Anyway, this week rather than work, work, work, it’s train, exam, train, exam, the details of which are below:

Systems Center Specialisation - Exam Preparation Bootcamp - (SCOM and SCCM)

Event Title: 44HOL003 – Systems Center Specialisation – Exam Preparation Bootcamp – (SCOM and SCCM)

Exam 70-400: TS: Microsoft System Center Operations Manager 2007, Configuring

http://www.microsoft.com/learning/en/us/exams/70-400.mspx

Exam 70-401: TS: Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager 2007, Configuring

http://www.microsoft.com/learning/en/us/exams/70-401.mspx

44HOL003 – Systems Center Specialisation – Exam Preparation Bootcamp – (SCOM and SCCM)

We did the SCCM on the Wednesday afternoon, and fortunately most of what we were told must have sunk in as we both passed with flying colours! , we came to following conclusions to appraise…

SCCM Exam – in the context of the course, totally applicable, relevant, etc. but then it should be as the ‘course’ was a bootcamp designed to pass the current exam – as usual for a Microsoft exam quite a lot of poorly worded questioning more about one’s ability to read the question rather than test the subject matter.

SCCM Course – (i.e. an exam prep bootcamp) it did exactly what it set out to do – increase the numbers of certified SCCM partners (and therefore MCP’s) in the market, by passing the exam (see above re: exam vis-à-vis course), however I’d hope that the full blown course has more real-world examples, and more engaging labs, such as grouping/teaming delegates into sub-groups to work together on real world scenarios e.g. multiple secondary sites distributing and reporting on secondary site level client distributions, etc. to bring everyone together. Obviously the aforementioned example further alienates the smaller shops who don’t run or need multi-level hierarchies, but you get my drift – the labs are weak!

Firdous Gangat & Dave Allen – Firdous & David really made the difference to this course material, which alone would have been quite poor (labs anyway).  Their knowledge added 1000% to its value, this said it did what it said on the tin as I passed both the SCCM & SCOM exams during the week as planned.

heating probems during the week (lack of cooling) caused some problems and some of the kit is quite old (ML310 G1, didn’t really have the horsepower for virtualised SCOM!), when ML110-G5′s came down to £100 someone should have snapped them up!

A well deserved beer at the end of the course, but not for me my beers scheduled for after the SCOM...

Summary:

Prerequisites:

Agenda:

Distributing Applications
Topics
Manage packages.
Manage programs.
Manage advertisements.
Schedule distribution.
Track success and failure rates for distribution.
Manage distribution points.
Labs
Use the Copy Packages Wizard to duplicate a package
Create a program dependency
Deploying Operating Systems
Topics
Capture a reference computer image.
Manage task sequences.
Configure site system roles related to deploying operating systems.
Deploy operating system packages.
Customize user state migration.
Deliver applications.
Labs
Create update lists.
Deploy an operating system to a secondary site
Create a PXE service point
Migrate user state

Securing a Network Infrastructure
Topics
Configure Network Access Protection (NAP).
Maintain NAP.
Migrate from Inventory Tool for Microsoft Update (ITMU) to Windows Software Update Services (WSUS).
Deploy software updates.
Manage vulnerability compliance.
Labs
Enable software update management.
Create deadlines for update deployment
Configure maintenance windows

Managing and Maintaining an SCCM Infrastructure
Topics
Manage system health.
Configure automatic maintenance tasks.
Create custom reports.
Maintain clients.
Manage systems by using configuration management.
Manage Wake on LAN.
Labs
Import and export Collections, Reports, and Queries.
Generate alerts for distribution points.