Microsoft 70-741

Hi all,

So as some people may have seen from a thread last year, I got promoted to an Infrastructure Engineer position and with that, came the promise of training. Well the company have come through and I've been booked on the following courses -

• M20740, Installation, Storage and Compute with Windows Server 2016
• M20741, Networking with Windows Server 2016
• M20742, Identity with Windows Server 2016
• M20413, Designing and Implementing a Server Infrastructure

First up from the list is the Networking with Windows exam. I am already booked on a course in March and will be able to get access to the material a week earlier and I've also got other books that I can read.

I was just wondering if anyone who has already taken or, is maybe taking the course have any recommendations of any other material to read? (Obviously I mean legal, none ripped stuff!)

I'm not the best when it comes to studying, so if anyone has any advice when it comes to what to study, that would be awesome too.

Thanks

I did those about a year back (my first *and hopefully last* Microsoft certs) - they were tougher than I expected, though I don't really do much in the Microsoft space any more. If you have access, there are tracks for each exam in the MCSE path available at Pluralsight - that's all I used to prep (along with some labtime), and they're pretty decent.

If I can offer a single piece of advice though: sit the 70-740 exam first - everything else sits on top of that, and you will find that a bunch of stuff relates back to it when you come to 70-741, 70-741 and 70-743. The SDN stuff in the networking exam was horrible to learn compared to NSX (disclosure: I work for VMware).

I think I did all 4 exams over 2-3 months, with maybe 20-30 hours of study for each.

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Originally Posted by Splash

I think I did all 4 exams over 2-3 months, with maybe 20-30 hours of study for each.

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:o holy crap, that's a short period of time.

We've got two years to do the lot, ive got two exams booked, so hoping i pass them, then ill considering doing the other two this year.

I've just looked at Pluralsight, at £26 a month, i think that might be worth a punt!

See if your company will pay for it - my old company did when I asked (and my new employer includes it in the compensation package anyways). As for the timeframe: I've been a bit of a cert monster in the last few years, glad to be able to ease off on it now!

Best of luck with the exams!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Splash

See if your company will pay for it - my old company did when I asked (and my new employer includes it in the compensation package anyways). As for the timeframe: I've been a bit of a cert monster in the last few years, glad to be able to ease off on it now!

Best of luck with the exams!

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I will ask, but I suspect it will be a no as they are already paying for the course etc, but im happy to take the £26 hit for a month and then renew when i need it.

And thanks, I certainly think I will need them. Hopefully labs will help.

Labs will be an absolute must.

Is your employer a Microsoft partner? If so they may well be required to have a certain number of staff qualified to a certain level to retain that partner status, and they're probably also claiming the cost of the courses back from Microsoft - be aware of this if that's the case, might make negotiations easier!

Also I think Pluralsight offer a free month trial, so look into that before splashing the cash!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Splash

Labs will be an absolute must.

Is your employer a Microsoft partner? If so they may well be required to have a certain number of staff qualified to a certain level to retain that partner status, and they're probably also claiming the cost of the courses back from Microsoft - be aware of this if that's the case, might make negotiations easier!

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Nope, not a Microsoft Partner as far as I'm aware.

Will take a look at the free trial tonight too