70-461 Tracking Thread

N2IT

FYI haven't studied for over a week. Work has been crazy, well not really but I keep telling myself that.

Zorodzai

lol, I know the feeling. I haven't made much progress - hopefully can back on track after Easter, had a number of project scopes and a bunch load of testing to get through

NotHackingYou

I finished the book this last Sunday, about halfway through the TrainSignal videos now.

Zorodzai

@Carl - good progress. Which topic(s) did you find hardest to get through ?

NotHackingYou

Zorodzai wrote: »

@Carl - good progress. Which topic(s) did you find hardest to get through ?

For some reason I had a really hard time with the window functions in lesson 3 of chapter 5. I didn't immediately understand what makes a window and what makes a frame after reading the lesson.

N2IT

Please add your notes Known that would be awesome.

I was thinking about going with this book instead of the training kit.

Microsoft® SQL Server® 2012 T-SQL Fundamentals: Itzik Ben-Gan: 9780735658141: Amazon.com: Books

10 for 10 awesome reviews. This might not align with the certifications as well but for my job role I think it would be more helpful. Thoughts?

Does this align with the adventureworks 2010 data?

@ Z

I know the feeling. I have been writing more PowerShell than I have SQL lately and most of the data I have been working with has been dumped and I am cleaning up and analyzing with Access and Excel.

I'm used to be cert crazy now it takes a lot of effort and a job that aligns with the curriculum or I won't be able to pass the exam.

UniqueAgEnT

N2, that looks like a pretty good book also. It looks like they are using dummy database that you create to query instead of adventureworks. Either way should be sufficient. I read the 461 training kit and I thought it was decent but not amazing. I think it's a good idea to have multiple references since there were multiple sections in the training kit that were quickly covered. I also believe that aligning the learning with your job duties is more useful than purely for certification purposes. For me, I am more motivated to learn things that are relevant to work duties that can help me improve my performance.

Powershell is very handy and powerful. Sadly it did not change much from 2008 to 2012.

N2IT

I mainly use it to pull machine information from WMI. I work on an asset management team as a data analyst so I do a lot of solution providing and lookups. Most of the time my job is to find discover were assets are located or how many licenses we have out there. As you well know, data is not always perfect so sometimes we do major cross walks across 6 - 7 datapoints to build a level of confidence. This in turn allows us to help the PMO build out schedules etc for rollouts. At least this is what I have been doing thus far. Thanks for participating in this thread. I am feeling it tonight so I will be hitting the CBT's for 461

Agent quick question since I am not an enterprise SQL guy (yet)

Do you find data road maps consisting of mainly views? We have road maps for all our departmental infrastructure and it's all built out in views. I understand from a performance and security standpoint. Is this common place for analyst to have to query against views and not the actual tables themselves?

I suppose at least we have a roadmap of the schema of the views.

RobertKaucher

You guys make me so jealous right now. I really miss working so much with SQL Server. Right now I do very little SQL work almost all C#/ASP.NET MVC, JavaScript, web services and SharePoint.

Have any of you looked at the SQL 2012 Master Data Services? I am really, really excited about that.

N2IT

Robert I have not but I'll give it a look. Right now I am looking for something functional that will help me with querying against these views. Then hopefully get the chance to take the 461 exam.

Thanks for calling that out.

Zorodzai

@N2IT - I have the SQL 2008 edition of the T-SQL Fundamentals and I LOVE it. It's a bit heavy reading at times but I really like how he goes in depth explains all the concepts instead of just listing out queries as some books do.

N2IT

Z thanks for the validation on the book. I am going to purchase this hard copy.

N2IT

Scheduling exam this week (90%) chance. FYI

Zorodzai

All the best.......keep us updated

N2IT

Will do, I'll be reluctant if I fail again lol

Hopefully this exam is easier than 433 lol

NotHackingYou

IMO it was easier than 432. Good luck, please let us know how you make out!

N2IT

5 and some change.

Didn't fare so well obviously.

I've been off the last two days at work so I need to get caught up on somethings but I will follow up some lessons learned.

Zorodzai

Don't give up.......

which areas did you find the hardest (if you don't mind my asking) ?

N2IT

I was annoyed so I didn't even look. I remember my highest category was working or manipulating data. Everything else was relatively low and all about equal.

XML was scaled back, I only had 3 questions this time whereas I had 7 or so on 433.

It just overmatched me, I am not a DBA nor a programmer I merely use SQL to uncover information that is needed when canned reporting doesn't deliver what I need.

This maybe a good thing that I didn't pass. It speaks to the quality of the exam and that I am not ready nor do I need it.

I really hope this doesn't come across as sour grapes, but I just don't think this exam represents my skills. It's way to much. I really want to get the book from ITZIK. I really think this will end up adding more value to my needs at this moment and time.

If you can pass this exam you have some nice skills.

It wasn't all a loss the information I gathered from studying will add some value. Especially around views. I spent a lot of time research views and their limitations and strengths.

Z you probably can handle this certification. From the decisions you have had on here and the other SQL certifications you have, you probably have enough to pass.

N2IT

Honestly I am looking for something dumbed down where I can go to an employer and say yes I can write a join and I understand the difference of writing a query against a view and the table itself. I can write a subquery and know the difference between inner, outer, and cross joins.

This beast goes well beyond that and then some. And to be honest I don't learn all that well if I am not applying the information.

If you look at my certifications I was either doing a job related to that particular skill at that time or shortly before. Like Carl mentioned in an earlier post, he has worked with T-SQL for 3+ years. I have in spurts and at a very dumbed down level.

NotHackingYou

Sorry you didn't get it! I can understand if you feel that the exam isn't matched for your skills. Are you having trouble learning the material, understanding the use scenarios or syntax or do you feel good about the material but the exam was just tough?

N2IT

Bottomline is I didn't put enough effort into studying. I'll have to think it over and see if I am going to sit it again. I am going to get the T-SQL book from ITZIK. That looks like something I could use a lot.

I have 2 classes left to complete my MBA and I really need to channel my efforts on those right now. So after I complete these two I'll give it a hard thought.

RobertKaucher

Let's put together some labs. Does anyone have some good example data sets other than Adventure Works etc that we could use? I'll start creating some SQLFiddles.

N2IT

We could come up with a fictious company and then ERD the business and convert to tables. Just a thought. Not only get the SQL DDL and DML, but also the modeling that goes along with a solid database. Work through the relationship etc. That way we can write the tables and then relationships etc in one swoop.

Thoughts?

NotHackingYou

The TSQL 2012 DB included with Iztik's book was quite good IMO.

N2IT

Carl awesome call out. Thanks for the heads up. Just curious which book did you get of his/hers.

NotHackingYou

I used this book Training Kit (Exam 70-461): Querying Microsoft® SQL Server® 2012: Itzik Ben-Gan, Dejan Sarka, Ron Talmage: 9780735666054: Amazon.com: Books along with the TrainSignal videos. I liked the book but IMO it wouldn't be a good choice for beginners - rather, I would suggest his beginner's book then this book, then the exam.

As I read through the book, I did each exercise as it was intended in the provided TSQL2012. Then, if I wasn't 100% on the technique, I went through on AdventureWorks and would try it there until I got it. The reason I used AdventureWorks instead of TSQL2012 is because I didn't want to fall into the trap of just repeating the exercise. I had to spend a lot of time on the advanced data aggregations and XML (a couple days each, which is a long time for me).

N2IT

Carl thanks for the heads up. I had SQL Express out last night and I was banging on some views and some joins. I plan on getting to the aggregates this weekend. I have out patient surgery tomorrow, but should be good to go on Saturday. I just really want to learn it first and then come back around with the certification piece.

N2IT

So how do we want to go about this?

First let's all agree on the same data set. Adventure Works 2012 or another database? Whatever database we go with we need a roadmap to see all the relationships/schemas. I am assuming we are going to drop views on these tables as well so we will need a secondary roadmap for the views. Does anyone have this information in place? I would hate to reinvent the wheel if we can help it.

I want to get the database in place first. I am not systems guy, but can someone spin up a VM to host a MDB file. Then we could all mount the database to our clients and start to bang out some queries.

Thoughts? What would it take to make this happen? I just don't have enough knowledge with client server technology.

RobertKaucher

CarlSaiyed wrote: »

The TSQL 2012 DB included with Iztik's book was quite good IMO.

I would have copyright concerns using that, though. Has he released it open source?