70-643 - Some Thoughts.....

I've been studying 643 for a while now, so thought until I do the exam in 2-3 weeks time I'd post some of my thoughts (ramblings) and experience of studying for the exam.

For quite a while I've found some of the topics in this exam dry and with more than a hint of boredom. By that I mean firstly IIS which I've done some serious reading and labbing. I did find it difficult to find good reading material, this includes the normally reliable Technet documentation which left me disappointed as did the information on the main IIS website. Luckily reading William Stanek's fine IIS book opened my mind to the concepts I needed to understand.

Of the other topics RDS is boring topic #2 (despite its importance in IRL). I have no enthusiasm for it at all. Though deployment and SharePoint Foundation 2010 are the topics in 643 that I've really enjoyed. Re SharePoint the documentation on Technet is extensive so I'm making sure I'm getting to know it well. Of the other technologies such as NLB and advanced storage technologies they have also been great to read and learn as they'll be important when I start doing SQL Server exams in the new year.

Finally I want to add that knowing Certificate Services is very important for this exam as is having a deep understanding of permissions and authentication (esp important in IIS and Sharepoint).

I'm itching to get into studying 70-647 but I've read too many stories of 643 tripping people up so I'm keeping my eye firmly on the ball.

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marcels

Hi LCA,

I totally agree with you. I was reading one of the IIS chapters the MS Press 643 training kit at around 6pm yesterday, I actually fell asleep!

So far this is the hardest topic for me, I have no personal interest in IIS and very little requirement to use it in my working day. That said I know I'm going to have to send extra time on IIS due to my lack of working experience.

WDS and RDS are bread and butter for me and SharePoint is on my project plan for deployment next year. While I'm familiar with MOSS I'm interested in getting to grips with SharePoint 2010 and finding out the differences

rwmidl

This has to be the most painful exam to study for! I work with 2008 R2 day in day out, but man the 70-643 books stinks!

LCA

rwmidl wrote: »

This has to be the most painful exam to study for! I work with 2008 R2 day in day out, but man the 70-643 books stinks!

I agree, I've had to do some serious digging around especially on Technet to find the right technical information to read. As an example to study SharePoint Foundation 2010 I've found the stuff on Technet but it's not condensed in anyway because of the level of detail it goes into so I'm having to read a vast amount of material to find the topics that relate specifically for the exam. Overall I've been paying special attention to the complex relationship between authentication\authorization\permissions especially in IIS and SharePoint. I've got a hunch there's gonna be plenty of questions on this in the exam.

A topic that has had a complete change of the names of technologies is RDS. It's boring anyway though there is a lot of technical documentation on Technet and some videos that are good to get started with understanding configuration etc.

I've come to the conclusion that all the text books I've seen (that includes the new Unleashed R2 and Mastering R2 books) aren't detailed enough for an exam as technical as this one.

When I get a chance I'll had some new URL's to the 643 Resources thread.

earweed

To anyone who doesn't know I'm going for my 4th attempt at this exam. The MS Press book, IMO, is crap. I've gotten more from doing the Server 2008 Labsim than I got from the MS Press book. Labbing has helped.
This test has probably more material on it than any test I've taken so far and them adding R2 has made it harder. I put a link to a free MS elearning course on R2 in another thread. Over half of what that course covers is material on the 643 and it doesn't cover Sharepoint Foundation 2010 at all.
My test is tomorrow and I can't take off work tonight like I was supposed to (family emergency) and I have an appt. in the AM with an employment counselor and the test is in the afternoon. Hopefully I pull it off this time.
From my 3 previous attempts I did really well on the IIS and Network apps (sharepoint/ media services) RDS has so much stuff that I've consistently done mediocre on it.

LCA

Earweed,

Best wishes with 643, I can see where your coming from in your RDS comments. It's a question writers dream as it would be easy to think up tricky scenario's etc for exam purposes.

I'm going to be sitting this exam next week........

rwmidl

Ear - I've been following your attempts on the 643. Best of luck to you tomorrow. I know you want to get this monkey off your back.

I saw your other post and I'm going to check out the course tonight.

Part of me wants to go ahead and schedule the test just to take it to see how I score/do. If I could find a free second shot I probably would go for it.

MentholMoose

rwmidl wrote: »

Part of me wants to go ahead and schedule the test just to take it to see how I score/do. If I could find a free second shot I probably would go for it.

If you're a student you can take MS exams with Second Shot for $60. To qualify you just need to be enrolled in something and have a student ID.
Student Certification Exams | Special Offers | Microsoft Certification

rwmidl

MentholMoose wrote: »

If you're a student you can take MS exams with Second Shot for $60. To qualify you just need to be enrolled in something and have a student ID.
Student Certification Exams | Special Offers | Microsoft Certification

do you think my college ID from 1996 would pass?

LCA

I've booked the exam for Monday 6th December at 9.00am.

I'm confident I can do well but am still expecting a torrid time.....

earweed

Good luck on it LCA.
That test was a major hurdle for me to overcome. It seems like te only thing I did good on consistently was the deployment section. That's just because I did so much labbing on every topic that I never even reviewed that area after I took the test the first time. IIS was so dry and had so much material to learn hwile RDS intersted me but I had trouble really retaining all the info.

LCA

earweed wrote: »

Good luck on it LCA.
That test was a major hurdle for me to overcome. It seems like te only thing I did good on consistently was the deployment section. That's just because I did so much labbing on every topic that I never even reviewed that area after I took the test the first time. IIS was so dry and had so much material to learn hwile RDS intersted me but I had trouble really retaining all the info.

Thanks,

Deployment is a topic that is of course huge in 70-680 so I haven't had to learn it from the ground up. I agree with your IIS assessment, it's damn dry as heck and has so much to remember. Just grasping all those authentication modes has taken a while. RDS I'm going to more study, Did a major survey of Media Streaming Services and migrations to SharePoint Foundation 2010.

I've only got 3 & 1/2 days to go and I don't study for major MS exams too close to the day as it increases the chances of having brain overload. I'm gonna be prowling around many dialog boxes looking at various settings etc as it helps my memory to have a visual image of what is where.

I know this is a going to be a tough SOB to knock over but I love a challenge.......

LCA

Only 35 hours to go before I take this beast called 643 on. I've all but stopped studying now as I want to start clearing my mind so I don't go into the exam with brain overload (not a good idea with this of all exams). Now mostly just looking around dialog boxes so I have a decent visual reference of stuff.

I must say as others here have noted this is one difficult exam to study. Many of the topics are very disparate and sometimes loosely tied together at best. Compared to the 3 previous MS exams I've completed (680, 640, and 642), this one has in no uncertain terms become my bete noire. So much so that I'm fiercely determined to only have to do it once.

dhc

marcels wrote: »

Hi LCA,

I totally agree with you. I was reading one of the IIS chapters the MS Press 643 training kit at around 6pm yesterday, I actually fell asleep!

So far this is the hardest topic for me, I have no personal interest in IIS and very little requirement to use it in my working day. That said I know I'm going to have to send extra time on IIS due to my lack of working experience.

WDS and RDS are bread and butter for me and SharePoint is on my project plan for deployment next year. While I'm familiar with MOSS I'm interested in getting to grips with SharePoint 2010 and finding out the differences

Falling asleep...I can relate to that regarding the material on this particular exam...crazy boring. Anyway I failed this 8 months ago...starting to review again.

Good luck LCA!

LCA

Passed with a score of 952, never thought I'd get over 900. 65 questions with lots and lots of questions about IIS, RDS and Sharepoint Foundation 2010.

When I hit the button at the end to bring up the score I was more than a little anxious.

It sure is a rough and tough exam.........

Now onto 647 which I'm really looking forward too.

marcels

Congrats! Great pass score.

ITVince

Kick ass man congratulations

LCA

Thanks for the comments guys.

The breakdown of scores was:

Deploying Servers = 90%
Configuring Remote Desktop Services = 100%
Configuring a Web Services Infrastructure = 100%
Configuring Network Application Services = 75%

I'm over the moon I did so well with RDS and IIS, I hammered those topics in my study as I had a hunch that many of the questions on those topics may carry big points in the exams. The last couple of days before the exam day I spent ages and ages going through every RDS and IIS dialog box, and also group policy settings for RDS.

The other tactics I worked on for the actual exam was to make sure I was relaxed as possible and once I started I made sure I carefully read each question (often 2 or 3 times over).

earweed

Congrats on the graet score!