Lukas Beeler’s IT Blog

I’ve written about IT Certifications before. There are several reasons why you want/need to get certified. Your company might want to present more certified people to their customers, there are internal audit requirements that depend on certifications, or you’re looking for a new job and want to differentiate yourself from other candidates.

The first thing you’ll need to make sure before getting certified is that certification is really the thing you want. Certification is not education, it is not learning. Certification is about showing what you already know, and what you already can do. Certification is not an entry point into the IT market. Only certify in areas you already have expertise and experience in. With that said, it is not wrong to learn for certificate exams - exams usually cover the whole product, and chances are you haven’t used every product to the fullest in your company. That’s what you’ll need to learn, and not the product in itself.

Especially if you’re the one paying for the certification, cost is an issue. For example, an MCSE Bootcamp from Digicomp costs 15′000 CHF. This it not much money for a company where the CEO drives a new 150′000 CHF car every year, but it is much for someone who just has a regular job. So if you want to get certified on your own, these Bootcamps might not be your best choice. There are also other things to consider when thinking about taking bootcamps. You can get an MCSE Certification for 1505 CHF (in Exam fees - you’ll still have to travel to a test center).

Words

Test centers are locations where you can pass Microsoft exams. They’re usually maintained by a company which franchises their Testing stuff from Microsofts testing providers Prometric (earlier there also was Pearson Vue, but that runs out on 31.08.2007). You book appointments through the Prometric website, pay with your credit card, and then go to the testing center.

Exams are fully computer based, you’ll answer multiple choice, drag and drop and simulation questions, and get your result immediately after clicking “Finish”. This is instant gratification at it’s best. Usually you’ll need multiple exams to obtain a credential, and there are often multiple paths to a single credential. Think of it as a role playing game, it’s pretty much the same.

Credentials consist of multiple passed exams, and usually give you a fancy logo and text like “Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer”. These are your real goal.

Defining your goal

At first you’ll need to know what credential you want to achieve. Microsoft is currently restructuring their certification program with the release of Windows Server 2008, so things can be a bit confusing at times. Though i’d argue that it’s currently an excellent time to get certifications on Windows Server 2003, because you’ll already have lots of experience with it and company will be using it for quite some time in the future. For admins, the interesting credentials on Windows 2003 are the MCSA and the MCSE.

I’d suggest you to read through but of these pages closely, and make sure you understand what they’re saying. The whole thing looks complicated at first, but you’ll understand the logic behind it soon. You might also notice that the MCSE and MCSA share quite a few exams - this means it’s possible to go for the MCSA first (4 exams), and then upgrade to the MCSE with 3 additional exams (total of 7). There are also specializations to both the MCSA and MCSE for Messaging and Security. The first might be very interesting for you if you use Exchange 2003 a lot, and the latter for you security specialists.

There are a few decisions you can/need to make. For example, you need a core client exam. I’ll leave Windows 2000 out of the game and concentrate on Windows XP and Windows Vista. You can take 70-270 (XP) as a core client exam, or 70-620 (Vista) as a core client OR elective exam. You could also do both exams and fulfill your core client and elective exam.

I would recommend to start out with one of these two client exams. They’re both pretty easy (with the 70-620 being a bit easier), and you don’t need to learn for either of them if you’re familiar with the OS.

Getting your first exam appointment

Go to this Prometric registration page, and choose “Microsoft” and your country from the drop down lists - Note that most modern browsers can do type ahead find in these drop down lists, that makes searching a bit easier. After that, you can already choose to “Schedule an Appointment” and select your exam and English as the language. If you don’t think you’re proficient enough for doing an IT exam in English, i’d suggest you to schedule an English course.

After clicking through some more disclaimers, you can select your test site. In Switzerland (Zurich), i can recommend only the Digicomp test site, as both the Comicro-Netsys and BCD Sintrag Testsites are in horrible shapes. Also, you get free drinks at the Digicomp testsites. Free parking is usually available a few metres from the testcenter, and paid parking for up to two hours is also available nearby.

After selecting your test site, you’ll be asked to create an account with Prometric. Do so. Then, choose a time for your exam. Please note that the given timeframe needed is usually not needed. You can do most exams in 60-90 Minutes.

After that, enter payment information and a valid email address. There’s also an MCP ID field which you should leave empty on your first exam.

Passing your first exam

After parking your car near the testing site, enter and figure out where you need to register yourself. You’ll usually need to leave your mobile phone and sign several ominous sheets. You’ll then be seated in front of a computer, where you can agree to some more disclaimers, NDAs and EULAs. After that, your exam starts. As said, there are mostly multiple choice questions, but also some drag & drop and even simulation questions (basically a flash version of a Windows machine, where only the stuff you need to do works).

After going through the questions, you can end the exam. You’ll then be on a screen where you can comment on most questions, i usually skip this part because i want to see whether i passed or not. Because right after the comment section, you’ll see your result and your score (The minimum score is 700 for a pass, the maximum score is not known).

After this, you can go back to pickup your mobile phone, get a detailed result sheet, and sign some more sheets.

Getting your MCP ID and access to the Microsoft MCP Site

Now you’ll need to wait for a mail from Microsoft, containing your new MCP ID and your access code. If your company is a member of the Microsoft Partner Program, ask the person in your company who deals with that to register you and your MCP ID in the partner program. This will provide your company with points and the ability to add new competencies.

You’ll then need your access code to register on the MCP member site. This will allow you to download logos, access and print your exam transcript.

If you do not receive your ID or access code within a two week period, you should contact your Microsoft Regional Service Center. Please keep your result sheet handy, it contains all the necessary information in order to create your MCP ID.

Moving on

Now that you have access to your transcript, your MCP ID you can move on, and complete the other exams necessary for your credential. There are many blogs with information about the exams you’re planning to take. If you think about upgrading to Windows Server 2008, ReSQueL has several posts about proper preparations. The German MCSEboard.de community also has many insightful posts. The Microsoft certification newsgroups are mostly useless, filled with trolls, and not recommended.

Have fun with your exams!

Disclaimer: I currently work for an IBM Business Partner.

I’ve written about the IBM x3650 before, and i’m generally very fond of this machine as it’s build quality and features are impressive.

However i’ve heard from several customers that they want the similar Model from HP, the DL380 G5, with the only reasoning being that the machine is going to be less expensive.

I’ve configured two almost-identical servers, and the price difference is clearly there. Please note that the configuration of the two machines is not the same, mostly due to real world restrictions in the Small Business segment when ordering machines. These restrictions are here in Switzerland - they might not exist in your country, and they might have changed in a few months. So take this with a grain of salt.

The configuration for these machines are thought to serve a Small Business with Windows Small Business Server 2003 R2.

Configurations

IBM System x3650

Configuration:

• Intel Xeon DualCore - 2.00 GHz
• 4 GB Memory (2×1 GB, 4×512MB)
• 4 x 147 GB SAS 2.5″ 10kRPM HP Disks
• RAID-Controller ServeRAID 8k 256MB BBWC
• DVD-ROM 24x/8x built-in
• PCI-X Raiser Card
• PCI-X SCSI U320 Adapter for tape drives
• Builtin Ethernet-Adapter Gigabit; 2x RJ-45 Copper
• Remote Supervisor Adapter II
• Redundant PSU
• 36 Months Warranty on-site NBD

Total list price: 9500 CHF
Warranty Upgrade to 7×24: 1000 CHF

Total: 10500 CHF

HP DL380 G5

Configuration:

• Intel Xeon DualCore - 2.66 GHz
• 4 GB Memory (2×2 GB)
• 4 x 147 GB SAS 2.5″ 10kRPM HP Disks
• RAID-Controller P400 256MB BBWC
• DVD-ROM 24x/8x built-in
• PCI-E SCSI U320 Adapter
• Builtin Ethernet-Adapter Gigabit; 2x RJ-45 Copper
• iLO Advanced License
• Redundant PSU
• 36 Months Warranty on-site NBD

Total list price: 7000 CHF
Warranty Upgrade to 7×24: 1450 CHF

Total: 8450 CHF

Conclusions

Okay, so we have a pretty major price difference between those two machines. The HP machine costs 20% less than the IBM machine. These prices don’t apply when you buy them by the truckload, but they do when you buy one or two.

Objective differences

About the IBM System x3650:

• 12 instead of 8 memory slots available
• No PCI-E slots needed to drive integrated disks (ServeRAID has a seperate slot)
• RSA II offers integrated email functionality (great advantage when not using IBM Director)
• Space for integrated tape drive (I’ve never used those, though)
• PCI-X raiser needed for U320 attachment
• Way better fan redundancy (N+N instead of N+1)

About the HP DL380 G5:

• 20% less expensive than IBM
• Greater choice on disk adapters
• iLO is standard, though KVM/Media functionality must be licensed
• More flexible memory ordering options
• U320 adapters with PCI-E is available - no PCI-X raiser card needed
• One slot always occupied by disk adapter (However, the machine has 5 PCI-E slots, the IBM has only 4)
• Less memory slots available

Unobjective differences

About the IBM System x3650:

• It’s black. Black is cool.
• The LightPath diagnostics seem much more mature than HPs new diagnostic system
• The RSA II offers an older GUI, but more features than the iLO Advanced License at a lower price point
• Rack mount kit looks more sturdy and generally better than the HP one

About the HP DL380 G5:

• Legacy PS/2 ports still available
• The front looks way better, but it’s not black

Final conclusions

Make up your own. I’ve tried to be as truthful as possible, and both machines have advantages and disadvantages. Usually the choice is already made if a customer already works with a given brand. Both vendors have pushed for different feature sets and their machines, and this shows quite clearly. The IBM machine is more expensive, and the additional capacity might not have much worth in your company. It really depends on your needs and your budget. Both machines are cool, though.

I’ll be enjoying my holidays next week. Don’t expect any postings.

If you still want to read some nifty technical blogs, i’d suggest these (they’re also listed in my blogroll):

• 4sysops
• Aaron Bartell's Blog
• Bink.nu
• Exchange Team Blog
• Lenovo Blogs
• midrange.com Blog
• MSBLOG
• MSXFAQ.DE
• Performance Team
• SBS Doc Team
• Sharepointer
• The Daily WTF
• The Old New Thing
• Windows Server
• Yusuf's Directory

A few weeks ago, my HTC MTeoR died suddenly, when the upper half of it’s keyboard became unresponsive. I decided to replace it, and have seen a good offer for HP’s iPAQ 510 Voice Messenger.

This isn’t a full features review, more a few notes about my thought about this device. I had only one SmartPhone before it, the MTeoR mentioned just before, so most of my comparisons will reference that device.

This device comes from a different price range than the HTC MTeoR i had before - while the HTC retailed at about 800 CHF without contract, the iPAQ 510 started at much lower prices, it can be had from 350 CHF without a contract. As such, i didn’t really expect much from this device.

My attitude changed slightly when i opened the packaging - while the HTC came in a bleak and unnamed Swisscom package, the HP device was in a much better wrapping. It contained a handy quickstart guide, a manual, and the phone hat protection labels all over it.

The display of the HP has a resolution of 172×220 pixels, while the MTeoR had a 240×320 resolution. While the HP display isn’t as crisp and detailed, and displays bigger fonts the MTeoR, it’s not actually that much worse. And of course there’s the price difference between the two devices.

The HTC device had UMTS, which i always have disabled in order to save power. The HP device doesn’t have UMTS, but it does have WiFI. Because my company is still in the 90ies when it comes to telephony, i couldn’t play with the VoIP features.

An interesting twist is that WM6 no longer requires registry hacks to import self signed certificates. This is good for small businesses which use self signed certificates with Exchange Active Sync.

The making of the device seems to be better than the MTeoR, the latter had the problem that the back cover never really held, and seemed to lose its grip more than once a week. The HP device looks sturdier, and is also a tiny bit thicker than the MTeoR, but it’s also a bit lighter. They keys on the HP are much better suited for my hands (they’re bigger).

I like the new enhancements that come with Windows Mobile 6, but you’ll find much better sources on the Web when talking about WM6.

I think this device is worth it’s money. It’s not a top of the line smartphone like the Motorola Q9, and it’s screen is it’s biggest disadvantage. It’s sturdily made, and will probably last a year on the field (SmartPhones always seem to be made with PHBs in mind, but they’re quite useful for field technicians too).

Right over at Trika’s Blog you can get the promotion codes to register for the Windows Server 2008 Beta Upgrade exams. You can find more information about the Upgrade Path on the Microsoft Windows Server 2008 Certification Site.

I’ve seen this information yesterday evening, and decided to make an appointment for tomorrow morning - i was even able to persuade my co-worker Reto Giezendanner who recently got his MCSA to try the 71-648 (MCSA Upgrade exam). I gave the 71-649, the MCSE Upgrade Exam a try.

This is the first beta exam i’ve ever done - the first thing about beta exams is that they’re free, but you don’t get the result until some undecided time in the future (Official sources vary from “few weeks”, 2 months, 3 months, etc. so i’ll estimate this at half a year).

The MCSE Upgrade exam covers three different MCTS titles:

• MCTS: Windows Server 2008 – Active Directory Configuration
• MCTS: Windows Server 2008 – Network Infrastructure Configuration
• MCTS: Windows Server 2008 – Application Platform Configuration

As such the questions in the exam were very varied, covering a wide area of topics. Most of them were well written, but i’ve found a few very confusing ones which i commented in the second part of them exam (you can note questions for comments and review).

The Beta exams have more questions than normal exams, and of course you’ll also get more time. I’ve had 88 questions and 3 hours of time.

A few things which i found worth mentioning:

• There were many questions about WDS, i think it’s the topic that was most extensively covered
• There was a strong focus on managing changes through the commandline interface, very few answers involved the GUI
• There were more IIS questions than i’ve seen in the MCSE 2003 exams together
• There were questions about Virtual Server 2005, and IPv6
• There were no simulations
• An MCSE on 2003 could probably answer 50% of the questions without having touched WS2008

I’ll now have to wait three months till i get a result back, but i’m fairly certain that i passed. You now have this in writing, and i hope i don’t disappoint anyone when i get the results in three months.

Windows Installer is used by almost all newer software packages, and the quality of some of these packages is rather dubious. So from time to time it might happen that Windows Installer hickups, and you aren’t able to remove or repair a program. In other cases, a program might already be deleted, and the Uninstaller falls on it’s face when the program is no longer there.

One particular problem i’ve encountered is upgrading a MSI Package that can sometimes lead to an Error 1706 “No Valid Source Could Be Found”, if you don’t have the original .MSI file anymore. In this case your only option is removing the application (if that still works), and then reinstalling the new version, or just running the Windows Installer Cleanup Tool, and then reinstalling the new application.

Now you usually have two ways to sort this problem out:

Using the Windows Installer Cleanup Tool

Microsoft provides you with the Windows Installer Cleanup Tool. This tool works well in most cases, but remember if the Installation is User- and not Systembased, you’ll need to be logged in with the appropriate user in order to be able to delete the offending Windows Installer entry.

Using regedit

You can find the products in
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\Installer\Products

You might be able to modify some settings there, but you can also delete products (you’ll need to look through all of them to find the name that corresponds to the GUID). I do not know if this has negative consequences, but i’ve used this procedure a few times with no ill effects afterwards.

About a month ago, i’ve passed exam 70-237. A few days ago, the last exam of the the MCITP: Microsoft Exchange 2007 Messaging Solutions Administrator series (not yet on the MS websites) was released - that is exam 70-238.

I noticed this on Saturday, and booked a testing appointment for today. I arrived almost late at the testing center, because a customer appointment took longer than i thought (that’ll teach me to book exams in the afternoon). Another bonus was that it is quite hot today (32C according to my car), and the A/C in the testing center has failed or was overloaded - in fact, it was almost cooler outside the building. I was offered to move my testing appointment, but i didn’t want to.

70-237 was easy as pie, and mostly theoretical questions on “how should you do this”. 70-236 required you to learn vast PowerShell commands to be able to pick the right one from the answers given.

70-238 was completely different, and much more technical than 70-237. A very large focus were backup, backup windows, recovery methodologies, migrations from older Exchange versions, migrations from/to clustered mailbox servers, and lots of questions about journalling, mailbox and transport rules, and Send and Receive connectors. Most of the questions focused on where you have to set rules, i.E. Hub or Edge server. This is usually pretty easy, but there were a few cases where the solution wasn’t obvious.

A bit of material was the same as in 70-237 (not word for word, but in the type of questions) - focusing on which rules you need for what. A few other questions centered around Active Directory, and the requirements Exchange has for it.

There were also questions which i found completely irrelevant - at least 3 questions focused on MOM and what you should do to configure it with Exchange. I never used MOM, so i used all my guessing skills.

In the end a passed with around 850 points, i expected much worse than that. I didn’t even have bars that we’re below the (imaginary) 80% margin, even though i don’t think i understood all the Journalling/Transport/Managed folder stuff completely.

So now i should be a MCITP: Microsoft Exchange 2007 Messaging Solutions Administrator, as long as Microsoft doesn’t have the same troubles they had with the MCSA and 70-620.

Update: Updating the transcript wasn’t a problem this time, the credentials were visible a day after i passed this exam.

The DL320 is HP’s low end rackserver, similar to IBM’s System x3250, which i reviewed earlier.

This machine was purchased for use in a colocation center as a general web and mailserver for non-profit purposes, using Debian GNU/Linux 4.0. As such, there were serious budget constraints involved, which is why the machine chosen is on the lowest end of available (rack) hardware - as such, the machine doesn’t have a diagnostic panel (like HP’s DL360 G5 do, or IBM’s x3550 or x3650).

The machine was ordered using the new ALSO IVIS HP TopConfig configurator, and as such was shipped assembled (the delivery time was 9 days). Most in-stock articles have builtin CD or Diskette drives, which are a factor in price. With configured machines, you can save a few bucks with these things, and also get a better memory configuration (this is very important in low end machines, because they usually only have 4 memory slots (compared to 8 or 12 that better machines have)).

Here’s the configuration:

• HP DL320 G5 with 2.13 Ghz Xeon DC CPU
• 2×1 GB Memory
• 2×160GB 7.2kRPM SATA Disks

Unpacking and opening

This machine ships with the usual features known from HP - iLO 2, but without any licenses for advanced use (you can use it with a serial console that can be accessed with a Java Client). Also the slide-out serial number tag (an awesome idea in my opinion).

The machine also shipped prebuilt (which is nice, as i’m probably the most lazy person on earth) - the hard disk in the machine look like they’re hot -pluggable, and they theoretically are - but the onboard SATA controller does not support hot plugging. If you want that, you’ll need to buy a RAID controller from HP. I like this setup a bit more than IBM’s Simple Swap harddisks, but there’s no real advantage in daily use.

The components where assembled nicely, and the build quality is generally good.

Interiors

The general interior of this machine is very much the same as the x3250 - with a rather interesting difference: the machine has built in USB port, with lot’s of free space around it. I really have no idea what you’d want to do with this (if it was a desktop machine, you could probably use it with Flash for Vista’s ReadyBoost technology).

The fans in the machine are not hot pluggable, but redundant. The cabling is en par with the x3250, but there’s a slight disadvantage in extensibility. While the x3250 has a separate slot for installing specific IBM RAID controllers, there’s no such thing in the HP machine - you’ll have to use one of the PCI-E 8x slots for installing one of the HP RAID controllers. I do not consider this to be a problem in daily use either, because there’s usually not much need for expansion adapters in 1U machines.

Booting the server

The onboard controller is a standard Intel AHCI SATA controller (You will need to enable RAID functionality in the BIOS, and leave the RAID BIOS unconfigured - this will expose both disks to Linux using the AHCI driver). As of Debian GNU/Linux 4.0, this controller is now natively supported in the default configuration. There are many options in the BIOS to save a variety of contact information. Maybe useful in enterprise environments, didn’t play with them that much.

iLO configuration works fine as usual, but netbooting the machine was awkward - it refused to load our WDS bootloader several times, but succeeded finally (WDS then boots RIS, which then boots PXELinux - here’s how to do this). I have no idea if it is just an old switch acting up, or an actual problem.

Resumee

Is this machine better than the x3250? Make up your own opinion. The only real world advantage i’ve seen is that iLO 2 is included in the machine, and allows you to access a serial console for free. The iLO advanced option which allows KVM access (and a variety of enterprise integration features) is quite expensive at about 450 CHF. The x3250 does not ship with an RSA II, but the RSA II is only 250 CHF, a lot less than the KVM access license.

When you’re using Windows, you can use EMS to use the serial port, on Linux or other Unix based OSes you can usually redirect both the console and the kernel to a serial port (and of course you can redirect the BIOS).

I liked the disks, which seem to handle much more nicely than the Simple Swap SATA disks from IBM.

UAC helps to make privilege separation more comfortable. However, there is no native way to start a command elevated from the commandline. I’ve often found myself to be typing “notepad hosts”, and then getting an error message that i lack the permissions for doing so.

Of course i can launch a cmd window with administrative capabilites (a neat trick for this is to put that at position one in the quicklaunch bar, and then launch it by pressing WIN + 1), but i’ve gotten using to the whole WIN + R, cmd, Enter deal (mostly because it also works on customer’s computers).

There’s a nice Script for elevating a command directly from the commandline. I really, really do wonder why there’s no such command in Vista by default. I’ll make that this is in our standard Image.

IBM provides it’s own printer driver for creating AFP overlays. However, this printer driver is broken for quite some time, and doesn’t handle the colors used in color overlays correctly. If you want to create black and white overlays on your System i, use the original IBM AFP print driver.

If you want to create color overlays, things become a tad more difficult. First, you’ll need a device that supports IPDS FS45 for color printing. There are several IPDS ROMs sold for Lexmark Color Lasers which do not support FS45.

ExcelliPrint however does support FS45 (and works flawlessly with color overlays) - and no, i’m still not getting paid for writing about ExcelliPrint.

But back to our overlays. Creating a working, fully fledged color overlay is not difficult, but it’s an unintegrated process with lots of manual steps.

First, you need two pieces of Software: the InfoPrint converter software, for which you’ll need to install 5722-IP1 on your System i and a way to create TIFF images (if you’re using e.G. Adobe Illustrator for creating your overlays, you can skip this) - i’ve found ZAN Image Printer to suit my needs perfectly.

After Installing 5722-IP1, you can find the InfoPrint converter software in the following IFS directory:

/QIBM/ProdData/InfoprintServer/Transforms/Install/Image/setup.exe

ust install the application, and you’re already done.

Next step would be to install the ZAN Image Printer.

Now you can print your Microsoft Word overlay using the ZAN Image Printer - make sure to choose the following settings: TIFF, 24bit, LZW compression.

Save this file wherever you’ll find it again. After that, use the tiff2afp tool to create the AFP overlay itself:

tiff2afp -a ioca45 -pagetype overlay -cmp jpeg foo.tiff

This will create foo.afp. Note that it will probably look broken in the AFP viewer - this is normal (and a bug of the AFP viewer).

All you need to do now is to upload this overlay file into your System i - i’m not completely sure how that works (our dev guys handle that nicely), but i’ve found some information about it here.