Tips about exam 70-431 (MCTS: SQL Server 2005)
On Friday, 9 February, 2007 at about 11:30 AM I passed
exam 70-431
and earned the title of
MCTS: SQL Server 2005; now that the excitement is growing dim, I'd like to take
the time to share my impressions on the new certification
model embraced by Microsoft.
First of all, I've been
quite impressed by the number of simulations included in the
exam. For those of you who are wondering, simulations are a
(relatively) new kind of questions, very different from the
usual multiple choice ones we were used to face in the past:
they consist in a series of interactive screens which
(almost) closely resemble the ones you should see while
working with the GUI tools included with SQL Server 2005.
So, to pass this kind of questions, you should be familiar
with these tools.
I must confess, I was always used to think a good DBA should
know how to get the job done without GUI tools. As a
professional developer, I like very much to code; and I like
to work with my SQL Server using just clean TSQL statements.
But the truth is that GUI tools often quicken the steps
needed to do complete everyday jobs: think about restoring a
database which has say 20 transactional backups to restore
in order to get it functional... Admit it, how many lines of
TSQL code are you going to type? Isn't it faster to click 4
buttons inside Management Studio? Sure, and Microsoft
realized it. So, to pass this exam you should also know
where to watch inside and how to work with Management
Studio, Configuration Manager, Surface Area Configuration
and the Profiler.
To my surprise, the number of
questions regarding system views (most importantly the
objects belonging to the sys schema) was bigger than the
number of DML/DDL related questions; I think one of the most
important requirement of this exam is to prove the attendee
really knows how to check for performance problems inside
SQL Server and how to fix them. Index creation and
mainteinance is also very important: you should really know
how indexes work, clustered vs. non clustered indexes
differences and how they relate to performance, columns
inclusion inside them, XML indexes (primary, kinds of
secondary); two or so of the questions related to full text
indexes mainteinance and updates. The total number of
questions for my exam was 52.
The result of my exam really dazzled me; I got a 1000/1000
points! Since I'm a developer, I wasn't expecting so much
from an exam which should belong more to a system
administrator than to my role.
I prepared for the exam
with the aid of two books (and Books Online, of course!):
MCTS SQL Server 2005 - Self paced training kit from
Microsoft Press
and
MCTS Microsoft SQL Server 2005 - Implementation and
Maintenance from Sybex. Both are really good books but I found the Sybex one to
be clearer in some aspects; the Microsoft Press one is
really detailed and sometimes could lend you to confusion.
My advice is to buy both the books and grab the core
concepts from the Sybex book and deepen with the Microsoft
one.