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ToG
Feb 17, 2007
Rory Gallagher Wannabe
I'm planning my studies and considering going the Cisco academy route for CCNP/CCNA:S just because I'm finding it hard to motivate myself. Is doing these over 2 years a reasonable goal?

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Comradephate
Feb 28, 2009

College Slice

Tigren posted:

Congrats on the pass. I'm studying for the same test right now. Is it as straight forward as it's made out to be? Study the Jang book and I'll be good?

I've been off the internet for a spell, but three pretty much covered it. The Jang text is way more in-depth than the test requires, which is much better than the alternative. If you know the text, you will crush the test.

My advice for the actual test would be to read the instructions very carefully, and ensure that your changes persist through reboot.

MJP
Jun 17, 2007

Are you looking at me Senpai?

Grimey Drawer

Raven457 posted:

For MCSA: Server 2008, is this MS Press kit still the recommended option? http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0735663289/ref=ox_sc_act_title_6?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A2L77EE7U53NWQ

Any other books I should pick up?

If you aren't big on MS Press' extremely task-oriented layout ("Here is how to do X, here is how to do Y") definitely check out Sybex's offering: http://www.amazon.com/MCTS-Windows-Server-Complete-70-640/dp/0470948469/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1382708637&sr=8-2&keywords=Sybex+70-646

I found they're a lot better at "this is a prime example of what you'll see on the exam" that still covers all the material, but they lead you through things in a manner a lot more conducive to use cases. It's not the giant infodump that MS Press' 2008 books were.

Raven457
Aug 7, 2002
I bought Torquemada's torture equipment on e-bay!

MJP posted:

If you aren't big on MS Press' extremely task-oriented layout ("Here is how to do X, here is how to do Y") definitely check out Sybex's offering: http://www.amazon.com/MCTS-Windows-Server-Complete-70-640/dp/0470948469/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1382708637&sr=8-2&keywords=Sybex+70-646

I found they're a lot better at "this is a prime example of what you'll see on the exam" that still covers all the material, but they lead you through things in a manner a lot more conducive to use cases. It's not the giant infodump that MS Press' 2008 books were.

Thanks MJP, I appreciate it.

BigT
Oct 22, 2004

Martytoof posted:

I'd say CCENT at least is useful if you plan to never touch a network career and work with servers only. A networking background can NEVER hurt your understanding of troubleshooting and implementing your servers' raison d'être. CCNA wouldn't hurt. I would say that going beyond CCNA might not be as useful at that point because you'd be specializing in network protocols and such, but I think CCENT is more than worthwhile.

I agree with the CCENT, in fact, if i see that or Network+ I dive in. The reason i recommend Net+ over CCNET is because the future is commodity hardware with open source software.

I always kind of look at Cisco certs with a mild trepidation to just inject a constant a stream of Cisco advocates as networking and hardware folks will most likely recommend Cisco hardware to management as they are most comfortable with it. Its self serving for Cisco, and not for the person learning it. In IT you want to be as flexible as possible, and being able to jump into new technology and not be that guy advocating for obsolete hardware will help you in the long run.

Granted, Cisco is still very vital in today's infrastructure, but I see those waves changing.

The big boy data centers are the early adopters of this, you'll see that cheap hardware start to funnel down to the mid-small level businesses eventually...

BigT fucked around with this message at 17:45 on Oct 26, 2013

CrazyLittle
Sep 11, 2001





Clapping Larry

BigT posted:

I agree with the CCENT, in fact, if i see that or Network+ I dive in. The reason i recommend Net+ over CCNET is because the future is commodity hardware with open source software.

Cisco's not losing out due to software, or even the "free"-ness of OSS. Cisco is losing out because their hardware depends on custom ASICs to process all the accelerated functions of their hardware, and today's desktop processors can out-perform ASICS even without hardware acceleration. This resulted in other big name hardware makers like Juniper (and now Brocade/Vyatta) switching over to commodity hardware and multi-processing platforms to curbstomp Cisco's performance with cheaper boxes. You can buy a Ubiquiti-made router running Vyatta with 3 routed gigabit ethernet interfaces in it for $100, and it will beat the performance numbers of $2000 cisco ISR routers. Mind you - that's not really open source software. The big names will have their place at the top of the food chain for the foreseeable future. They offer standardization and support verticals that OSS still doesn't offer, and probably won't any time soon.

some kinda jackal
Feb 25, 2003

 
 
It's basically "no one ever got fired for buying IBM", but with Cisco.

The value of CC* isn't really learning the cisco stuff, it's learning the concepts which you implement in a cisco environment. Like knowing EIGRP and OSPF is really useful, even if you won't likely encounter EIGRP outside of a Cisco environment. For OSPF, if you're not completely braindead you can convert your knowledge over to juniper or some other vendor with a sufficient amount of "?" at the CLI.

As with most stuff, it's really just paperwork that says you know how to learn.

incoherent
Apr 24, 2004

01010100011010000111001
00110100101101100011011
000110010101110010

Raven457 posted:

Thanks MJP, I appreciate it.

Also a note: be very strong and confidant in certification services, one of the core features of ADDS. It's literally peppered throughout all of microsoft technologies.

inignot
Sep 1, 2003

WWBCD?

BigT posted:

I agree with the CCENT, in fact, if i see that or Network+ I dive in. The reason i recommend Net+ over CCNET is because the future is commodity hardware with open source software.

This is nuts for two reasons:

1. Good luck with a career in network infrastructure if you're going to exclude anyone who makes non open source products: Cisco, Juniper, Extreme, Dell, HP, Palo Alto, Riverbed, F5, etc.

2. The vast majority of the functionality from those vendors equipment is implementing open standards from the IETF and IEEE.

Raven457
Aug 7, 2002
I bought Torquemada's torture equipment on e-bay!

incoherent posted:

Also a note: be very strong and confidant in certification services, one of the core features of ADDS. It's literally peppered throughout all of microsoft technologies.

Good to know. My day to day job has me interacting with active directory on a very limited basis, and I'm not exposed to that at all, so I'll be setting up a VM farm to get some more hands on experience. I have the MS Press books and the Sybex set mentioned earlier, and plan to work through them both.

Contingency
Jun 2, 2007

MURDERER
My company refuses to pay the Cisco tax on access switches--they've bought Dell Powerconnects for years. Take functionality like port security: on one switch, if you unplug the network cable, the learned MACs disappear, on another, the threshold is the number of MACs simultaneously in use, and on another switch, the learned MACs never age out (the threshold is effectively the all-time number of MACs on a port). Dell does not have an unified platform like Cisco does, so each new generation of hardware comes with an unacceptable level of uncertainty regarding whether the device will behave the way you expect it to. Are there viable/superior alternatives to Cisco? Sure. Are products half the price Cisco-quality? I wouldn't count on it.

Support ecosystem matters as well. Tech not knowing how to set up a VPN? Problem with any vendor (my worst distant-end tech got 11 things wrong with his setup, and that was a Cisco ASA). Not knowing whether your device supports the functionality in the first place? If the tech's first email includes "Watchguard," "Netgear," or my favorite, "enterprise-grade," I double the installation time estimate. The average tech is incapable of setting up anything moderately complicated if there isn't an example on Google to use as a reference.

MrMoo
Sep 14, 2000

inignot posted:

1. Good luck with a career in network infrastructure if you're going to exclude anyone who makes non open source products: Cisco, Juniper, Extreme, Dell, HP, Palo Alto, Riverbed, F5, etc.

It pretty much means you can only work for Googles.

Dilbert As FUCK
Sep 8, 2007

by Cowcaster
Pillbug
"Hey Dilbert, I want you to help me teach View Desktops 5.1"

yeah gently caress teaching marketable skill sets n poo poo LOL I just want to put "taught vmware on my resume"... gently caress it all I'd rather do live webex's teaching View 5.2/5.3 for free/donations. Sure an arch is important but hell you are teaching a VCP-DT course and can tie in the arch, or relevant to the VCP-DT exam...

Why do people feel the need to "just teach what is needed for some kind of I did my part on it..." I doubt I will ever understand that mind set.

Dilbert As FUCK fucked around with this message at 04:47 on Oct 27, 2013

BigT
Oct 22, 2004

inignot posted:

This is nuts for two reasons:

1. Good luck with a career in network infrastructure if you're going to exclude anyone who makes non open source products: Cisco, Juniper, Extreme, Dell, HP, Palo Alto, Riverbed, F5, etc.


Ummmm what part did say I overlook people with a CCNEt? I said i prefer net+ to ccnet i never said it was a requirement. Your cisco certs are still good. Don't get too worked up now.

jane came by
Jun 29, 2013

by Fistgrrl
The discussion touching on the future of networking gear/vendors is interesting, because I'm wondering as someone studying for the ccna if all this effort will be pointless a few years from now when some better and simpler technology comes along.


BigT said: "Ummmm what part did say I overlook people with a CCNEt? I said i prefer net+ to ccnet i never said it was a requirement. Your cisco certs are still good. Don't get too worked up now. "

Supposedly the new CCENT is as challenging as the old CCNA. They moved a bunch of topics from icnd 2 to the CCENT.

H.R. Paperstacks
May 1, 2006

This is America
My president is black
and my Lambo is blue

CrazyLittle posted:

Cisco's not losing out due to software, or even the "free"-ness of OSS. Cisco is losing out because their hardware depends on custom ASICs to process all the accelerated functions of their hardware, and today's desktop processors can out-perform ASICS even without hardware acceleration. This resulted in other big name hardware makers like Juniper (and now Brocade/Vyatta) switching over to commodity hardware and multi-processing platforms to curbstomp Cisco's performance with cheaper boxes. You can buy a Ubiquiti-made router running Vyatta with 3 routed gigabit ethernet interfaces in it for $100, and it will beat the performance numbers of $2000 cisco ISR routers. Mind you - that's not really open source software. The big names will have their place at the top of the food chain for the foreseeable future. They offer standardization and support verticals that OSS still doesn't offer, and probably won't any time soon.

Care to cite some sources? You are completely wrong on Juniper swapping to commodity hardware, because the entire MX platform is built on I and Trio chipsets and the EX9200 is using the Juniper ONE ASIC, which is custom silicon as well.

I'd be interested to see some throughput numbers on different scenarios of this $100 "gigabit" router as well.

Alctel
Jan 16, 2004

I love snails


jane came by posted:

The discussion touching on the future of networking gear/vendors is interesting, because I'm wondering as someone studying for the ccna if all this effort will be pointless a few years from now when some better and simpler technology comes along.


BigT said: "Ummmm what part did say I overlook people with a CCNEt? I said i prefer net+ to ccnet i never said it was a requirement. Your cisco certs are still good. Don't get too worked up now. "

Supposedly the new CCENT is as challenging as the old CCNA. They moved a bunch of topics from icnd 2 to the CCENT.

I found the new CCENT easier than the old one, since there was no more legacy stuff like ring networks

some kinda jackal
Feb 25, 2003

 
 
Did they even have a CCENT when ring networks were relevant :stonk:

BigT
Oct 22, 2004

jane came by posted:

The discussion touching on the future of networking gear/vendors is interesting, because I'm wondering as someone studying for the ccna if all this effort will be pointless a few years from now when some better and simpler technology comes along.



Pointless? No. Cisco will be here for a long time ago. Its in virtually every major infrastructure there is for networking.

etalian
Mar 20, 2006

BigT posted:

Pointless? No. Cisco will be here for a long time ago. Its in virtually every major infrastructure there is for networking.

Yeah it's the Microsoft equivalent for telecom hardware.

Gucci Loafers
May 20, 2006

Ask yourself, do you really want to talk to pair of really nice gaudy shoes?


etalian posted:

Yeah it's the Microsoft equivalent for telecom hardware.

Personally, I think Microsoft is going to have a much harder time than Cisco.

abigserve
Sep 13, 2009

this is a better avatar than what I had before
It's worth keeping in mind that Cisco has generally proved to be more flexible than Microsoft when it comes to developing new products. R&D is a huge part of Cisco's core business (as far as I'm aware?) and one of the reasons you pay the Cisco Tax is because your hardware and software is as stuffed full of bleeding-edge features as can be resonably expected without it also being a buggy mess. And if it is a buggy mess (Nexus VPC L3 features on release, yo) you can expect a quick turnaround with knowelegable support to resolve the problem.

In the next 5-10 years there will likely be a large technology shift and I would bank on it being driven by Cisco, because they are the only ones who can afford to take some experimental new protocol or bit of silicon and drive it into an enterprise grade solution.

What's great about the current market it's competitive - everyone is trying to outdo everyone else on features or hardware while also driving the cost down as much as possible. This is how you end up with fantastic bits of resonably priced kit like the Palo Alto boxes or the telco-targeted high-end Junipers. All of which you can configure with a small learning curve because you understand all the concepts because you got your goddamn CCNA/CCNP/CCIE get your cisco certs dumbasses they will never not be useful to you

Comradephate
Feb 28, 2009

College Slice

abigserve posted:

It's worth keeping in mind that Cisco has generally proved to be more flexible than Microsoft when it comes to developing new products

Cisco also excels at buying companies that make products that fill a hole in their current offerings.

MJP
Jun 17, 2007

Are you looking at me Senpai?

Grimey Drawer

Raven457 posted:

Good to know. My day to day job has me interacting with active directory on a very limited basis, and I'm not exposed to that at all, so I'll be setting up a VM farm to get some more hands on experience. I have the MS Press books and the Sybex set mentioned earlier, and plan to work through them both.

Replication, too. Hopefully I'm not breaking NDA, but 2k8 does test on ADFS, ADCS, and all the AD bells and whistles that you'll only see A) if you're using some MS solution that requires them, B) if you are an AD administrator in a giant company, C) if you're the same administrator in a company that grows through acquisition a lot, or D) if you're looking to go to Azure or Office 365.

If this is your first MS test, also make sure you know your PKI. I did the 2k8 upgrade exam from 2k3 so it didn't go super deep into the guts of DNS, so I don't know if the non-upgrade exams go heavy into DNS or not. Know it, just to be safe, and if nothing else, what they test on is very good broad DNS knowledge to have.

CrazyLittle
Sep 11, 2001





Clapping Larry

H.R. Paperstacks posted:

You are completely wrong on Juniper swapping to commodity hardware,

Juniper M & J-Series are based on Intel CPUs.

H.R. Paperstacks posted:

I'd be interested to see some throughput numbers on different scenarios of this $100 "gigabit" router as well.

http://dl.ubnt.com/Tolly212127UbiquitiEdgeRouterLitePricePerformance.pdf
http://dl.ubnt.com/Tolly212128UbiquitiEdgeRouterLitePricePerformanceVsMikroTik.pdf

CrazyLittle fucked around with this message at 18:44 on Oct 28, 2013

H.R. Paperstacks
May 1, 2006

This is America
My president is black
and my Lambo is blue

You are confusing the CPU in the routing-engine/control-plane with the ASICs that are on the PIC/FPCs

From an M7i I have in the lab.

code:
RTR010# run show chassis pic fpc-slot 1 pic-slot 3     
FPC slot 1, PIC slot 3 information:
  Type                             1x G/E, 1000 BASE
  ASIC type                        QGE FPGA
  State                            Online    
  PIC version                  1.9
  Uptime                         251 days, 10 hours, 21 minutes, 10 seconds
code:
RTR010# run start shell 
% 
% 
% sysctl -a | egrep -i 'hw.machine|hw.model|hw.ncpu'
hw.machine: i386
hw.model: Intel Celeron
hw.ncpu: 1
hw.machine_arch: i386
% 
The RE's have off the shelf Intel's because they do nothing other than spinup JUNOS and the associated daemons that interact with the actual hardware. The actual work takes place on the PIC/FPC itself with the RIB/FIB.

22 Eargesplitten
Oct 10, 2010



I'm about to schedule my A+ exams finally. Are there any discounted vouchers out there for students?

What obscure stuff should I brush up on for the A+? I'll do some prep work before the exam obviously, but I want to make sure I memorize the stuff that I've never had to care about since I took the A+ classes. Like IDE and SATA max length specs.

Does it matter where I take my test, as long as it's at a Pearson-Vue center? There's a CollegeAmerica here in town, they're the only ones that I wouldn't have to drive an hour to get to. I know the test is the same no matter what, but is my paperwork going to show it and say "Don't hire this clown"?

DrAlexanderTobacco
Jun 11, 2012

Help me find my true dharma
Hi there,

I had a review with my company yesterday and they'd like me to start getting some certifications - MCSAs in particular, 2012. A Microsoft rep advised me to do Server 2008 first, and then upgrade to Server 2012. Is there much point in doing that, or would I be able to skip 2008, and go for 2012 directly?

TKovacs2
Sep 21, 2009

1991, 1992, 2009 = Woooooooooooo

DrAlexanderTobacco posted:

Hi there,

I had a review with my company yesterday and they'd like me to start getting some certifications - MCSAs in particular, 2012. A Microsoft rep advised me to do Server 2008 first, and then upgrade to Server 2012. Is there much point in doing that, or would I be able to skip 2008, and go for 2012 directly?

I'm currently in the MCSA 2012 track....and it isn't easy. I've passed my 410, take my 411 Friday, and 412 in November.

If you have no familiarity with Server 2012, going 2008 than upgrading once you get some hands on time may very well be the way to go.

DrAlexanderTobacco
Jun 11, 2012

Help me find my true dharma

TKovacs2 posted:

I'm currently in the MCSA 2012 track....and it isn't easy. I've passed my 410, take my 411 Friday, and 412 in November.

If you have no familiarity with Server 2012, going 2008 than upgrading once you get some hands on time may very well be the way to go.

Thanks for the reply - I'll keep that in mind. How long did it take you to get the 410 done?

jane came by
Jun 29, 2013

by Fistgrrl
Aren't they retiring MCCA 2008 tests in January?

FISHMANPET
Mar 3, 2007

Sweet 'N Sour
Can't
Melt
Steel Beams
So, as someone that already runs their own VMWare cluster, can I just skip most of the lessons in the Stanly course and jump straight into the labs?

Also is he just gonna read every slide in these video lectures?

E: First lesson and he's talking about vCloud Director, which I don't know anything about, so I guess I'm getting something out of this.

FISHMANPET fucked around with this message at 15:57 on Oct 29, 2013

Amphion
Jun 10, 2012

All we know is... he's called The Stig.

jane came by posted:

Aren't they retiring MCCA 2008 tests in January?

No

MJP
Jun 17, 2007

Are you looking at me Senpai?

Grimey Drawer

DrAlexanderTobacco posted:

Hi there,

I had a review with my company yesterday and they'd like me to start getting some certifications - MCSAs in particular, 2012. A Microsoft rep advised me to do Server 2008 first, and then upgrade to Server 2012. Is there much point in doing that, or would I be able to skip 2008, and go for 2012 directly?

I did the same track the rep suggested back in May. The upgrade test for the MCSA 2012 from MCSA 2008 is tough and tests on a lot of new stuff to 2012. The good news is that it doesn't reiterate stupid crap from 2003 and 2008 much. Yes, you'll need to know the material and I'm sure that the straight 2k8 training materials cover it nicely (I upgraded 2k8 from 2k3) but that course track is feasible.

Here's two things to keep in mind, though:

1) There's only two legitimate/reputable books available, the MS Press 70-417 book and the Sybex book, which covers the straight MCSA 2012 track (70-410, -411, and -412) as well was the upgrade track (70-417). How they differentiate between "know this for -417" and "know this for Exam X/Y/Z" is beyond me, so I'd say see if you can get Sybex off Amazon, read it, and return it if it doesn't make sense. (http://www.amazon.com/Windows-Server-Complete-Study-Guide/dp/1118544072/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1383075104&sr=8-2&keywords=70-417)

2) Server 2012 R2 just dropped. I personally don't know when MS starts putting R2 content into exams, but from this post on MS' learning blog (which is a separate internal division within MS and has to ask questions of the MS training/certification people - how they got this huge being so all-over-the-place is beyond me as well) it seems that there will be new exam content, and that new books are in the works. Nothing yet details their release.

Anyway, given the above, my opinion: if your first MS server cert is 2012, you're gonna have to stomach a lot of new info if you don't use 2012 already within your daily tasks. If you use 2008 more, definitely start with the 2008 MCSA. The amount you learn is phenomenal from the books, especially in how it helps round out your daily tasks. You know so much more and it's a more immediate payoff than going straight for 2012.

By the time you finish the three 2008 exams (I tend to re-read, re-take notes, re-study a lot, so my estimates are conservative) in nine months, allowing three per exam to prepare, the R2 books will be out. I was able to pass the 70-417 on the MS Press book, which I find phenomenal - it's a lot more well-written, intended for an audience of human learners and not as a technical manual. Definitely spin up a home lap in Virtualbox, though.

Hope all that helps... happy to take it to PMs if you want to get into specifics that don't break NDA, but I really do think that anyone looking at 2012 certs should really read that blog post and get an understanding that new content is coming very, very soon.

FISHMANPET posted:

So, as someone that already runs their own VMWare cluster, can I just skip most of the lessons in the Stanly course and jump straight into the labs?

Also is he just gonna read every slide in these video lectures?

E: First lesson and he's talking about vCloud Director, which I don't know anything about, so I guess I'm getting something out of this.

Ironically, I got a lot of the stuff he's talking about out of the VCA-DCV exam, so it wasn't that huge of a waste of time. It's less "this is new, must memorize."

I'm kind of meh about how narrow and basic the exercises are, though. It's more like a guide in how to do X or Y, not so much "OK, your assignment is to do X or Y."

At least he's skipping reading down the objective and summary slides, the single worst point of any Powerpoint presentation ever. But if he pronounces it "TOE-pology" again I'm not sure if I'll giggle madly or smash my monitor.

MJP fucked around with this message at 20:41 on Oct 29, 2013

Haydez
Apr 8, 2003

EVIL LINK

FISHMANPET posted:

So, as someone that already runs their own VMWare cluster, can I just skip most of the lessons in the Stanly course and jump straight into the labs?

Also is he just gonna read every slide in these video lectures?

E: First lesson and he's talking about vCloud Director, which I don't know anything about, so I guess I'm getting something out of this.


Haha, yeah the slide lessons are a bit, uh, lackluster. I really hope they open more of the 'module' things already. I want to get it over with quickly but only 1-3 is open so far. I think all the labs are open but I wanted to use that material too. I help manage small vmware cluster, but I'd like to actually know more details about how everything works.


All this being said I'm sitting for my Cisco VPN exam tomorrow. I pass this and I get that nifty CCNP Security certification in the books. I haven't been this nervous since the original CCNA :(

Daylen Drazzi
Mar 10, 2007

Why do I root for Notre Dame? Because I like pain, and disappointment, and anguish. Notre Dame Football has destroyed more dreams than the Irish Potato Famine, and that is the kind of suffering I can get behind.
Just for the hell of it I'm taking the VCA-DCV exam tomorrow just so I can giggle madly and point to it when I feel like annoying a co-worker. I've already told them that I don't really consider it a good indicator of knowledge concerning vSphere or vCenter, so just to one-up the cert collector of our group I'm going to get it so I can lord over him that fact that I have more industry-relevant certs than he does.

EdEddnEddy
Apr 5, 2012



MJP posted:

I did the same track the rep suggested back in May. The upgrade test for the MCSA 2012 from MCSA 2008 is tough and tests on a lot of new stuff to 2012. The good news is that it doesn't reiterate stupid crap from 2003 and 2008 much. Yes, you'll need to know the material and I'm sure that the straight 2k8 training materials cover it nicely (I upgraded 2k8 from 2k3) but that course track is feasible.

Here's two things to keep in mind, though:

1) There's only two legitimate/reputable books available, the MS Press 70-417 book and the Sybex book, which covers the straight MCSA 2012 track (70-410, -411, and -412) as well was the upgrade track (70-417). How they differentiate between "know this for -417" and "know this for Exam X/Y/Z" is beyond me, so I'd say see if you can get Sybex off Amazon, read it, and return it if it doesn't make sense. (http://www.amazon.com/Windows-Server-Complete-Study-Guide/dp/1118544072/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1383075104&sr=8-2&keywords=70-417)

2) Server 2012 R2 just dropped. I personally don't know when MS starts putting R2 content into exams, but from this post on MS' learning blog (which is a separate internal division within MS and has to ask questions of the MS training/certification people - how they got this huge being so all-over-the-place is beyond me as well) it seems that there will be new exam content, and that new books are in the works. Nothing yet details their release.

Anyway, given the above, my opinion: if your first MS server cert is 2012, you're gonna have to stomach a lot of new info if you don't use 2012 already within your daily tasks. If you use 2008 more, definitely start with the 2008 MCSA. The amount you learn is phenomenal from the books, especially in how it helps round out your daily tasks. You know so much more and it's a more immediate payoff than going straight for 2012.

By the time you finish the three 2008 exams (I tend to re-read, re-take notes, re-study a lot, so my estimates are conservative) in nine months, allowing three per exam to prepare, the R2 books will be out. I was able to pass the 70-417 on the MS Press book, which I find phenomenal - it's a lot more well-written, intended for an audience of human learners and not as a technical manual. Definitely spin up a home lap in Virtualbox, though.

Hope all that helps... happy to take it to PMs if you want to get into specifics that don't break NDA, but I really do think that anyone looking at 2012 certs should really read that blog post and get an understanding that new content is coming very, very soon.


Ironically, I got a lot of the stuff he's talking about out of the VCA-DCV exam, so it wasn't that huge of a waste of time. It's less "this is new, must memorize."

I'm kind of meh about how narrow and basic the exercises are, though. It's more like a guide in how to do X or Y, not so much "OK, your assignment is to do X or Y."

At least he's skipping reading down the objective and summary slides, the single worst point of any Powerpoint presentation ever. But if he pronounces it "TOE-pology" again I'm not sure if I'll giggle madly or smash my monitor.

Thanks for this. Our office just got notice that we are now required to get a selection of certs (with the supposed time limit of 6 months for everything) so I need to dig into what I want to go for and get studying fast.

The list contains

MCSE Private Cloud

or

MCSE Server Infrastructure
(opted to do both in due time)

and either

MCSA Windows 8

or

MCSA Windows 7
(Again opted for both since we use both extensively and the more certs = more money)

However after looking around a little, all test except the Windows 7 ones will have added content to the test January 2014. Also since I have limited server experience up until this job, would it still be worth doing the Win Serv 2008 then 2012 or just start with and continue from 2012 and on? We use mostly 2008 still but are upgrading to 2012 over time (not R2 yet). I can see knowing both being beneficial, but I don't want to cram too much into 6 months.

penga86
Aug 26, 2003

GIG 'EM

The only reason I would push you towards 2008 is if you want to start studying right away. The books and videos that are out and worthwhile are all about 2008/2008R2. The early 2012 stuff from Microsoft Press didn't get stellar reviews, but I'm sure the updated 2012 that is about to come out or just has is good.

incoherent
Apr 24, 2004

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Exchange messaging for 2010 is for sure, if anyone is lagging it get on it.

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MJP
Jun 17, 2007

Are you looking at me Senpai?

Grimey Drawer

EdEddnEddy posted:

Thanks for this. Our office just got notice that we are now required to get a selection of certs (with the supposed time limit of 6 months for everything) so I need to dig into what I want to go for and get studying fast.

The list contains

MCSE Private Cloud

or

MCSE Server Infrastructure
(opted to do both in due time)

and either

MCSA Windows 8

or

MCSA Windows 7
(Again opted for both since we use both extensively and the more certs = more money)

However after looking around a little, all test except the Windows 7 ones will have added content to the test January 2014. Also since I have limited server experience up until this job, would it still be worth doing the Win Serv 2008 then 2012 or just start with and continue from 2012 and on? We use mostly 2008 still but are upgrading to 2012 over time (not R2 yet). I can see knowing both being beneficial, but I don't want to cram too much into 6 months.

The server MCSEs are five exams if you go straight in, six if you do 2k8 first, upgrade, and get the MCSE extra exams. The client OS MCSAs are two exams each.

Do they seriously expect you to work while preparing for these? I can't fathom being able to pass any MS exam without at least two or three months of very concentrated book-learning. Granted, that's me, and everyone learns/retains differently, but without going into NDA violation, the questions are full of stupid poo poo and are more about knowing how to take an MS exam vs. knowing the tested product from the book/video.

I seriously think your employer needs a reality check from people who have actually taken these exams. It'd be tough to do seven or eight MS exams in a year, and most likely not realistic in the least to do them in six months. You'd have to braindump every single exam, which really screws them AND you over.

penga86 posted:

The only reason I would push you towards 2008 is if you want to start studying right away. The books and videos that are out and worthwhile are all about 2008/2008R2. The early 2012 stuff from Microsoft Press didn't get stellar reviews, but I'm sure the updated 2012 that is about to come out or just has is good.

A lot of the un-stellar reviews on the MS Press 70-417 book note that you need to know the 2008 components pretty well. This makes sense since it's an upgrade exam, but I was able to pass using that book and extensive home lab practice. It does look like the Sybex book for all the 2012 MCSA exams isn't too well put together - it's a reference for everything, not sectioned off by exam - and the MS Press books are pretty meh too.

I would definitely recommend getting your 2k8 MCSA first. By the time anyone starts out and does all three exams, there should be a lot more well-prepared options for test prep.

MJP fucked around with this message at 15:48 on Oct 30, 2013

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