SharePoint 2013 Exams

 

The SharePoint 2013 exams are starting to show up!  As I prepare for these exams I will collect and share my notes. Of course all of these notes will only be from my prep and will not be updated after I take the exams.

If you are looking for the 2007 exams… well it's too late for all but one, at least according the exam pages at the Microsoft Learning site (70-631 expires 3/31/2011, 70-630 expires 9/30/12, 70-541 expires 6/30/11 and 70-542 expires 1/31/2013).

If you are looking for the 2010 exams and notes then see here: http://techtrainingnotes.blogspot.com/2010/02/sharepoint-certification.html
If you experienced at SharePoint 2010 then I would recommend taking the 2010 exams before taking the 2013 exams. There should be a lot of overlap in the core content that will help you with the 2013 exams.

MCSE!

Notice the new name for the certification, MCSE, not MSITP. And now "MCSE" = Microsoft Certified Solutions Expert, not Microsoft Certified System Engineer.

For SharePoint Administrators:

Windows Server 2012 certification plus the two SharePoint 2013 exams. Let me say that again… Windows Server 2012 certification… plus the two SharePoint exams gets you the MSCE. (Some more info here.)

For Windows Server 2012:

You will need to have the Microsoft Certified Solutions Associate (MCSA) certification for Server 2012. For this you will need:

• Windows Server exams 70-410 plus 70-411 plus 70-412
• Or the "SharePoint 2010 MCITP: SharePoint Administrator" plus 70-417

For SharePoint 2013, the above plus:

• Exam 70-331: Core Solutions of Microsoft SharePoint Server 2013   (my study guide coming soon)
    http://www.microsoft.com/learning/en/us/exam.aspx?ID=70-331
• Exam 70-332: Advanced Solutions of Microsoft SharePoint Server 2013  (my study guide coming soon)
    http://www.microsoft.com/learning/en/us/exam.aspx?ID=70-332

 

For SharePoint Developers:

(coming soon!)

 

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SharePoint Admins… are you Windows Server 2012 MCSA certified?

 

The public certification exams for SharePoint 2013 will not be available until the first of the year. But… new for the SharePoint Server Administrator is the requirement to be “MCSA: Windows Server 2012” certified. (details here: http://www.microsoft.com/learning/en/us/certification/cert-sharepoint-server.aspx)

This is going to be a surprise to many SharePoint admins and something they need to get working on if they plan to be SharePoint 2013 certified. Existing SharePoint 2010 “MCITP: SharePoint Administrator” certified folks can upgrade by taking Exam 417.

Training:

The following classes are available to help get your there: 20417A: Upgrading Your Skills to MCSA Windows Server 2012 (5 Days) or 20410A plus 20411A plus 20412A (15 days total).

Here's the links to the exams:

70-410 Installing and Configuring Windows Server 2012

70-411 Administering Windows Server 2012

70-412 Configuring Advanced Windows Server 2012 Services

70-417 Upgrading Your Skills to MCSA Windows Server 2012

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Searching the MSDN and TechNet forums for SharePoint 2013

 

I'm doing a lot of 2013 work right now. Learning it, preparing for the exams, writing courseware, getting ready to deliver training sessions… all of which send me to the MSDN and TechNet forums to find stuff. The only problem is, there is no obvious way to search a single forum.

Use the Wiki Luke!

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/6453.how-to-use-the-search-in-the-msdntechnet-forums-and-library-en-us.aspx

There is a forum wiki article all about search and the tips there seem to work great for everything except for the SharePoint forums. The official way to search a single forum is to enter the following into the "Search TechNet with Bing" box on the TechNet pages or "Search MSDN with Bing" box on the MSDN pages:

keywords meta:Search.MSForums.GroupName(forumname)

The forumname is the name listed in the URL of the forum:
   http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/sharepointadminprevious/threads

There's a problem though… recently Microsoft rearranged and renamed many of the SharePoint forums. Instead of giving them useful names like 2013, 2010 and 2007 they called them (in the case of the admin forums) "sharepointadmin", "sharepointadminprevious" and "sharepointadminlegacy". (Makes you wonder what they will do when the next version is released!)

Second problem… to use the above tip you have to start in the right page. I have always thought that the forums were the forums. TechNet and MSDN where just two brandings of the same content. Doing a basic search in either returns content from both. Doing a basic search for a DEV topic in TechNet finds the DEV content and displays the DEV forums with a TechNet URL. (the same is true for basic searches in MSDN finding admin content and displaying it with an MSDN URL)

But when it comes to searching in MSDN for a SharePoint admin forum, it fails. I.e. Entering "meta:Search.MSForums.ForumName(sharepointadmin)" into "Search MSDN with Bing" will get zero results.

Repeating the same search in TechNet works! I.e. Entering "meta:Search.MSForums.ForumName(sharepointadmin)" into "Search TechNet with Bing" works!

 

Google to the Rescue?

OK, currently it looks like the best way to search the forums is by using Google.

Enter the following into Google: (Thanks Robert Aldwinckle!)

keywords inurl:sharepointadmin site:microsoft.com intitle:2013

The text for inurl is the forum name as found in the URL to the forum.
  http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/sharepointadmin/...

Setting intitle to 2013 removes the "legacy" forums from the results.

So now I can search the "SharePoint 2013 - Setup, Upgrade, Administration and Operations" (sharepointadmin) for info about "Quick Launch":

Quick Launch inurl:sharepointadmin site:microsoft.com intitle:2013

 

So the forums actually came to the rescue in the end!

To see the discussion that led to this solution see here:
http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/reportabug/thread/1b94ec41-c2c7-406f-aa03-81179b40b1ce

 

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SharePoint 2013 Requirement: "The SharePoint parsing process crashes"

 

Yah, I know, it's just the title of a KB patch. But it sure looks like it's a requirement that SharePoint must crash Windows Server!

Minimum software requirements:
The SharePoint parsing process crashes in Windows Server 2008 R2"

 

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