About to get started on the MCSA Server 2012

treehouse

I'm taking a break from Cisco to get some sysadmin credentials, and I think I'd like to start with the MCSA Server 2012. I'm in school full-time and I work, so I'm giving myself a full year to finish this one. Is that too generous? How does the MCSA compare to the CCNA in terms of difficulty? I have six years of experience in a Microsoft environment, but the servers I administrate are all SUSE.

I haven't started picking up study material yet, but my plan is to get these:

Windows Server 2012 Inside Out
MCSA Windows Server 2012 (Sybex)

I have a Dreamspark membership through my university, so I have access to pretty much everything I need to set up a lab. We also have a CBT Nuggets hot seat at work now, so I'll be using those.

I guess (beyond my question about difficulty relative to CCNA), I'm just posting to say 'hi, I'm going to be here for a while'.

ITMonkey

Welcome to the party, @treehouse.

Asif Dasl

Good Luck with your studies! 6 months to a year should be plenty of time...

jamthat

I'm about to get started on this as well and am planning for 6 months. Hoping the Sybex book is good!

Also, I just send you a pm

^-- At least I think I did..it's not showing in my sent folder. If I didn't, please send me a PM? I have a few questions about the Tulsa area and would really appreciate it.

MeatCatalogue

Taking one exam every 4 months will be good. And perhaps in a year 10% of enterprises might be using it As for right now its a largely worthless cert, especially with 2012 R2 releasing within the next 90 days.

treehouse

PMed you back, jamthat.

MeatCatalogue wrote: »

Taking one exam every 4 months will be good. And perhaps in a year 10% of enterprises might be using it As for right now its a largely worthless cert, especially with 2012 R2 releasing within the next 90 days.

Is this actually true? I've seen lots of preferences/requirements for MCSA that didn't get more specific than that. I figured 2012 would be the best to go after since you have to have it to get the new MCSEs.

aspiringsoul

treehouse,

The 70-410, 411, 412 exams will still be relevant after the release of Server 2012 R2. However, the exam objectives will most likely be updated to include the changes included in the Server 2012 R2 release. So after the release of R2, I would research the additional features as they might be covered in the exam.

I also recommend that unless you have already passed the 70-640, or 70-642 exams, that you go ahead an start on the MCSA 2012 track, as the MCSA 2012 certification is required to obtain the MCSE certification, as you mentioned.

chanakyajupudi

Best of luck for your exams. I did the exams in a timespan of 8 months. I have about 3 years of Windows Server experience and another 3 years in Redhat Linux.