The game is now changed, folks. I am just coming from 70-457 (Transition your skills from MCTS SQL Server 2008 to MCSE SQL Server 2012 Part 1) and I failed on the development part(admin part – no surprises – 900 points). I needed 2 or 3 more right answers, but that’s not the point. What’s interesting though is that if you want to be a MCSE (the old MCITP) for SQL Server 2012, you will have to do some work. A lot of work. Let me explain…
As most of you know, Microsoft changed the rules of their certification program. For us – the DBAs – there was a DBA certification path up until 2008. For the dev guys – there was a different one. And of course for the BI gurus – there was third. Now, however, things are different. There is still a BI path, but there is no DBA and Dev, but DBA + DEV only, which is huge in terms of what we need to know in order to become MCSE(not to mention that exam on Data Warehousing was added also).
Today, I went for the 70-457(there is Second shot for each and every SQL Server 2012 exam, so go go for it)and I felt what it is to have DBA part (25 questions) and DEV part (25 questions) instead of only one of them. It is also interesting to mention that the questions are now asked in various ways – you no more have only 4 options from which you choose one – no, no. You now have questions with 6, 8 and even more options to choose from. You can choose 1 or more answers and of course that’s not all. You now have questions in which you need to order a sequence of steps or questions with more than one right answer.
Now, that’s fine. I like it. But what I love is the second major difference I already mentioned to you. When you finish with the first 25 questions you go for 25 more, but this time they are in the T-SQL development area(and I do not have the 2008 MCITP in development, so it was a bit tough there). Note that these are not questions on select statements – no, no, no. These are questions related to CTEs, Window functions, Creating/altering various objects (views, tables, procs), stored procedures, table – valued functions, UDFs and a whole lot more.
So my takeaway for all of us is this – if we still want to be MCITPs, but in the world of SQL Server 2012, we will need to learn a hell of a lot new stuff. Period. What’s good though is that this “new stuff” has always been important for us as data professionals – database design, querying and modifying data and database objects, designing database solutions – be they for OLTP or OLAP workloads and now Microsoft just says: “You wanna go up and be relevant in the current marketplace – there are a must dos. It’s your choice whether you will go for them or not.”… and I love someone challenging me this way.
The game is now changed, guys, and I am loving it. What about you?
@Microsoft Certifications, I will be back stronger…
What do you think?