Obviously, the first place to look is at the official preparation guide for the MCTS 70-432 exam from Microsoft Learning. The most important information we’re looking for here is the exam objectives. So here it is:

The MCTS 70-432 Exam Objectives

1. Installing and Configuring SQL Server 2008 (10 percent)
   • Install SQL Server 2008 and related services.
   • Configure SQL Server instances.
   • Configure SQL Server services.
   • Configure additional SQL Server components.
   • Implement database mail.
   • Configure full-text indexing.
2. Maintaining SQL Server Instances (13 percent)
   • Manage SQL Server Agent jobs.
   • Manage SQL Server Agent alerts.
   • Manage SQL Server Agent operators.
   • Implement the declarative management framework (DMF.
   • Back up a SQL Server environment.
3. Managing SQL Server Security (15 percent)
   • Manage logins and server roles.
   • Manage users and database roles.
   • Manage SQL Server instance permissions.
   • Manage database permissions.
   • Manage schema permissions and object permissions.
   • Audit SQL Server instances.
   • Manage transparent data encryption.
   • Configure surface area.
4. Maintaining a SQL Server Database (16 percent)
   • Back up databases.
   • Restore databases.
   • Manage and configure databases.
   • Manage database snapshots.
   • Maintain database integrity.
   • Maintain a database by using maintenance plans.
5. Performing Data Management Tasks (14 percent)
   • Import and export data.
   • Manage data partitions.
   • Implement data compression.
   • Maintain indexes.
   • Manage collations.
6. Monitoring and Troubleshooting SQL Server (13 percent)
   • Identify SQL Server service problems.
   • Identify concurrency problems.
   • Identify SQL Agent job execution problems.
   • Locate error information.
7. Optimizing SQL Server Performance (10 percent)
   • Implement Resource Governor.
   • Use the Database Engine Tuning Advisor.
   • Collect trace data by using SQL Server Profiler.
   • Collect performance data by using Dynamic Management Views (DMVs) .
   • Collect performance data by using System Monitor.
   • Use Performance Studio.
8. Implementing High Availability (9 percent)
   • Implement database mirroring.
   • Implement a SQL Server clustered instance.
   • Implement log shipping.
   • Implement replication.

In our Part 2 of our exam preparation guide for the 70-432 exam, well look at getting more information on the exam objectives.

The old N10-003 Network+ exam will be retired at the end of July 2009 and will be replaced by the N10-004 exam.

For more information on the CompTIA Network+ certification program, visit the CompTIA Network+ website.

I’m looking at two options: upgrading to MCITP: Database Administrator on SQL Server 2005 and then to MCITP: Database Administrator on SQL Server 2008 or just do the MCITP: Database Administrator on SQL Server 2008 exams.

Option 1: The Upgrade exams

If I go with the first option, upgrading to MCITP: Database Administrator on SQL Server 2005 and then to MCITP: Database Administrator on SQL Server 2008, my upgrade path would be the Microsoft 70-431 TS: Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Implementation and Maintenance exam and the Microsoft 70-447 UPGRADE: MCDBA Skills to MCITP Database Administrator by Using Microsoft SQL Server 2005 exam to upgrade to the MCITP Database Administrator on SQL Server 2005 certification; and then it’s the Microsoft 70-453 Upgrade: Transition your MCITP Database Administrator Skills to MCITP Database Administrator 2008 exam.

So a total of three exams and I end up with my MCDBA, a Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist (MCTS): SQL Server 2005 certification, a MCITP: Database Administrator on SQL Server 2005 certification, and a MCITP: Database Administrator on SQL Server 2008. So four database administrator related certifications!

Option 2: The SQL Server 2008 Database Administrator exams

The other option is to simply do the SQL Server 2008 Database Administrator exams and skip SQL Server 2005 altogether. I’d want the MCITP: Database Administrator 2008 certification at the very least, which means I’d need the prerequisite MCTS: SQL Server 2008, Implementation and Maintenance certification. In other words, the Microsoft 70-432 TS: Microsoft SQL Server 2008, Implementation and Maintenance exam, which is the only exam requirement for the MCTS: SQL Server 2008, Implementation and Maintenance certification. Then it’s on to the Microsoft 70-450 PRO: Designing, Optimizing and Maintaining a Database Administrative Solution Using Microsoft SQL Server 2008 exam, which completes the exam requirements for the MCITP: Database Administrator 2008 certification.

So a total of two exams and I add the MCTS: SQL Server 2008, Implementation and Maintenance and the MCITP: Database Administrator 2008 certifications to my MCDBA. So only three database administrator related certifications but two of them related to SQL Server 2008!

The real question is do I need four database administrator related certifications of which two is related to SQL Server 2005, or is three certification with two related to SQL Server 2008 better? Given that SQL Server 2005 has not made the same impact as SQL Server 2000 and has already been superseded by SQL Server 2008, I’m leaning more towards the two SQL Server 2008 certifications. What do you think?

In addition, the CCA for Citrix XenApp (Presentation Server 4) certification will be discontinued on January 5, 2009, but professionals who obtained this certification by passing the 1Y0-259 Citrix Presentation Server 4.5: Administration exam prior to the discontinuation date will have their certifications updated automatically to CCA for XenApp 5 for Windows Server 2003 as the 1Y0-259 exam will be the only exam requirement for the CCA for Citrix XenApp 5 for Windows Server 2003 certification. The CCA for Citrix XenApp (Presentation Server 4) will remain valid but will no longer be attainable. A CCA for Citrix XenApp 5 for Windows Server 2008 certification will also be available.

For more information on the Citrix CCA certification, visit the Citrix Education website.

When you pass the 70-294 Implementing, Managing, and Maintaining a Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Network Infrastructure exam, you achieve Microsoft Certified Professional (MCP) status if it’s the first exam you pass. You also receive credit toward Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer (MCSE) on Microsoft Windows Server 2003 certification as the 70-294 exam is a core exam for the MCSE on Windows Server 2003 certification.

What you need to know for the Microsoft 70-294 exam

• Creating domain users and groups and planning strategies for managing domain users and groups in Active Directory.
• Creating user authentication strategies and authentication concepts.
• Planning a smart card authentication strategies and what’s new in smart card authentication for Windows Server 2003.
• Creating password policies for domain users and planning a security group strategy.
• Working with forests and domains and the functions of forests and domains in the Active Directory infrastructure.
• Creating a forest and domain structure.
• Installing domain controllers and creating the forest root domain and child domains.
• Naming and renaming domains and setting the functional level of a forest and domain.
• The role of DNS in the Active Directory environment and the relationship of DNS and AD namespaces.
• How DNS zones are integrated into Active Directory and how to configure DNS servers for use with Active Directory.
• Working with trusts and Organizational Units (OUs) –the two important components of Active Directory: trust relationships and organizational units (OUs).
• The different types of trusts and how to create shortcuts, external, realm and cross-forest trusts.
• Verifying and removing trusts, how to secure trusts using SID filtering.
• Creating and managing OUs and applying Group Policy to OUs and delegating control of an OU.
• Planning an OU structure and strategy for the organization, considering delegation requirements and the security group hierarchy.
• Working with Active Directory Sites, the role of sites in the Active Directory infrastructure, how replication, authentication and distribution of services information work within and across sites.
• The relationship of sites and domains, the relationship of sites and subnets and how to create sites and site links.
• Planning, creating, managing and configuring site replication and manage a replication topology.
• Configuring replication between sites and how to troubleshoot replication failures. Monitoring of the File Replication Service (FRS).
• Working with Active Directory Domain Controllers, planning and deploying DCs on the network and how to upgrade DCs.
• The placement of domain controllers within sites and backing up the domain controllers. The operations master (OM) roles and the functions of all five OMs: the schema master, domain naming master, RID master, PDC emulator and infrastructure master.
• Understanding the server roles and where they fit in.
• Transferring and seizing master roles and role dependencies and planning the placement of OMs and responding to OM failures.
• Working with Global Catalog Servers and the Schema.
• Understanding the role the Global Catalog (GC) plays in the network and customizing the GC using the Schema MMC snap-in.
• Creating and managing GC servers and GC replication.
• Understanding the Active Directory schema itself and the schema components, including classes and attributes, and the naming of schema objects.
• Installing and using the Schema management console, extending the schema and deactivating schema objects.
• Working with Group Policy in an Active Directory Network, the basics of Group Policy terminology and concepts.
• Understanding user and computer policies and Group Policy Objects (GPOs).
• Understanding the scope and application order of policies and Group Policy integration in Active Directory.
• Planning a Group Policy strategy and implementing Group Policy.
• Performing common Group Policy tasks and Group Policy propagation and replication.

The best practices for working with Group Policy and troubleshooting problems with Group Policy.

• Deploying Software via Group Policy and the components of software installation using Windows installer packages, transforms, patches and application assignment scripts.
• Deploying software to users and to computers, assigning or publishing applications.
• Preparing for GP software installation, working with the Group Policy Object Editor and setting installation options.
• Upgrading applications, configure automatic updates and remove managed applications. Troubleshoot problems that can occur with Group Policy software deployment.
• Ensuring Active Directory Availability, maintain high availability of your Active Directory services.
• Planning fault tolerance as well as AD performance issues and performing maintenance tasks, including defragging the database, and monitoring or moving the database.
• Backing up and restoring Active Directory, and the different restoration methods that can be used and when each is appropriate and troubleshooting Active Directory availability.

Getting more resources

For more information visit Microsoft Learning - MCSE 70-294 exam.

A typical 70-216 question would read something like:

The Contoso network consists of a single Active Directory forest with two domains named contoso.com and fabrikam.com. A primary DNS server for contoso.com is located in the London office while the primary DNS server for fabrikam.com is located in the Liverpool office. Both DNS servers are Windows Server 2000 computers. Each domain has three branch offices that contain the following computers:

• A secondary DNS server in its respective domain.
• A DHCP server.
• A recently installed Microsoft Internet Security and Acceleration (ISA) Server computer that connects the LAN to the Internet.

Company sales representatives visit the various offices several times each month. All sales representatives use Windows 2000 Professional mobile computers that are members of the contoso.com domain.

You create an appropriate wpad.dat script file on each of the ISA servers in each branch office. On each DHCP server you configure the 252 Proxy Autodiscovery option and the corresponding http://ISAServerName/wpad.dat string value. However, sales representatives inform you that they cannot use Internet Explorer to access the Internet when they visit an office in the fabrikam.com domain. You need to ensure that all users can access the Internet at all times. You want to use the minimum amount of administrative effort.

What should you do?

1. Configure Windows 2000 Professional mobile computers with the primary DNS suffix of fabrikam.com.
2. Configure the Advanced TCP/IP Settings settings on the Windows 2000 Professional mobile computers with a DNS suffix for this connection setting of fabrikam.com.
3. On all DHCP server in the fabrikam.com domain, configure the 015 DNS Domain Name option to be fabrikam.com.
4. On the primary DNS server for the fabrikam.com domain, add an _http service service locator (SRV) resource record for each ISA server in the fabrikam.com domain.

A real mouth full, and you need to read the question a few times to make sure what it is you are being asked, and that’s just 1 of 65 questions that you needed to answer within 3 hours (180 minutes)! Real tricky! Now compare that to a typical 70-642 question:

The servers on the Contoso network run Microsoft Windows Server 2008 and the client computers run Windows 2000 Professional, Windows XP Professional SP2 and Vista Business. You need to ensure that all client computers are able to use IPv6.

What should you do?

1. Run the IPv6.exe tool on all client computers.
2. Upgrade the Windows 2000 Professional client computers to at least Windows XP SP2.
3. Install Windows 2000 Professional Service Pack 4 on all Windows 2000 Professional client computers.
4. Install the Active Directory Client extension (DSClient.exe) on all client computers.

As you can see the Windows Server 2008 questions are straight forward and far less tricky than the Windows 2000 Server questions, which in truth were designed to catch you out rather than test your knowledge.

The new Windows Server 2008 based Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist (MCTS) and Microsoft Certified IT Professional (MCITP) certifications should thus be far less daunting than the old MCSE certifications, and the same applies to the MCTS and MCITP certifications based on Microsoft SQL Server 2008 and other Microsoft technologies.

As a result, a new SY0-201 Security+ exam will replace the current SY0-201 exam. The latter will be retired at the end of July 2009. The new exam is also available in German, Japanese, Chinese and Korean, in addition to English.

For more information on the CompTIA Security+ certification program, visit the CompTIA Security+ website.

It is recommended that you do the 640-816 ICND2 exam after you have successfully passed the 640-822 ICND1 exam. As with the 640-811 exam, you achieve credit towards the Cisco Certified Network Associate (CCNA) certification when you pass the 640-816 ICND2 exam and if you already passed the 640-822 exam, you would achieve the CCNA status, which you will hold for three years. After three years you need to recertify by passing the current CCNA exam, or pass the current ICND exam, or pass any professional level or Cisco Specialist exam (but not one of the Sales Specialist exams), or pass a current CCIE written exam.

What you need to know for the Cisco 640-816 exam

• Understand switched networks, Ethernet networks, virtual local area networks (VLANs) and interswitch communications, including the media access control methods and basic switch security.
• Understanding routing, routing, basic routing concepts and the operation of Cisco routers, including router bootup process, POST, router components
• Configuring, verifying and troubleshooting switch networks, VLANs, and routed networks using basic utilities, including: ping, traceroute, telnet, SSH, arp, ipconfig, SHOW and DEBUG commands.
• Understand subnetting, network segmentation and basic traffic management concepts
• Understand various switching and routing technologies, including VTP, RSTP, VLAN, PVSTP, 802.1q, RIPv2, OSPF, and EIGRP.
• Configuring, verifying and troubleshooting VLANs, trunking on Cisco switches, interVLAN routing, and RIPv2, OSPF, EIGRP, VTP and RSTP operation.
• Understanding IP addressing, IP addressing schemes, and IP Services, including private and public IP addressing, static and dynamic IP addressing, and Variable Length Subnet Masking (VLSM) IP addressing.
• Understand IPv6 addresses and the technological requirements for running IPv6 in conjunction with IPv4
• Understand the Cisco IOS commands used to analyze network problems, and how to manipulate system image and device configuration files, perform an initial configuration on a router, and establish communication between a terminal device and the router IOS.
• Understand the purposes of the various types of access control lists (ACLs), how to configure and apply ACLs based on network requirements, and how to monitor and troubleshoot ACLs.
• Understand the basic operation of network address translation (NAT), and how to configure and troubleshoot NAT.
• Understand the different methods for establishing a connection to a wide area network (WAN) and how to configure and verify various WAN technologies, including serial connection, Frame Relay, and PPP connections between Cisco routers.
• You must also be able to read network diagrams.

Getting more resources

For more information on the Cisco 640-802 exam, visit The Cisco Learning Network - CCNA 640-816 exam.

When you pass the 640-822 ICND1 exam you receive credit towards your CCNA certification. You also achieve the newly introduced Cisco Certified Entry Networking Technician (CCENT) certification. However, the CCENT certification is valid for only three years and will require recertification. To recertify you must pass the current ICND1 or ICND2

What you need to know for the Cisco 640-822 exam

For more information on the Cisco 640-822 exam, visit the Cisco Learning Network - CCENT 640-822 exam.

What’s new in the Cisco 640-802 exam?

The new 640-802 exam places less emphasis on Wide Area Networks (WANs) and more emphasis in Wireless Local Area Networks (WLANs) and Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6). With less emphasis on WANs, Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) for switched digital WAN services has disappeared altogether!

What you need to know for the Cisco 640-802 exam

• Understand the basic function of a network, the functions and purpose of various Cisco network devices (including routers and switches), and the components required for network communication, including cables, ports, and connectors.
• Understand how data is transmitted through a network and how a local area network (LAN) differs from a wide area network (WAN) in terms of operation and features.
• Understand the Open System Interconnect (OSI) and Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) network models and the basic operation of the protocols in the OSI and TCP/IP network models.
• Understand the layered approach to troubleshooting common network problems at layers 1, 2, 3 and 7 of the OSI model.
• Understand switched networks, Ethernet networks, virtual local area networks (VLANs) and interswitch communications, including the media access control methods and basic switch security.
• Understanding routing, routing, basic routing concepts and the operation of Cisco routers, including router bootup process, POST, router components
• Configuring, verifying and troubleshooting switch networks, VLANs, and routered networks using basic utilities, including: ping, traceroute, telnet, SSH, arp, ipconfig, SHOW and DEBUG commands.
• Understand subnetting, network segmentation and basic traffic management concepts
• Understand various switching and routing technologies, including VTP, RSTP, VLAN, PVSTP, 802.1q, RIPv2, OSPF, and EIGRP.
• Configuring, verifying and troubleshooting VLANs, trunking on Cisco switches, interVLAN routing, and RIPv2, OSPF, EIGRP, VTP and RSTP operation.
• Understanding IP addressing, IP addressing schemes, and IP Services, including private and public IP addressing, static and dynamic IP addressing, and Variable Length Subnet Masking (VLSM) IP addressing.
• Understand the operation and benefits of Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) and Domain Name Services (DNS) and how to configure, verify and troubleshoot DHCP and DNS operation on a router.
• Understand IPv6 addresses and the technological requirements for running IPv6 in conjunction with IPv4
• Understand the Cisco IOS commands used to analyze network problems, and how to manipulate system image and device configuration files, perform an initial configuration on a router, and establish communication between a terminal device and the router IOS.
• Understand wireless local area networks (WLANs), including the standards associated with wireless media, and the various wireless network security features, especially WPA security.
• Understand and identify network security threats and understand the basic methods to mitigate security threats to network devices, hosts, and applications.
• Understand the basic functions of common security appliances and applications.
• Understand the purposes of the various types of access control lists (ACLs), how to configure and apply ACLs based on network requirements, and how to monitor and troubleshoot ACLs.
• Understand the basic operation of network address translation (NAT), and how to configure and troubleshoot NAT.
• Understand the different methods for establishing a connection to a wide area network (WAN) and how to configure and verify various WAN technologies, including serial connection, Frame Relay, and PPP connections between Cisco routers.
• You must also be able to read network diagrams.

Getting more resources

For more information on the Cisco 640-802 exam, visit the Cisco Learning Network - CCNA 640-802 exam.