Hi Brandie,
Nice article and thanks a lot to clarify the rumors.
I have a question. I am MCP. Cleared one exam(70-228) from MCDBA sylabus. Can I upgrade to MCITP? I mean will I get any benefit of my old certification in terms of number of exam I will have to appear in new module of sql 2005 exams?
Thanks,
Sachin
Sachin,
If you had finished the MCDBA course you would be eligible for one upgrade exam. But as it is, you will probably have to sit for all the exams in the MCITP: Database administrator.
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and just to second what has been said in the article, practise, practise and more practise please. And also to mention that the exam fees varies depending on the region you will be sitting the exam. e.g. in UK its £89 (i think), in Africa its £56, but the good news is its still the same exam
Great article. I agree that some books can be a valuable reference, long after the exam. I bought the original SQL Server 7.0 Exam Cram (70-029) and it's still on my desk, I have yet to find a more concise reference for the basics.
OTOH the newer Exam Cram books (now pub. by Que) don't go deep enough - the one for MCTS (70-431) is very superficial and doesn't cover all the exam objectives. Instead, I'm trying to get through the Sybex MCTS book which covers the basics, plus all the new 2005 features which are certain to be on the exam. I just hope I get around to sitting for the exam before Katmai
In my experience, MS certification exams are written to be difficult and tricky, making the cert worth more IMHO. I've passed the MCSD series for VB6, and the .NET solution architectures (70-300) but with each exam they became more difficult as MS tries to separate the brain-dump-memorizers from those who really know their stuff. As others have said, there is no substitute for hands-on experience.
Sometimes I wonder what is the purpose of getting the cert. There are companies out there would not hire a DBA without microsoft cert. Do they think those people are smarter than the one without a cert or a cert a kind of an insurance to the company that the person definitely knows SQL Server?
In my previous job, all the field engineers required to pass the MCSE exam. They just read the book and all of them passed because they needed to keep their job. The most ironic thing was 9 out of 10 did not even know how to spell 'COMPUTER'.(a joke) Even the supervisors knew the exam did not help and even the supervisors joked about how useless the exam was but it was company's policy and you could not argue.
