MS Certs

[sluthy]

My boss is looking to get me some Microsoft and Cisco certifications, to help with administering our local network and to prepare for some upcoming config changes with our network and some products we're installing. He's looking at Cisco stuff, I'm looking up MS stuff.

Our network is currently XP Pro desktops and laptops connecting to Win Server 2003 servers (virtualised under CentOS I believe, that's set up by head office up north). One of them is running Exchange 2007 server. My main job right now is more or less "my Outlook is playing up, come help me" tech support, although the boss is wanting us to become more autonomous from HO and for me to take more of an admin role.

My dilemna is, choosing what XP certification to get, if XP at all. Other recommendations suggest to ignore XP and just get Vista certs as "it's all the same anyway", which I think is rubbish.

My two trains of though are:

a. get the MCDST first (70-721, 70-272), then do 70-621 to upgrade that to Vista as well as Enterprise Support
b. Get Install/Config/Admin XP knowledge (70-620), then Install/Config/Admin Vista (70-620), then Enterprise Support (70-622)

...then Exchange 2007 (70-236), Office Communicator (70-638, for the CTI products we'll be installing), then MCSA/E and on from there.

Path B is a bit more direct, but I can't help but feel that the MCDST is more applicable to my current position (support and troubleshooting, rather than installing/admin). Has anyone here had experience with the MCDST or anytihng on this list, or could offer guidance at all?

And also, what is the best method of learning for these exams? Classroom courses are not applicable (regional town, no centres), so it's either textbooks or e-Learning (or TechNet, don't know a lot about that). When the textbooks are US$40ish (I'm in Australia, but it's cheaper to buy the texts over there and ship them here believe it or not), and the e-Learning courses are AU$250-400 each and about 2-3 to an exam, I can't help but wonder what I would be missing out on with the textbooks? Is the e-Learning worth the big dollars? The boss is paying, but I don't want to go to him with a $x000 expected bill and him to slam the door. Any ideas?

 

[tranceport]

I've been taking a lot of cisco tests lately. I use cisco press and read the exam certification guide for the test in question. I have plenty of hands on experience with the gear. Once I can answer all of their little test questions in the front and back of each chapter, I go and take the test.

I would apply a similar approach here.

Pick a test. Buy a book. Read it. Play with the tech it talks about. Answer the pre chapter and post chapter questions. Write your answer on a sheet of paper. Then check the answers. If you are wrong, study that a bit.




Have you ever taken certification tests like these before? You listed about a years worth of self study to take all of those tests. The best I have ever done is a test a month. Bootcamps can get you a cert fast. You can do MCSE in 3 weeks. It's arguable how much of that information you will retain for use in job though.

I'm currently one test from CCNP which I'll take this month or next.

CCDP CCNA MCSE:Messaging

 

[sluthy]

Originally posted by: tranceport
Pick a test. Buy a book. Read it. Play with the tech it talks about. Answer the pre chapter and post chapter questions. Write your answer on a sheet of paper. Then check the answers. If you are wrong, study that a bit.

I'm aware of how self-study works I did a fair bit of my BIT/BSc(Applied Physics) externally. The main problem is...

Originally posted by: tranceport
Pick a test.

That's what I'm trying to do! lol

Originally posted by: tranceport
Have you ever taken certification tests like these before?

No, my BIT is the only 'paper' I've got. I'd signed up for a Sun Java Cert pracice exam but I never got time to do anything about it, about to expire probably.

I'm wondering, in my position currently, if A or B fits my needs more.

 

[tranceport]

I cannot tell you what path to go. You have to figure out what you either want to be certified in or what best suits your environment and will help you.

When I was taking Microsoft exams they had something called "comprehensive", which meant when you missed a question on a topic you would get asked more questions on that topic to find out if you didn't actually know the material or if you just made a mistake. This could quickly lead to you failing the exam. I haven't taken a Microsoft test in about 5 years so things may be different now.

 

[Nothinman]

The only thing MS certs are really good for is padding your resume. I went and passed 4 MS tests on the first try in about a 1 month time frame with just a day or so of review before each test. I obviously had some knowledge on the subjects before the tests but I wouldn't consider myself an expert by any stretch of the imagination.

If you're looking to actually become more knowledgeable on the subjects go for the more practical books instead of the "Pass this exam" books and, keep working with the software and just concentrate on learning the subject, do the exams later on when you feel confident that you'll pass without cheat-sheets or study guides. The study guides are still useful because the tests will cover things that you don't use every day so it's a good refresher but they won't teach you anything in a usable fashion. There's no substitute for hands-on learning even if it's a test lab consisting of half a dozen VMs running the pieces of software that you want to play with.