MCSE/MCSA Beta Upgrade Exams to Windows Server 2008 are out (71-648, 71-649)
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.
4sysops -- Beta of MCSA/MCSE 2008 upgrade exams:
[...] exams. The good thing about these exams is that they are for free. Lukas Beeler took the exam and blogged about his [...]
20. July, 2007, 20:06My torn data pages:
Preparing for 70-649, part 4 of many….
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23. July, 2007, 20:33"So, a booth babe and a geek walk in to a bar..." : WS2008:
[...] Lukas had a few pointers for 71-649 [...]
1. October, 2007, 17:02MSDN Blog Postings » WS2008:
[...] Lukas had a few pointers for 71-649 [...]
1. October, 2007, 18:38Helmers Blog » Blog Archive » MCITP Windows Server 2008 Exam Experience:
[...] There were no simulations, but i encountered a single Drag&Drop question. There were a lot more exhibits than in the TS exams, a few questions were worded awkwardly, but I didn’t find a question which I thought i answered wrong. I’m a lot more confident that I passed this exam than 70-649. [...]
8. January, 2008, 00:47