What to study?

Hi guys,

I'm in a bit of a dilemma! I am an MCSE 2003 and MCITP: EA certified professional with 10 years general IT experience. I have a general knowledge about a lot of Microsoft products. The product I have the most experience with is Server 2003 and Exchange 2003. I am always focused on how we can improve things, so design is my favorite topic.

I want to change my career into a unified messaging specialist/consultant from being a general system engineer. So my question is what Exchange should I study at this moment?

My plan was to do 70-284, 70-285 and the Exchange 2007 MCITP track for this year. And to focus on Exchange 2010 MCITP track next year. Also to do the OCS 2007 this year and OCS 2010 next year. Should I still focus on these older technologies or just skip ahead to the 2010 versions?

I hope you guys can shed some light on this with your opinions!

Kind regards,

Jengelander

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Jengelander

IcelandicViking wrote: »

My advice is to skip Exchange 2007 completely. Ex2010 is built upon that technology and you'll gain most of what you need to know about Ex2007 from studying Ex2010.

Should you do the Ex2003? I don't know. I'm skipping it, going right to Ex2010. I figure that having a certification in the newest technology is enough and if you're experienced in the older version - as you obviously are, that should be more than enough.

Thanks for you're help oh mighty hammer of Thor

sterlingblue

IcelandicViking wrote: »

My advice is to skip Exchange 2007 completely. Ex2010 is built upon that technology and you'll gain most of what you need to know about Ex2007 from studying Ex2010.

Should you do the Ex2003? I don't know. I'm skipping it, going right to Ex2010. I figure that having a certification in the newest technology is enough and if you're experienced in the older version - as you obviously are, that should be more than enough.

I think there is an advantage to doing e12 before e14. e14 introduces many new concepts like DAGs MOMT, DOMT. A wealth of new cmdlets. Could throw you off if you need to work in a 2k7 environment that doesn't have these features.

just my 2c

blargoe

I think I would do the MCTS for 2007 but skip the ITP. Then do the ITP for 2010. That would address the points that stirlingblue makes.

Claymoore

Jengelander wrote: »

Hi guys,

I want to change my career into a unified messaging specialist/consultant from being a general system engineer. So my question is what Exchange should I study at this moment?

If you want to consult around Exchange, my advice is to study all of it. Unless you work for a pure staff-aug firm, most of your Exchange consulting gigs will be migrations to later versions of Exchange. You may be migrating from Exchange 2003 or through Exchange 2003 since 2010 has no connectors to other mail systems like Notes or GroupWise. Take the 284 exam just to solidify your Exchange base skills. I administered for a few years before I took the exam and I still learned quite a bit studying for it. 285 won't help much (unless you want the MCSE:Messaging specialization) since there isn't much interest in 2003 design work these days.

You should certainly take the 236 exam for 2007. We are still seeing a lot of interest in migrations to 2007 because some companies prefer to run more seasoned server applications. Besides, you may eventually lead a migration from 2007 to 2010 so it's good to know both versions. The 237 exam is easy and I felt the 238 exam was the best Exchange exam I have ever taken, if not the best Microsoft exam I have taken.

Other companies skipped 2007 and went straight to 2010. Personally, I would choose 2010 over 2007 today, and most companies will get there eventually. I felt the 662 was a very easy Exchange exam, but I haven't taken the 663 yet.

Taking an OCS exam will help your organization qualify for the Unified Messaging partner competency. It will also help if you are doing migrations from Notes to Exchange because you can handle an OCS deployment to replace the SameTime functionality. 2007 is your only real option right now - I haven't heard anything about the OCS 2010 beta exams, or really anything about the new OCS 2010 specs.

Jengelander

Claymoore wrote: »

If you want to consult around Exchange, my advice is to study all of it. Unless you work for a pure staff-aug firm, most of your Exchange consulting gigs will be migrations to later versions of Exchange. You may be migrating from Exchange 2003 or through Exchange 2003 since 2010 has no connectors to other mail systems like Notes or GroupWise. Take the 284 exam just to solidify your Exchange base skills. I administered for a few years before I took the exam and I still learned quite a bit studying for it. 285 won't help much (unless you want the MCSE:Messaging specialization) since there isn't much interest in 2003 design work these days.

You should certainly take the 236 exam for 2007. We are still seeing a lot of interest in migrations to 2007 because some companies prefer to run more seasoned server applications. Besides, you may eventually lead a migration from 2007 to 2010 so it's good to know both versions. The 237 exam is easy and I felt the 238 exam was the best Exchange exam I have ever taken, if not the best Microsoft exam I have taken.

Other companies skipped 2007 and went straight to 2010. Personally, I would choose 2010 over 2007 today, and most companies will get there eventually. I felt the 662 was a very easy Exchange exam, but I haven't taken the 663 yet.

Taking an OCS exam will help your organization qualify for the Unified Messaging partner competency. It will also help if you are doing migrations from Notes to Exchange because you can handle an OCS deployment to replace the SameTime functionality. 2007 is your only real option right now - I haven't heard anything about the OCS 2010 beta exams, or really anything about the new OCS 2010 specs.

Thanks everybody for the great advice!

Claymoore, that makes a lot of sense! Thanks for the heads-up on the exams and your personal experience.