Microsoft Server 2012

mattStoor · 27 May 2014 at 16:28

EDIT: I hope posting in this forum was ok. I wasn't sure where else would be suitable.

I want to study to do the MCSA exams and so far have identified Windows Server 2012 as a certification I definitely want.

However, I have very little real experience using servers. I have managed exchange accounts using the Exchange Management Console and Active Directory and I have monitored backups with Symantec Backup Exec on Windows Server 2008. I have no complex experience.

From looking at previous posts I know I can check out resources like cbtnuggets.com and the official exam text books but I'm worried that with my limited hands on experience with Windows Server these might not be all too useful on their own.

My main question is:
Should I try to set up a virtual server with VMWare running Windows Server 2012 or maybe even put together a budget server running Windows Server 2012 in order to get some real experience alongside the resources?

Additionally, does anyone have any other tips?

Showboat · 27 May 2014 at 16:37

What equipment do you have access to? You say you might create a vm within vmware, does that mean you have access to a vmware environment, or will you be setting it up from scratch, if it doesn't already exist i would use hyper-v, as that's what you want experience of.

You should be trying to replicate everything they ask you questions about in the exam!

leigh_boy · 27 May 2014 at 16:40

having done microsoft exams what you read will be almost not relevant to the test. and makes it very annoying when you havent got a clue what the question means.

some of it will come down to experiance, other questions will not even be realted to the server but best pratices or other windows OS's.

mattStoor · 27 May 2014 at 16:41

Ok, is setting up a hyper-v server at home plausible?

I have a powerful cpu, 8Gb of ram which I could always upgrade if needed and an ssd so I think setting up a virtual environment would be ok from a hardware standpoint. I'm not sure how I would get started with hyper-v though. I guess that's part of the learning material?

mattStoor · 27 May 2014 at 16:42

leigh_boy said:
having done microsoft exams what you read will be almost not relevant to the test. and makes it very annoying when you havent got a clue what the question means.

some of it will come down to experiance, other questions will not even be realted to the server but best pratices or other windows OS's.

I have heard that the books are less than perfect which is another reason I thought real experience would be helpful.

leigh_boy · 28 May 2014 at 08:25

experience is good but lots of questions will come up about things you didn’t even know existed or seem unrelated

cokecan · 28 May 2014 at 10:26

You should checkout the MSDN Virtual Labs: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/virtuallabs/bb467605.aspx

Some good exercises to run through in a pre-installed virtual environment

mattStoor · 28 May 2014 at 11:36

cokecan said:
You should checkout the MSDN Virtual Labs: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/virtuallabs/bb467605.aspx

Some good exercises to run through in a pre-installed virtual environment

This looks great, thank you very much.

anything I don't mind · 28 May 2014 at 21:01

I used vmware workstation to build windows server vms in there and add all the features and roles and so on.

I've had esxi and vcenter and openfiler running in vmware workstation and i've had a dc and exchange server and citrix and dc. But you realy need licensing for a lot of the software to be able to properly use it but a lot of them come with trials.

BlizzardX · 29 May 2014 at 03:38

What you can do is install a hyper-visor (VMWare Hypervisor 5.5, Xenserver 6.2 or MS Hyper-v 2012 Server) and then download the 180 day trial copy of Server 2012 r2. You can install as many of these trial copies on the VM as you want and it will allow you to practice playing with all the various roles on your machine....

If you machine also supports AMD-Vi (IOMMU) or INtel VTd-x then you can also reinstall your main os if this is on the main pc and have that running through your monitor and act as it if was baremetal... Just a thought...

mattStoor · 29 May 2014 at 18:12

Thanks for the input guys! I'm going to look in to your suggestions and have a go with the trials where possible.

Essexraptor · 2 Jun 2014 at 13:17

I think you have to jump through to many hoops with hardware compatability to run a test Win Server 2012 VM to test all the possible combinations.

You are going to learn more by building a real world box and learning to set up that, break it, move cables and connections ... than trying to coax a VM to play nice.

You end up being a Hyper visor theory man rather than a employable experienced tech. try a combo... ie use a VM only for setting up what your budget won't or should not cover

just my thoughts

marinecommando · 4 Jun 2014 at 20:35

Google Microsoft virtual academy for some free training vids and also have look at YouTube (search for the exam code). Microsoft and other training company's publish stuff on there too. Also I wouldn't bother with setting up home labs if you are just wanting to learn the os. Visit Microsoft azure and get yourself some vms spun up there for next to nowt. Certainly cheaper than investing in your PC at home as you are not going to be stick any load through them. Learning about Azure will also be a big boon if you take it to job interviews as Microsoft are pushing everything to cloud and any experience with it will be a plus.

Ploppy2k3 · 5 Jun 2014 at 11:46

If you are serious about passing 70-410,411 & 412 stick 100% to Microsoft products.

As there is a considerable section on Hyper-V you may as well uses it from the start. There are also plenty of tests available on the interweb which will attempt to help you cheat. Used correctly however will point you in the right direction for the courses.
There is no point whatsoever of just learning the tests and passing the exaqms as this will get you nowhere in a real world job but they can be useful.

It may be also worth looking at passing your Server 2008 R2 exams first and then passing 70-417 which is the upgrade exam to server 2012. The reason for this is the 6 exams which make up the 2008 R2 server administrator & enterprise administrator cover so much more material than the 2012 one do.
There are online courses from CBT & Pluralsight (formally Trainsignal) that cover these in detail and despite passing these exams over 4 years ago I still keep on hand for the odd nugget of info that slips my mind.
If you do decide to go down this route do not get disheartened if you fail 70-640 first time around, its is a git of an exam and throws 70+ questions from across the entire platform at you and is really a general knowledge type exam rather than specific. A lot of people fail this one first time and just take it again after passing the other 5.

Any question on these exams just ask.