BI Certification – Microsoft MCTS 70-448 Exam

Dear friends,

Yesterday I updated my MCTS-BI certification on SQL 2008 version realizing the 70-448 exam with a 972 score. The score and certificate achievement are not important; what is really important for me is to have one more reason to learn new things or to re-learn old things! Take a look at my previous experience doing this exam in the previous SQL version (SQL 2005 – exam 70-445)

How did I study?

I spent one day studying hard through the exams provided by the MS Press Training Kit book (written exclusively for this exam) and through the exams provided by uCertify. Both Microsoft Press book and the software provided by uCertify, have very good resources to study and learn into deep detail the subjects required for this exam. The learning method I’ve followed was to read the book on each failed question included in the book and in the uCertify software.

The well-known dumps not exist here, and I don’t recommend anyone to use it. Using dumps the merit realized on passing on exam does not exist and mainly, you’ll not learn anything! I cannot understand the logic of using dumps and I think Microsoft should do something about it.

Skills Being Measured

Implementing an SSIS Solution (17%)

Configuring, Deploying, and Maintaining SSIS (15%)

Implementing an SSAS Solution (21%)

Configuring, Deploying, and Maintaining SSAS (17%)

Implementing an SSRS Solution (17%)

Configuring, Deploying, and Maintaining SSRS (13%)

Courses associated with this exam

6236A:Implementing and Maintaining SQL 2008 Reporting Services (3 Days)

6235A:Implementing and Maintaining SQL 2008 Integration Services (3 Days)

6234A:Implementing and Maintaining SQL 2008 Analysis Services (3 Days)

Key subjects to focus in

The following list shows some of the key subjects that I remember from my exam and I consider very important for all those persons that want to learn and do the exam:

SSIS Protection Level Options (about 3 questions)

SSIS command-lines DTExec and DTUtil (about 3 questions)

SSRS RSConfig and RSReportServer Configuration File (about 4 questions)

SSRS Encryption Keys and Configuration tool

SSAS Data Mining (about 1-2 questions)

SSAS Processing Options (about 4 questions)

SSAS Deployment Wizard and XMLA (XML for Analysis) scripts

SSAS IsAggregate, Usage and AtributeHierarchyEnabled properties

SSAS Roles (about 2 questions)

SSAS Usage Base Optimization (about 2 questions)

MDX Languages (3-4 questions)

I think the most questions were focused on SSAS and less on Data Mining. The questions I think many persons will have some difficulty during the exam are configuring a SSIS, SSAS and SSRS Servers that are typical tasks more related with SQL Database Administrators (DBA)… Except in small/middle companies, rarely a BI developer needs to administer a SQL database. Although and based on my last experience helping implementing a critical BI system, some DBA’s issues aroused often, and our team needed to do everything including DBA tasks. For that reason, I am planning to take SQL DBA certification next weeks. But before it I’ll take BI exam 70-452 to update MCTIP BI certification for SQL 2008

uCertify Experience

uCertify kindly asked me some weeks ago to try their product on 70-448 exam. I accepted the challenge but in one condition… use it in real for making the exam! The experience was very interesting and I changed my opinion about these kinds of products. The uCertify product has several exams to test your skils but also a study helper. The exams are not Dumps and if you want to pass the exam learning, I truly recommend that you invest on this product. If you fail the exam, at the end you’ll spend more money. Visit the uCertify software for this exam

If you plan to invest on uCertify testing software, I can send you a 10% discount voucher