Sunday, February 20, 2011

Best way to Upgrade from MCSA 2003 to MCITP SA

If you want to upgrade your MCSA 2003 or MCSE 2003 to MCITP, which upgrade path would you like to choose? Take the upgrade exams, or take MCTS server 2008 exams?
Maybe some candidates for MCITP SA don’t know how to upgrade their MCSA 2003 or MCSE 2003 to MCITP SA.So, we’ll list the upgrade paths to MCITP, if you have known these, and you can skip this.
If you want to upgrade MCSA 2003 to MCITP SA, you have two choices.
1. Upgrade exams for MCITP SA .You know ,if you pass exam 70-680 ,your MCSA on windows Server 2003 can be upgraded to MCTS credentials(MCTS :Windows Server 2008 Active Directory Configuration and Windows Server 2008 Network Infrastructure configuration).That is to say, upgrade exam 70-648 is combination of MCTS 70-640 and 70-642 .So ,generally speaking ,70-648 is harder .After your passing 70-648 or getting both of MCTS credentials ,only if you pass 70-646 ,you will get your MCITP :SA (Server Administrator on Windows Server 2008).
2. Take MCTS sever 2008 exams instead of the upgrade paths. That is to say, you can take any order of 70-640 and 70-642 exams to get the above two MCTS credentials. In my opinion, this way is easier.
Which way would you prefer?
Personally, the easier route would be to just do 70- 640 and 70-642 exams individually. Upgrade exams are always harder! The upgrade exam 70-648 is combination of 2 exams and far harder than the individual exams. Unless you have enough experience on the technology Windows Server 2008, you‘d better not take 70-648 instead of 70-640 and 70-642.So for me it wouldn’t have made a difference if I did the exams separately from a number of exams point of view.
There are several reasons below:
1. When you study the 70-648 upgrade exams, you can found most of materials including MS Press books for 70-640 objectives or topic area very vague and a bit lost.
2. To pass 70-648, you have to pass each section of 70-640 and 70-642,As each section is basically an exam on it own right ,otherwise you’ll fail the whole exam. Generally speaking, if you want to pass 70-648, you should have the ability to pass 640 and 642 exams. If you have trouble studying for basically those exams at the same time, you’d better give up the upgrade exam and study for the individual exams, which will help you concentrate on one set of objectives rather splitting you between the two.
3. To get MCITP :SA ,We can get to know it is unwise to take 70-648 ,from those who had experiencing on upgrade exams.Generally speaking ,Many of candidates with MCSA 2003 would try the upgrade exams three or more times to pass 70-648.
So, in my opinion, the easiest route to get MCITP is to take the exams separately for those with MCSE 2003 or MCSA 2003