Some stuff about the MCITP: Virtualization Administrator 2008 R2

Microsoft has 3 available MCTS exams for the MCITP track.

70-669 – TS: Windows Server 2008 R2, Desktop Virtualization

70-659 – TS: Windows Server 2008 R2, Server Virtualization

70-652 – TS: Windows Server Virtualization, Configuring

And the PRO exam: 70-693 Windows Server 2008 R2, Virtualization Administrator

I took 70-659, 70-669, and 70-693 in August this year.

I`ve taken some certifications and exams before and have a couple of books from Microsoft Press. But for the Virtualization exams – there are no official material from MS press. Challenging!

(The only available relevant book from Microsoft Press for the Virtualization exam is the 70-652 which covering Hyper-V R1 with a lot of update alerts about Hyper-V R2 J )

Anyhow, I wanted to get certified on this technology.

It was quite interesting to seek all the knowledge by myself, and not get it presented piece by piece from a book that was supposed to cover every part of the skills that should being measured.

So with a bit experience, some HW and SW – I was ready to go.

From my perspective, I think this is the right way to do it in the future also. I feel that I have learned a lot more than I would from reading a book and doing the exercises there.

Summary of the exams:

PRO: 70-693 – Mostly about designing Hyper-V and HA. Many questions about Failover Cluster, Migration (Quick, Live, SAN), CSV vs. LUN (R2 vs. R1). And also some questions about Remote Desktop Services that you should be familiar with. The PRO exam is not ‘easier’ than the other, only different since it`s more like a ‘why and why’ exam, rather than a ‘how to’ like the MCTS-exams.

MCTS: 70-669 – This one was really quick. The exam tested you to see if you knew what to use and when (MED-V, App-V, VDI, Remote Desktop Services). Pay some attention to the different settings in MED-V, App-V (sequencer, client, and different servers). But again: Know what to use and when.

MCTS: 70-659 – Along with the PRO exam, this one was the most interesting. It covered every part of Hyper-V – similar to the PRO exam but only more technically. Know the different Windows Server versions that run Hyper-V (core, Hyper-V 2008 R2, Windows Server 2008 R2 with the Hyper-V role installed) and how you could configure each of them. You should expect some questions about host/child settings, Failover Clustering, AzMan, snapshots, backup, and last and very important: SCVMM with the different conversions. A lot of the questions were based on Migrating from x to y, with the different Windows Server versions involved with different SP installed.

You may also get some questions about RDS in this exam.

Feel free to ask me if you intend to take this certification, and I will try to help.

(You`ll end up with a Certificate similar to this one)