Certification's Building 7
PLANS FOR SYSTEM CENTER & OPERATIONS CERTIFICATIONS
Months ago we presented a Live Meeting about System Center certifications, in which we announced the two Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist (MCTS) certs that are available now for Operations Manager and Configuration Manager via exams 70-400 and 70-401. We also talked about a professional-series exam and certification--"details TBD"--that were in planning stages. We were so transparent, bandying the probable exam number (70-402) and cert name (MCITP: Operations Manager) about with reckless abandon...
We were so young.
I know many of you are interested in this, so wanted to share the current thinking as I understand it. The 402 exam and Operations Manager cert are not in development or locked. We still see a need for a professional series certification (MCITP) in the systems management/operations space, but have decided to stop and consider the best way to do that, given a few new developments. One consideration is System Center Virtual Machine Manager (see below) and how it will/could tie in to a pro-series certification.
The cert teams are doing continuing research on the right certification for someone in an operations role (your thoughts?), so don't give up hope. But don't be making any short term plans to take 70-402, because it, like building 7, doesn't exist (yet). Some of you may have noted 402 in the certification planner tool; now that things are changing around, we'll be updating that so it isn't misleading anyone.
PLANS FOR VIRTUALIZATION CERTS
As you've probably heard in some of our live meetings, and in the Server FAQs, etc., we're working on an MCTS certification focused on virtualization. This MCTS cert will cover Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V, our "hypervisor-based server virtualization technology...consolidating multiple server roles as separate virtual machines running on a single physical machine...run multiple different operating systems—Windows, Linux, and others—in parallel, on a single server" and also touch on Virtual Machine Manager.
The cert name is looking like MCTS: Windows Server Virtualization, Configuring*. The cert will require one exam (70-652), about to kick off in beta any day now, and will cover things in the area of installing, configuring and optimizing Hyper-V and deploying, managing, and monitoring Virtual Machines; no prep guide live yet.
Jim and team are working closely with the Server and System Center teams to make sure we get our content and timing right, and working on if and where this exam and MCTS fits in our current and future certification roadmaps. We are also exploring a separate MCTS certification specifically for Virtual Machine Manager, requiring a new exam (70-403). You know as much as I know. Official announcements about this stuff should be in the MCP newsletter in a few months.
If you don't want to rely on my shoddy, second hand, hair-twirling and bubble-gum snapping, would-rather-be-doing-my-nails update on this topic, I encourage you to hear directly from the people working on these things in an upcoming Live Meeting:
System Center and Virtualization Certifications
- August 20, 2008 at 7:30 A.M. Pacific Time (What time is this in my region?)
- August 20, 2008 at 5:00 P.M. Pacific Time (What time is this in my region?)
Or come to my session with Jim at TechEd on Friday, the 13th** of June (LUN59). We'll be so reckless and devil-may-care--so transparent--you won't know what hit you.
*Or something
**Don't be skerred.
Comments
Anonymous
May 29, 2008
Interesting post Trika, many thanks for clearing it up about 71-402 not being available. I was planning to do it later this year, but I think I must schedule it somewhere around 2009 ;-) And have you dumped the name MCITP Operations Manager also? Good riddens! With 71-652 and 71-403 coming in the near future, let's start learning for those. Do you know when the prep guides for these will be online? There are a lot of whitepapers etc to read, but some guidelines would be cool. Regards, RoelAnonymous
May 29, 2008
The comment has been removedAnonymous
May 30, 2008
Some input for exam 402 > maybe it's a good idea to incorporate some ITIL/MOF things. Not too much (we're techies after all) but everyone working with System Center should have some knowledge about ITIL/MOF processes and/or guidelines.Anonymous
May 30, 2008
Yep, really excited about the Virtualization Beta...Anonymous
May 30, 2008
@Roel: I shared your comment with the cert team and the answer was (paraphrase) "agree - will be in there..."Anonymous
May 31, 2008
Last night I was check replying to a email from Reed before shutting down my PC for the night, when IAnonymous
May 31, 2008
Last night I was check replying to a email from Reed before shutting down my PC for the night, when IAnonymous
May 31, 2008
I hope that in the next 70-402 exam you add some things about MOF, in your 4.0 version, of course :) Thx for this info Trike My bestsAnonymous
June 04, 2008
If you're a user of Microsoft's System Center Operations Manager (SCOM) and/or System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM, or ConfigMgr), you may be aware that Microsoft was bandying about with some information about a potential MCITP exam that certifiesAnonymous
June 18, 2008
Anyone have a slide deck to share? I'd like to pass it around to a couple of managers here who might have training budgets...Anonymous
July 29, 2008
Any update on exam 70-403 ??? I did exam 71-652 and there were a lot of questions on System Center Virtual Machine Manager. So why would we need an extra exam specifically for SCVMM?Anonymous
September 08, 2008
All the virtualization geeks at TechEd last week were wearing VEEK t-shirts. Pretty sweet. I'm goingAnonymous
November 11, 2008
So Brian posted a blog about ConfigMgr Range training , this goes alone the same lines as System CenterAnonymous
November 11, 2008
So Brian posted a blog about ConfigMgr Range training , this goes alone the same lines as System Center