SharePoint books - Do they help you to learn for a SharePoint exam?
September 2010
Let’s talk about SharePoint books and how they help you to get
a SharePoint certificate by passing an exam. To be exact I’m talking about SharePoint
2007 certifications since I didn’t try to get a SharePoint 2010 certificate
until now. Back in 2007 the average developer or administrator was able to get 4
different certificates:
- Exam 70-542 - MCTS: Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007, Application Development
- Exam 70-630 - MCTS: Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007, Configuration
- Exam 70-541 - MCTS: Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 3.0, Application Development
- Exam 70-631 - MCTS: Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 3.0, Configuration
Some tough guys and girls around there also got the Microsoft Certified Master
for SharePoint 2007. Anyway I wanted to get the SharePoint 2007 server
MCTS certificates for development and administration. SharePoint is such a complex
system so it doesn’t really hurt if you know as a developer where to put the wrench
if your web doesn’t start. So for me 2 things worked...
Experience
While doing the exam 70-630 – MCTS (configuration) I felt that I could answer about
70% of all question without learning. Due to the fact that I was working daily with
SharePoint 2007 for 2-3 years I had a lot of experience. But I didn’t use every
piece of Central Administration or the Shared Service Provider
and therefore I had to get the missing knowledge by reading.
While doing the exam 70-542 – MCTS (development) I felt that I would be completely
lost with my experience all alone. While creating solutions for publishing sites
or collaboration sites I had no chance to get insights into search development,
business intelligence or personalization. I think it was the book Professional SharePoint 2007 Development which helped me
a lot.
SharePoint books
For me it was very important to use SharePoint books in order to
prepare my exams. It took me a lot of time to read everything and to really understand
and try the things I have read. But at the end I was successful and passed. And
no it didn’t changed my life... and yes certificates are questionable because they
don’t always show the real skills of a person. I work with colleagues who don’t
have any certificate and I can learn a lot from them.
By the way the new SharePoint 2010 exams are ready (Source):
- Exam 70-667 TS: Microsoft SharePoint 2010, Configuring
Microsoft Official Curriculum: Course covers configuration of SharePoint 2010 including
deployment, upgrade, management, and operation on a server farm.
- Exam 70-668 PRO: Microsoft SharePoint 2010, Administrator
Microsoft Official Curriculum: Course covers advanced SharePoint 2010 topics including
capacity planning, topology designing, and performance tuning.
- Exam 70-573 TS: Microsoft SharePoint 2010, Application Development
Microsoft Official Curriculum: Five-day instructor-led course designed for developers
with six months or more of .NET development experience. Course covers what you need
to know to be an effective member of a SharePoint development team that uses Visual
Studio 2010.
- Exam 70-576 PRO: Designing and Developing Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Applications
Microsoft Official Curriculum: Five-day instructor-led training course designed
for development team leads who have already passed the Developing on SharePoint
2010 technical specialist exam. The course covers choosing technologies for and
scoping a SharePoint project, best practices for SharePoint development, configuring
a SharePoint development environment, advanced use of SharePoint developer features,
and debugging of code in a SharePoint project.
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