MCSE 70-290 Certification Primer

Microsoft Certifications are one of the most widely acclaimed, pursued, and achieved technical certifications in the IT industry. The demand for Microsoft Certified Professionals in the job market is increasing every year.

Microsoft offers a number of certification levels depending on specific areas of proficiency and nature of job. Some of the certifications pertaining to networking are:

Microsoft Certified Professional (MCP)

Microsoft Certified System Administrator (MCSA)

Microsoft Certified System Engineer (MCSE)

Each certification level has certain exams associated with it. You can decide the appropriate certification exam based on your experience, skills, and interests.

Benefits of Microsoft Certifications

Microsoft Certifications provide a standard method for testing employee skills. The certifications provide employers a valid benchmark for evaluating the employee's abilities. This will provide you the recognition and reward as per your expertise.

Microsoft Certifications offer prospective employers a baseline to judge your knowledge, skill, and expertise in the field. Certifications can provide added advantage if you are at the same level of experience as another person without certifications.

Certifications are a valuable tool if you have no or very little experience. The certifications that you hold can prove and reassure your employers and consultants about your knowledge in the field. This will help you secure good job as well as negotiate a good salary.

Pre-Requisite Experience (Recommended) for Microsoft Certifications

To pursue this certification you should have at least 1 year of experience in:

Implementing and administering a network operating system in environments with 50 to 26,000 supported users, in approximately 3 to 150 physical locations.

Implementing network services and applications such as file and print services, database services, messaging services, proxy server or firewall services, dial-in server services, and Web hosting.

Implementing and administering a desktop operating system.

Designing a network infrastructure with 3 or more domain controllers.

Significance of Microsoft Certifications for Microsoft Windows Server 2003

Microsoft has developed independent certification requirements for Microsoft Windows Server 2003. An aspirant can certify directly for MCSE/MCSA in Windows 2003 if they are new to certification process. If the aspirant is already a certified MCSE /MCSA in Windows 2000, then they can follow the upgrade path for MCSEs in Windows 2000 to secure Windows 2003 Certifications. If the aspirant certifies in MCSE for Windows NT4.0, they can earn MCSE in Windows 2003 by following the upgrade path for MCSEs in Windows NT4.0.

The exams are slightly more challenging than their Windows 2000 counterparts, but they will actually test your hands-on knowledge since that is the most important part of ensuring that a certification is credible.

Exam 70-290: Managing and Maintaining a Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Environment

Exam 70-290 is the first in the series of the core exams for MCSE certifications.

When you pass the Managing and Maintaining a Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Environment (MCSE 70-290) exam, you achieve Microsoft Certified Professional (MCP) status. You also earn credit toward the following certifications:

Core credit towards Microsoft Certified Systems Administrator (MCSA) on Microsoft Windows Server 2003 certification

Core credit towards Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer (MCSE) on Microsoft Windows Server 2003 certification

MCSE 70-290 exam objectives are:

Objective 1: Managing and Maintaining Physical and Logical Devices

In this objective you will need to demonstrate expertise in managing and maintaining physical and logical devices. As an administrator, you should understand Basic and Dynamic disks, RAID configuration and troubleshooting, driver signing, and the use of tools, such as Device Manager and hardware Troubleshooting Wizard. Familiarize yourself with Device Manager and the warning and disabled icons found when problems