Took a swing at the 70-659 and...

Essendon

...Passed! Not by much though, but a pass nevertheless, got a 740. Two weeks of looking at the exam blueprint, TechNet, the VMM 2008 R2 Operations Guide and labbing it on two physical Hyper-v hosts. Having already passed the VCP 5 and about 18 months experience with Virtualization certainly helped - I was able to eliminate 2-3 choices and home in on the right one. I was under-prepared but wanted to get it in before the Jan 31 deadline on this one, hence why I took a stab at it. Had the second shot in case I didnt get over the line. The test was about 50% about VMM and the rest of it was a mix of Hyper-v clustering and RDS.

Onward and upward to the 246 now, but will definitely ensure I prepare more for this one. I am about to kick off a project at work deploying the System Center 2012 suite which will help with preparing for the exam.

A colleague and I are in a bit of a race to the VCAP-DCA, so I may end up doing it first. Got to beat the sucker! But work comes before certs and the logical step would be the 246, but I'm not one to back off from a challenge so we shall see! Off for a beer or two now...

Psoasman

Congrats on the pass!

worldmac1

That's awesome! Congrats!
Just one question though...When you speak of deadline, you actually mean the July 31, 2013 Microsoft deadline, correct?

MrAgent

Congrats!

N2IT

Nice work! ^5

Essendon

Thanks gents! The Jan 31 deadline is for taking this particular test. After this date you cannot take the test anymore and till then you can take it in place of the 70-247 to count towards the Private Cloud cert.

Back at the battle station today, rebuilding my lab for the 246.

Saundie

A belated congratulations on your pass! I was wondering if you could tell me what resources you used to learn the powershell management part of VMM, as this is one area that isn't even mentioned in the TrainSignal video I watched prior to my attempt at the exam. I am reasonably confident on the other stuff, but I have no knowledge of the powershell part - I have a retake in a couple of weeks time and really want to make it "third time lucky" if I can!

dave330i

Congrats on the pass. Passing with a high margin just means you've overstudied for the exam.

Essendon

@ Saundie, I hit TechNet for almost everything mate. The exam blueprint, TechNet, the VMM 2008 R2 Operations Guide and labbing it on two physical Hyper-v hosts is all I used. The PowerShell questions I got were fairly easy I reckon, I only got 2 questions, maybe 3. Hit every topic on the lab and you'll be okay.

EDIT: Can you still sit the 659? The exam was retired on January 31, but perhaps a retake is still possible. Confirm this mate, so you dont waste any time.

@ Dave, thanks mate!

ITMonkey

Essendon wrote: »

EDIT: Can you still sit the 659? The exam was retired on January 31, but perhaps a retake is still possible. Confirm this mate, so you dont waste any time.

The 70-659 will be retired July 31, 2013. Expand the Overview section of this Microsoft Learning web page for details.

I recently finished the 70-669 and 70-693. Monkeys do things backwards. I'm burning the night oil now to prepare for the 659. Congrads on your pass.

Essendon

Sorry what I meant was that after Jan 31, this exam cannot be taken in place of the 247.

Saundie

Thanks for the advice, Essendon. I sat the exam again today, and managed to pass it this time - third time lucky for me. I found a document called "VMM 2008 R2 Cmdlet Reference" on the Microsoft site (here) that contains all of the cmdlets and their syntax - I found it to be an extremely useful resource for getting to grips with the available cmdlets. I still found it to be a tough exam, but I don't work with the technology on a daily basis, so I expect that's the reason.

The main reason I took the exam was so that my company could get the silver server partner competency - one of the other guys already did 70-646, so I think we've met the requirements now.