Category Windows Server

I took these two beta exams this past week, and let me start off first by saying, Wow! These are quite possibly some of the most polished exams I’ve ever seen!

The content was clear and concise, the questions were spot-on, and the delivery was amazing! I had no comments to offer other than "Wow, great exam" (I’m paraphrasing!:))

However, going past that, we get into the depths of the Post-Mortem.

071-451 was an excellent exam, the questions were very focused on your ability to Design, Optimize, and continually work on making sure that your data was delivered in a consistent fashion while also validating for performance and a number of other figures.   If you’re a day-in-day-out DBA who looks at improving your SQL Data, then this is the exam for you.

071-450 was also an excellent exam, the questions were very focused on your ability to actually manage your data, be it in clusters, clustered and non-clustered indexes, mirrors and especially the ability to back up your data.   If you happen to wear the hat of managing the databases and spending less time writing queries, this exam is spot-on and will be a breath of fresh air to you.

In all, I have nothing special to offer you outside of "If you know you’re stuff, you’ll be ready for these exams"

However, I did encounter something disturbing.   While taking 071-450 an exam focused on "Designing, Optimizing, and Maintaining" a database environment, I encountered a considerable volume of "How do I back this up" type of question, equally followed by a series of "How do I restore and get back into operation" type of questions.

Which leaves me to think, it’s 2008 already, is this seriously still a question?    I hear it in the field all the time as well, and I’m seriously disturbed.    The amount of data we have is growing, our windows – shrinking.   There are options and opportunities to ensure you have a quick, efficient and effective backup, restore and operational window.   When it’s still a question on the table – especially in an emerging product like SQL 2008, I have to seriously ask, Are we taking steps backwards instead of adopting the innovations available to us over the years?

Yes I work for NetApp, and yes I’ve seen the light offered by amazing solutions like SnapManager for SQL, and SnapManager for Oracle, and a series of other products to protect everything important within every small, medium and enterprise business.    And to be honest, this isn’t rocket science (Rocket Science is FAR easier) especially when you compare it to the number of "backup" options available to "try" to protect your SQL environment only to leave you scratching your head and still unsure about your availability and recoverability.  

And to be honest, this isn’t a commercial, whereas in reality that test was a wake-up call of "WTF is going on?!" I don’t want to be in this same position 2 years from now in 2010, and 12 years from now in 2020 and having it still be a question on the table of "How do we protect and recover our data?"   

That’s right! I’m actually telling you about the CWUG when it ISNT the day of the event!

And lo and behold, there will be some great things going on this Monday in Downers Grove!

We bring you the CWUG Geek Olympics, with prizes of sorts, food as always and more Points to help secure your place in winning the Laptop at the end of the year!

I’d highly encourage you to register for this event, but don’t hesitate to email or call me if you find that registration is full… I might be able to pull some strings! ;)

This will be a very special event, with beasts! …definitely Geek Trivia, Competition and Prizes!

Don’t wait! Sign up now! (And most importantly, show up)

Agenda:

Monday

5PM-6PM – Food, Networking, etc
6PM-9PM – Competition, Trivia, Prizes, Education, Technology, insanity!

So, come on down! I’ll seeeeeeee you there!

Let me start off with a warning about this exam.

This test is not available everywhere, and for good reason.   It is a complicated exam which launches a Real Virtual Lab environment which is run off of a server across the Internet.

The key word there being "Internet", which this often implies not having Routing issues, connection problems, speed, latency (Lag) and other client to server remote connection issues.

Lets just say, I ran into some of those issues – And you might as well.   I went in with an expectation to potentially have some problems.  Exam launched, Click connect to visit the lab and BAM – no connection.   3 hours later of them ‘resetting the exam‘ I was then able to connect into the server.   Sadly I did not have the amount of time to fully take advantage of the exam, but I did have the opportunity to read, review and comment.

The labs are interesting, it’s a true server (help files and all) and command line and other decisions and exploitations and choices you’d make on a server host.   But beware.

I encountered all that I mentioned, lag, connection issues, delay, and a slew of other ‘technical’ issues which can happen to anyone.   Great exam for what it is worth (and I commented away based upon the content and delivery) But do approach this Pilot with an expectation that you MAY encounter issues.   Prometric CAN work them out, but the Helpdesk will likely have no idea what is going on and what to do (Hopefully this 3 hour ‘lesson’ will prepare them for the next person who takes it)

Good luck, and Good Testing!

This is an absolutely amazing test, which is simple, easy, very understandable and straight-forward.

Did I pass? Eh, possibly – but I’m not going to bet my life on it.

If it’s so easy, why am I unsure? – so begins my Post Mortem :)

If you’ve ever looked at the internals of Windows before, and that means drilling down deep into User.dmp‘s, Memory.dmp‘s and looking at threads, processes, heaps and a number of things – Especially getting your hands dirty debugging windows – This test is right on par for you, almost a sub-100 level test on what is involved.

However, to the untrained ear (or eye) you’ll perceive this as a 900 level test, making you work your hardest while reviewing everything arcane, different and strange to you.

This all boils down to the unwritten rules of Power Curves such as to say, not everyone is suited to be an administrator, architect, collaborator, consultant, debugger, developer, engineer, evangelist, professional, technician or Technologist.

But that doesn’t stop us from trying.   And it is tests like this one which further stretches that line, while blurring it at the same time – exposing and opening up those possibilities without expert knowledge to embrace it and grow our technological community as a whole.

Good luck out there, keep growing.

And if you want to grow your Windows Internals knowledge – Here is a good place to start. 

That sure is a lot to cover in this header, but it is true.

If you happen to read Trika’s Blog as I do you will find this little gem about the Performance based testing pilot!

What this talks about is a Performanced based pilot! Going through a new simulation type which MS and Prometric are working on offering and delivering. Quite different than the past “instance” based simulations, where you’re limited in what you’re able to do. This actually gives you the real environment where it judges you on not how you got to your answer, just on your final answer.

I think it sounds and seems pretty sweet, as us command line folks would rather type a command than click a million windows to end up at the same point.

Disclaimer: Participation in this pilot exam will not earn you credit for the MCTS Server 2008 AD. It will however earn you a free exam voucher to be used for any MS exam.

Register for New Performance Based Testing Pilot Exam 70-113: TS: Windows® Server 2008 Active Directory, Configuring

So, as it stands, getting to get your hands on and provide feedback for the future of simulations, ensure any ‘issues’ are known and notified by you back to the mothership regarding future testing.

Oh, and I think it goes without saying, that we all love Trika! I know I do! :)