It's just two days before the start of a huge SharePoint Conference in Las Vegas, and we have great news to share from the Advanced Certifcations team. The first MCSM: SharePoint rotations are scheduled to start in early 2013, and registration is now open! Program Basics What it is: MCSM: SharePoint...

As Jimmy May (@aspiringgeek) alluded to yesterday there is big news in the MCM / MCSM world for SQL Server. In the early days (i.e. when I went through the SQL Ranger program) there was on campus, required training in order to obtain the MCM certification. At some point in the distant past, the...

We're kicking off an initiative to conduct regularly-scheduled LiveMeetings on Advanced Certification offerings. These will be hosted by the program managers and include detailed program overviews as well as time for live Q&A. You can find them here on MS Events - if you want to learn more about...

I spend a lot of time talking with potential MCM candidates about what to expect from attending the Lync MCM training in an effort to help them understand the expectations, demands and also rewards of the program. In an effort to provide a first hand perspective I have asked attendees from the most recent...

For Exchange and SharePoint that is. Directory is now only two weeks long, so they are at the halfway point, and OCS is entering their final week. Busy busy right now. It's been a great week in my room, or at least, I think it has. CAS and Transport done, survey scores are in, and they are great,...

Just getting the labs checked over for the Exchange session which starts Monday and I recently got some new toys... I think 48 GB of ram, 16 cores and 2TB of disk per candidate server should be enough for a lab or two... don't you? I've got 16 vm's running, and still have 10Gb free. Of course,...

We're in the third and final week of SQL now, OCS starts on Monday (Adrian flying in this weekend so fingers crossed no delays...) and a week from Monday, Exchange, SharePoint and Directory all start. It's a busy month ahead. If you are coming to one of these rotations, remember, get here nice and...

An interesting article about Microsoft's certification story over at http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/2009.08.geekofalltrades.aspx

Another post from someone who really knows what the training is all about, someone who took it.... Rai Umair is a Principal Consultant within the SharePoint\OBA practice at Stargate Global Consulting Take it away Rai... I recently had the opportunity to attend rotation 3 (R3) or the first public...

Neil Johnson from MCS in the UK, who attended Exchange R2 has written up a very comprehensive account of his recent experience - go check it out at http://blogs.technet.com/msukucc/archive/2009/05/05/microsoft-certified-master-exchange-2007-a-survivors-guide.aspx

On Monday this week we kicked off the sixth SQL Server capstone training rotation, now titled “Microsoft Certified Master” for SQL Server 2008. We had 17 victims, er attendees show up bright eyed and bushy tailed, ready to take on the most challenging training available on the SQL Platform. We started...

This post was written by Rajeev Krishnan who attended Rotation 1 of OCS Master. In it he shares his hints and tips on getting into and surviving the program. Rajeev is a Senior Consultant for Microsoft Global Services in India. I was one of the fortunate people to have been invited for the alpha...

You are? Boy, do we have something for you! Greg gave his run-down of final preparations in his last post, which focuses on last minute things to think of prior to attending our training. But what about helping you make sure you're technically ready to attend / help you figure out if you're ready...

So a week today, on March 16th 2009, we start three MCM Programs - all at the same time. It's a busy week this week getting it all ready. Here's what's going on... for my program at least... Krishna our lab manager is provisioning all our servers and other pieces of equipment so everyone is ready...