Passed the Exchange 2007 MCTS Exam

I sat for the Exchange 2007 Configuration exam (70-236) on Wednesday and passed with a score of 718.  Not a great score, but a passing score none the less.  This was my second attempt after missing a passing score by 38 points back in March.

There were 66 questions with a time limit of just over three hours.  Time wasn’t a factor as I finished with over an hour to spare.  The difficulty came from the scope of the material covered in the exam.  Almost every topic is fair game, install, configuration, management, powershell commands, disaster recovery.  Lots of good stuff.

My primary study materials were the Microsoft Press Exchange 2007 Administrator’s Companion, Sybex MCITP Microsoft Exchange 2007 Messaging Design and Deployment Study Guide, and the Microsoft Press Exchange 2007 Administrators Pocket Consultant.  I also used a Transcender practice exam and set up a virtual Exchange 2007 environment in the lab.

I’ll admit that this exam was a lot more difficult than I expected, which is a good thing becuase it helped fill in some gaps in my knowledge of Exchange 2007.  After spending the last eight months completing my Cisco CCVP, I wanted to maintian the study routine I had developed, but needed some fresh material to hold my interest.  If you’re considering taking this exam, check out the Transcender practice test.  It’s not a brain dump, but gives you a feel for the type of questions that will be on the actual exam.  Set up some servers in the lab and practice installing and configuring the different Exchange server roles.  Get comfortable using the Exchange Managment Shell (powershell).  Everything that can be done in the Exchange Management Console can be done in Powershell.

Exchange CAL’s and Multiple Mailboxes

Today a customer asked me, “If I access two mailboxes from within Outlook, does that utilize two Exchange CAL’s?”.

My first reaction was no, it uses only one CAL. But after I thought about it for a second I decided to verify my answer.

According to Microsoft’s How to Buy Exchange 2007 web site;

“The Exchange Server 2007 user/device CAL is required for each user/device gaining access to the server, and entitles access rights to both editions of Exchange Server.”

Ok, that seems to verify my answer, and after checking three other sources I felt confident the correct answer was that it required only one CAL.

I did fnd some conflicting information in my searches.  Here’s a link to an Windows IT Pro article from 2007 that clearly states a CAL is required for each mailbox. (first sentence of the fourth paragraph)  This obviously isn’t correct.

Exchange 2007 SP2 to include VSS backup plug-in

One missing features in the native Windows 2008 Server Backup utility is the ability to backup Exchange 2007.  This more or less forces you into a third-party backup solution or DPM.

Not every Exchange implementation requires mailbox level restore capabilities.  In those situations it was nice to be able to utilize the native backup, assuming you were running Exchange 2007 on  Server 2003.

And what about those times when Backup-Exec suddenly decides (for no apparent reason) it no longer wants to back up the information store and purge the logs?  It was comforting knowing in Server 2003 that you could fire off a native backup and purge the logs.  Not so in Server 2008.  You’re stuck surfing the Backup-Exec knowledgebase for the fix while keeping a nervous eye on your Exchange volume’s available disk space.

The folks over at the Exchange Team Blog have announced that exchange aware backup capability will be included with Exchange Server 2007 SP2.

This is good news, and something that never should have been excluded from Server 2008 or Exchange 2007 in the first place.

Exchange 2007 SP2 is slated for release sometime in Q3 of 2009.