Subtitles of the Movie

Now let's start off by just talking briefly here about Microsoft Certifications. I'm sure you've heard about these and let's just talk real briefly about the big deal about Microsoft Certifications. Now first of all they are recognized industry-wide and it almost doesn't matter which survey you look at you're going to see one, two, maybe even three or four of the various Microsoft Certifications that you can get out there ranked in the Top Ten. Usually they're in the Top Five. It depends on the survey you look at and the people who are answering, but one thing you're going to find out is these things are recognized. If you go out to any of the job sites on the Internet, do a search for a job, if it's on any kind of Microsoft technology you're generally going to see MCITP, MCTS, some of the older ones, MCSC, MCSA, you will see those Certifications as requirements for those jobs, so they are absolutely recognized out there in the marketplace. The next thing, these Certifications have proven themselves to be valuable. A lot of surveys with people say that their promotions and even them getting hired, they attribute directly to the fact that they were holding a particular Microsoft Certification. The next thing you need to understand about these is they are challenging and it's part of the reason that they're recognized and they have the value that they do because to pass these exams, make no mistake about it, it's going to require that you have a fair amount, substantial amount, of hands-on experience with the product. You have to understand not just how the product works and you not only have to have focused study on the product, but the hands-on experience helps you understand the main part of testing, which is knowing how all the pieces and parts fit together and how they're interrelated because that really is the real world, when you're out there dealing in a real world environment. Now, just to kind of help you here, Microsoft really separates their Certifications into three main areas. First there's the Administration Design type certifications and you will normally see these as MCTS and MCITP type deals. Next - deal being a technical term for certification - the next one is the Programming Development side and we won't get into those a whole lot in this particular video because we're concentrating on this MCTS Exam 70-640 and ultimately MCITP, but there is a programming development side of Certification that proves your knowledge and experience with the various development scenarios. And then there's a really high-level called the Master Series and this actually involves a whole lot more than taking a test. You have to go to Redmond and do some training and then answer questions from a panel and so forth. You really have to prove your stuff to get there and we won't even go into that right now. Now with any Certification there are two levels. First of all there's an MCTS level and this is generally the first test you take and this shows that you have a specific focused area of knowledge on one particular activity or technology. For example, you can get an MCTS just like this Exam that we're looking at in this video series, 70-640 and note the title of it Configuring Windows Server Active Directory and what this means is, is that you have really honed in and focused on Active Directory and you've taken time to learn a lot of the issues about configuring Active Directory in an environment and another example is Windows Vista Configuration, how to configure those workstations out there running Vista. Now the Professional Level is the MCITP, OK? And so with MCITP you're basically proving that you have the ability to manage, implement, design, plan and all this stuff in a much larger sense for an organization of medium to large size and it means that you have achieved or passed a number of MCTS Certifications. So, whether you're on the Admin side or the Development side you do the same thing on each of those and that is, you're going to pass as few as two MCTS Certifications, and maybe as many as seven to become an MCITP in various areas. And keep in mind, you can get these in administration, for all the server products, on SQL Server for databases, on Exchange Server for e-mail, over in development for web development, for application development or distributed application development over the Internet. So there are a lot of things you can get. And then I want to give you - now here's the shameless marketing alert, OK? I have completed, or I have done a video - it's a QuickStart!! - it's only, I think a couple hours long, but it's entitled A Real World Guide to Microsoft Certifications QuickStart!! Now, I'm not one to do a whole lot of shameless marketing, but I am in this instance because in this QuickStart!! I kind of take you through the whole idea of Microsoft Certifications, the value of them, some things you probably didn't know about, a lot of percentages and so forth, but then I actually dig in and really show you how to prepare for and how to pass those tests and give you all kinds of tips and stuff. Now you should see this QuickStart!! out there I would say somewhere the fall of 2009, maybe late fall 2009; not really sure, but somewhere in the fall it should be coming out. It's in production right now and so just keep your eyes out on that. Go to VTC.com and look for it; but, if you're new to Microsoft Certifications and if you've never taken these exams or if you have taken them and you've had a little bit of trouble getting passed them, I think this course will probably help you. That's the Real World Guide to Microsoft Certifications, QuickStart!! Some of you may want to go take a look at that. But anyway, I just wanted to give you a quick little overview of Microsoft Certifications because that's where you're headed here. You want to pass Exam 70-640, achieve your first MCTS designation and then keep moving until you get that MCITP and you will like the difference it makes in your career, I promise you. So, let's from here, let's go talk about that MCITP in particular in the next video.