Customer Reviews

MCTS Self-Paced Training Kit (Exams 70-648 & 70-649): Transitioning Your MCSA/MCSE to Windows Server® 2008

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I recently passed the 70-649 exam with good scores and this book, 70-648/70-649 Transitioning Your MCSA/MCSE to Windows Server 2008 Trainng Kit, was very helpful. However the text of this book alone, nor any other, most likely would not allow one to pass the 70-649 exam that covers a lot of territory via 3 in 1 exam. But if you have several hours [let's say over 100] minimum hands on experience with Windows 2008 exploring it's capabilities and developing expertise for, either on the job or in your training lab, including Active Directory and Roles/Features covered by the exam and remember most of what you learned obtaining your MCSE 2003 you are well on your way to passing the 70-649.

The labs in the book were helpful if you do not have hands on with the topic or want more in depth as were the URL links to additional info sources if you feel you want more detail as configuration info in some cases was sparse BUT keep in mind that there are entire dedicated books covering topics on most of the chapters in this book . Some of the topics such as ADFS and ADRM are very complicated. I did not do the labs in total for those, other then installing the roles and configuring them as much as I could, but read through them until I understood what was being accomplished. The questions on the exam for those topics did not expect you to know configuration in great detail but you need to know in general what they are used for, high level how they work, the flow of the processes, and how authentication is accomplished.

The exam focuses heavily on what is new with Windows 2008 and assumes you have retained your MCSE 2003 knowledge about networking, DNS, Group Policy, Active Directory, forests, global catalog server, trusts, sites, replication, etc. If not I suggest you also study with the Microsoft Press books for 70-640 and 70-642 or if you want some extra reinforcement on those topics.

I found that IPV6 in the book to be a bit overwhelming as in "do I really need to know how to subnet IPV6 and all the interim solutions such as Toredo". There were no hard IPV6 questions on the exam and I believe I had only 1 question. Knowing basics such as what is the IPV6 equivalent of an IPV4 private/public/APIPA address and how to troubleshoot IPV6 connectivity using basically same tools you use for IPV4.

I found the chapter on IIS7 very helpful in learning the new management interface, which has been totaly revamped, and new features such as management delegation and additional configuration for application pools such as recycling, and was all that was needed for the exam. There were also plenty of command line examples for IIS7 and other topics throughout the book and you will see a fair amount of those on the exam where you need to choose the correct command for a task.

The exam places great emphasis on security including what remote solutions need only port 443 TCP open in the firewall, certificates needed for SSL and implementing client trust for such certificates, solutions for revoked certificates, which authentication methods use certificates, CA types and hierarchy to use, distributing certificates to internal and external computers/users, Terminal Services, minimizing risk of having a domain controller in a branch office, and when to use ipsec/EFS/Bit Locker for a stated scenario and which one accomplishes the task. I felt the book did a good job covering those topics.

In addition to this book it would be well worth your while to study Microsoft documentation on what is new in Windows 2008, and individual what is new papers such as for Terminal Services. I felt that I easily got my moneys worth with this study guide.

EDIT 09/05/09: I recently completed my MCITP for Server Administrator and Enterprise Administrator. As the Microsoft Press books mention using Hyper-V to create virtual machines was extremely helpful in my learning process. I found that the ASRock A780GXE mainboard [around $80] with the latest bios update and using a AMD Phenom II quad core processor worked great for Hyper-V and has 4 RAM sockets. Don't assume any modern mainboard or processor will support Hyper-V. Hyper-V is easy to learn. Just remember to install the Hyper-V Integration Services on any guest OS you install right after the install to get networking and the mouse to work correctly! I believe you also need SP2 for W2003 and SP3 for XP for Integrations Services to install.

About myself: I've been an MCSE for 10 years. I'm also a CCNA, RHCE and CISSP. I've had to read a *lot* of manuals and study guides over the years.

I'm a fan of the Microsoft training books and have found them to be excellent resources for preparing for Microsoft certification exams. I originally ordered the Syngress book while waiting for MS finally print theirs...Unfortunately, this book is far below the standard that has been set by its predecessors.

After only 3 chapters, I'm about to toss this book into the nearest wood chipper and go back to using the Syngress one.

Chapter 1 dives straight into IPv6 and breathlessly screams through a very brief description on what it's capable of, Microsoft's implementation of it, notation, scope.... it leaves a lot to be desired.

If you're studying for this exam and using this book, do find supplementary material on IPv6- you'll need it.

Chapter 3 is a complete abortion, and where I found myself thinking that I wasted $45. The instructions on setting up VPN is confusing for it references screens and options that I couldn't find for the life of me. It also fails to mention until MUCH further down the chapter that adding roles to RRAS requires deactivating the service and unconfiguring it. If you're following along with the book, you're going to be wondering how the hell to "Bring up the RRAS Wizard".

Details into NPS is similarly scant, and doesn't go into detail, leaving a LOT of questions unanswered. It seemed more of a "do this, this and this, and hey! it works!". It's stuff like this that devalues the MCSE - excuse me, MCTS now- and why there's tons of "paper MCSEs" walking around that know only how to do whatever was in the book they read.

By the time I got to the scenario questions, I just about gave up in disgust. The second scenario question asks about setting up 802.1x for a company with standalone servers... unfortunately there was ZERO mention of how to set up standalone servers. The answer to the scenario question offered some hints, but I had to go reading through a MS blog entry to figure out what was going on.

Do yourselves a favor- even if you're going to buy this book anyway, don't let this be your only study guide.

I'm sure this book might have been useful when the exam first came out, however, MS has changed the exams. Currently, about 40% of the exam is based on new features that come in Windows 2008 R2 for example Direct Access. I took the exam and failed it, using this book was a huge mistake. It is good in that it gives you the concepts and instructions for being a good windows 2008 administrator/architect, but it does not prepare you for the exam. This book does not have any of the new material from windows 2008 R2.

I passed 70-648 and 70-649 with this book. I have also spent quite a few hours on labs and followed a trainer led course of one week in order to achieve this goal. My score on these exams has been the worst I have ever had (I'm a MCSE on W2000 and W2003 and a MCT)

What I liked :
--------------

- The objectives of both certifications are clearly idendified on page 2 and 3 and directly related to chapters and lessons
- The Quick Checks and Quick Answers in the lessons
- The Sumaries at the end of every Lessons and chapiter
- The reviews with relevant questions
- The Exam practice tests on the accompaning DVD

What I didn't liked :
--------------------

- The main problem with this book is that it was written for Windows 2008 and that the exams are on Windows 2008 R2 ! For example, I had two question on my exam about Directaccess witch is not treated on this book because it's a new functionality of Windows 2008 R2. Some other functionnalities have drastically changed in R2 (like wbadmin.exe) I can't understand why Microsoft did not change the certifications number whis the release of R2...

- Even if most of the chapiters are correctely treated I did't liked the chapter on IPV6, ADFS and ADRMS.

This is the book NOT to buy for the 70-649 test. If you don't believe me, go to a brick and mortar book store, and read the first 20 pages of chapter 1, lesson 1, and you will see what I mean. I cannot imagine suffering through an additional 800+ pages of this. Zzzzzzzzzzzz...

Unfortunately, I can't recommend the Syngress 70-649 book either. I used, and really liked, the Syngress series for MCSE 2003, but the W2K8 70-649 book is written by a different team than the MCSE 2003 series, and is extremely verbose. While the Syngress book is clearly better than this book, it is still not all that great.

Here is what I DO recommend to study for the 70-649 upgrade test, and sorry, but it is a bit expensive: buy the separate Microsoft 70-640, 70-642 and 70-643 books. The 70-640 book is particularly good, and while as an MCSE 2003, it covers some familiar ground, that isn't really all that bad to brush up on things.

I can also recommend (but unfortunately very $$$), the CBT Nuggets 70-649 video course by Tim Warner. It is very well done. Highly recommended.

I did not find many books out there to prepare me for the 70-648 test and have been very satisfied with the Microsoft Training material that I have used in the past so it was an easy choice for me to pick this book. I also like the logical way the subject matter is presented in the book and the labs are easy to follow. This book is a great way to go over the new changes and additions to Server 2008 but when I took the test I found that most of the test was on Server 2008 R2 which there are some major changes that are not covered in this book that you have to study for. I thought I would be getting current information and test content from this book, after all it is from the makers of the test, but it is not up to date and in need of being rewriten so that it will cover the curent test material.

Like the most recent comments have said, this book is outdated and the content covered is almost 100% different from what was on the test. I failed the test badly even thought I knew the material, aced all the included practice tests, and studied this book like it was the bible. If you buy this book and rely on it for the 70-648 exam you will have an extremely difficult time with the exam. Do not waste your money, go with a 70-648 study guide that focuses on server 2008 R2 instead.

This is a great book to buy cuz it's full, rich in knowledge and as well cheap. The book comes with a CD (For resources and soft copy of the book) and two DVDs (32x and 64x trial versions of Windows Server 2008)The only reason I'm not giving it 5 stars rating is because some of the accompanying CDs were defective. I had to look for a new DVD/CD drive to be able to read them.

First of all, I did pass the exam and this book did help me focus my preparation effort. I only found two books that referenced these exams, so I guess I there isn't much room for choice.

The book is designed to cover both the MCSA and MCSE upgrades from 2003 to 2008. Since the material is pretty much the same, only varying in depth of coverage, I think this is an efficient way to do things. One of the first pages of the book identifies which sections should be read for 70-648 (most of the first 10 chapters) and which apply to 70-649 (the whole book). The examples/exercises in the text involve creating a subset of the famous (infamous?) Contoso domain and walking through various installation/configuration exercises [I STRONGLY recommend using virtual machines of some sort]. These are pretty educational, and, although I don't think I'll *ever* make my Domain Controller a VPN server, the practice is covered. My problem with a lot of these test books (and tests themselves!) is that they focus on HOW and not WHY. So, I know how to configure RIP on my multihomed Windows 2008 machine -- do I know why I might want to do that? This book addresses that a bit better than most.

The test prep software wouldn't install on my 64-bit Windows 7 machine and didn't seem to like my 32-bit Windows XP SP2 virtual machine, but I finally found another one (XP SP3?) that would run it fine. I'm glad I spent the extra effort to get that software up and running since the questions were very helpful in my understanding of the types of questions I could see on the exam.

Obviously, this is an upgrade exam, so I am not unfamiliar with Microsoft's testing process, but I like to study the right material -- you can't carry around "test-level" depth in your head all the time.

Included are 32 and 64 bit trial versions of Windows 2008 (not R2), test prep software (sample/practice test engine), and the complete text as a PDF (maybe an XPS, too, but I didn't use that version).

For the record, the link to online updates was a waste: nothing more than PDFs of the other Microsoft Press books in this series. In the Internet age, I hoped for an update to the test prep software or errata for the text. No dice.

I'll be happy to come back and write be a more thorough review once I finish the book, but be aware this book may not come with the companion DVD and practice tests it is advertised as having. My book only came with eval versions of Server 2008 in 32-bit and 64-bit, but no Companion DVD. I don't believe this is Amazon's fault as pages xxvi through xxviii tell you how to install and use the Companion DVD and the back cover talks about practice tests, but the DVD doesn't appear to exist.

I have emailed Microsoft Press to see if they have an official answer.

*edited on 4/14/2010*

MS Press gave me the # to their suplemental parts department. The woman I spoke with there (nice lady) said nobody had called in for this book before so neither ISBN 13/10 numbers were in their system. They have to add the book to the system and then will look up the DVD and get me a copy if they can find it. They'll contact me when they have more information, but said since the book wasn't in the system yet it could take up to a couple of weeks.