrats on the pass! I am working on this one now, thanks for the notes!

Lunchbocks

Congrats and thanks for the notes. I am planning to test in 4 weeks.

One question; did you use Transcender to help study, or just as a practice exam?

kriscamaro68

Congrats and thanks for the notes!!!

Everlife

Lunchbocks wrote: »

Congrats and thanks for the notes. I am planning to test in 4 weeks.

One question; did you use Transcender to help study, or just as a practice exam?

Thanks!

I guess I used it for both. I took it once when I completed the book to get an idea of what areas I was weak in. After focusing on those areas, I re-took it and repeated the same process until I felt I was ready for the real exam. If I encountered a topic that wasn't in the MS Press book (and there were quite a few) I would utilize TechNet to review that topic.

I never used the flash cards they offered, but I've heard they are well done.

Lunchbocks

Perfect, thank you very much!

4_lom

Congrats!

whatthehell

Congratz on the pass and thanks very much for the notes!!

CEH2B

Congrats on your pass. Do you mind sharing more details on your lab set up. I have been trying to set up a lab but not much info around.

Everlife

CEH2B wrote: »

Congrats on your pass. Do you mind sharing more details on your lab set up. I have been trying to set up a lab but not much info around.

Sure! I used VMWare Workstation on a system with 12GB of RAM. Each virtual machine had one NIC connected to the relevant LAN segment, unless otherwise noted below. My setup was as follows:

SERVER01 (CONTOSO.LOCAL - SITE1) - 1GB; 3 NICS (1x bridged, 2x LAN segment); DC, DNS, RRAS
SERVER02 (CONTOSO.LOCAL - SITE1) - 512MB; Standalone Root CA
SERVER03 (CONTOSO.LOCAL - SITE1) - 2GB; Enterprise CA, NDES, CES, Online Responder
SERVER04 (CONTOSO.LOCAL - SITE2) - 1GB; RODC
CLIENT01 (CONTOSO.LOCAL - SITE2) - 1GB; Windows 7 client
SERVER05 (FABRIKAM.LOCAL) - 1GB; 2 NICS (2x LAN Segment); DC, DNS, RRAS
SERVER06 (ACCT.FABRIKAM.LOCAL) - 1GB; 2 NICS (2x LAN Segment); DC, DNS
CLIENT02 (ACCT.FABRIKAM.LOCAL) - 1GB;Windows 7 client

I was able to play with close to all of the concepts with this setup. If you have any further questions, let me know and I'd be happy to provide you with further information.