We’ve had a few new additions to the SQL 2008 MCM ranks recently – growing up to 59 MCMs (across 2005 and 2008). I ask new MCMs to describe themselves to me so I can celebrate their hard won achievements on this blog. I’ll have a few more biographies to post over the next few months – however in the meantime I do have one new SQL MCM to announce today:

Bob Leithiser, Principal Consultant, Microsoft, blogging at http://blogs.msdn.com/microsoftbob/. Bob Leithiser currently works with the Department of Defense. His career in the IT industry dates back to 1982 including roles in software development, project management and relational databases. Since joining Microsoft in 2000, he has performed .NET/SQL development engagements for the Navy, Marines, Air Force, Army, various state governments, educational institutions and several large system integrators. Bob holds Master’s degrees in Software Engineering as well as Computing Technology in Education. He is passionate about automated software development and self-improving systems, currently working on a dissertation towards a PhD from Auburn University in the area of automated algorithm discovery using autonomous learning of event relational-states achieved through iterative simulation. He is married to his wife of Elaine since 1984 and has 3 children and 2 grand-children. He enjoys weight-lifting, running, biking, and basketball. Bob and his wife are committed to their Christian faith, enjoying Bible study and church activity and desiring to be of service to others.

Welcome to the community Bob – and congratulations!

The Directory program finished this past weekend with our final written test on Saturday and qualification lab on Sunday.  We had four people during the rotation complete all of their exams and one other finish his cert lab.

·         Darol Timberlake – Microsoft PFE - US

·         Glenn LeCheminant – Microsoft PFE - US

·         Jay Robbins – Dell - US

·         Mark Cooper – Microsoft PFE - US

·         Uday Kumar Deb – Microsoft PFE –US

Several others need to retake either their cert lab or a written test to pass. 

I’m looking forward to a good rotation in March!

Ryan

I'd like to congratulate six new OCS MCMs as graduates of rotation 4. They are (in no particular order)

Jeff Nye who works for the MCS Voice Practice in the US

Taimoor Husain who also works for the MCS Voice Practice in the US

Jason Guo who works for MCS East region in the US

Antti Kiviniemi who works for MCS in Finland

Paolo Rescigno who works for MCS in Italy

Henry Creagh who works for Horizons Consulting in the US

We also had several candidates that have only one retake to do so hopefully will be seeing them added to the list soon. Well done all!

Adrian

OCS MCM rotation 4 is almost out the door. Almost - just the final qual lab to finish now. As I write the candidates are all laser focused on their laptops, oblivious to the world around them as they work through the final gruelling 6 hour lab. All this and they've already sat their last written exam this morning. Tough day. They have all worked incredibly hard over the past three weeks - I never ceased to be amazed by the effort and energy that they put in and how well they pull together as a team. Every evening they've been getting together into study groups to work through content from the day and to test each other to make sure they all succeed. A great group and a great group effort.

I've been pleased with the updates that we've made to the lab over the summer - some new multi pool and multi edge scenarios adding depth to the labs. Yet again the candidates have had nothing but praise for the lab - an environment that people just don't get to play around in every day. We have also understood just how far we can push the hardware - despite 8 cores and 32GB of RAM we've pretty much hit the limit at 33 virtual machines. I also purchased some new toys for the classroom this rotation in the shape of some quad core PCs which enable us to run HD video using the new Microsoft Cinema HD cameras. Very cool. We were also lucky enough to have the MS hardware team stop by and talk about this new device in some detail. As always its been great to have PMs involved in the sessions - they provide fantastic insight into why the product does what it does. We are hugely appreciative of their time.

We lost one candidate this rotation thanks to suspected flu - we'll make sure he gets the chance to come back and finish up. We won't let a little thing like illness get in the way of the Masters!

Here's a shot of rotation 4 right before the qual lab today looking calm and collected....

Well done to all of them for making it this far - its been a pleasure having them here.

Adrian.

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, as expected. This weekend the class have been busy studying, but also having a go at the Practise Qual Lab I set up for them. During the course of the weekend I have been getting emails from the class as they complete their attempts - and the language in some... well well, seems like some of the little treats I left in there for them caused quite a bit of frustration... good! :-)

The lab is mainly about troubleshooting Exchange, but, and as I told them before the weekend started, it's mainly about thinking logically and calmly, When things don't work, that should, where do you start looking? Do you crack out netmon? or run netdiag? Do you attach a debugger? or just say "oh bugger"? I always tell them to cover the basics first, before they get too deep. Too often people fail the Qual because they over analyze and miss the real basic stuff.

It's their first exam tomorrow morning at 8am, hope they do well, if so, green ticky ticky for them. I didn't create this by the way, one of this current crop did...

I was recently asked by a potential SQL MCM candidate if we could share testimonials about the SQL Microsoft Certified Master program from non-Microsoft employees  Out of the 57 MCMs in the world, only 12 are not Microsoft employees  (by the way – the numbers on our Meet the Microsoft Certified Masters and Microsoft Certified Architects page only show SQL MCMs/MCAs that have opted-in to share their status).  Nonetheless, these folks represent 21% of an already small (but growing) community.

So after emailing a few of our non-Microsoft SQL MCMs, we got a few replies that I thought would be great to share with the world (with their permission, of course).

The following quote is from Bob Duffy, a Database Architect for Prodata.  Bob holds both the SQL Server 2005 and SQL Server 2008 versions of the Microsoft Certified Master certification, as well as being a Microsoft Certified Architect:

“I can 100% recommend the MCM programs. Three weeks to get master level content from some of the best guys in the world is awesome. It really is a chance to solidify knowledge, fill cracks, move up a notch, see different perspectives and get the top most technical certification on the planet for SQL Server. After 18 years in the database industry it was the most I have been  pushed in terms of knowledge and experiences in such a short space of time. Before the MCM I was almost coasting along on knowledge and self-improvement.

 For me there has been tremendous benefit, especially in terms of :

a)    Instant recognition, especially when dealing with Microsoft related customers and projects.

b)           Access to the MCM content and IP as it matures each release.

c)            Nearly lifetime membership to a network of elite experts  in SQL Server.

d)           Moving to the top of the pile on potential candidates for a project.

 As a side note the pressure and challenge are huge too – no one takes it in their stride without some sweat…”

Thanks much to Bob for sharing his experiences - and I'll share more testimonials over time,

Joe

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, when we go to Exchange 2010 next year and start creating multi node DAG's and RPC Client Access Arrays... that will soon eat it up... for now, nice speedy labs, here we come.

<addition on Nov 11th>

Someone wanted to know what spec these boxes were. Krishna, who runs the labs for all the MCM programs, gave me this: 2 TB is derived from 8 X 300GB,SAS,10K,2.5” disks on Raid 5. 48GB RAM (12x4GB), 1066MHz Dual Ranked RDIMMs. And 2 X Intel® Xeon® L5520, 2.26Ghz, 8M Cache

I sent the below to all of our MCM/MCA communities last night, and thought I'd share it here, too. These programs rock! ...and I'll miss them dearly.

Hi All,

As the subject line says: it’s time for a change. I’m writing to let you know that I’ve accepted a new position within Microsoft (Director, Customer Experience - Xbox LIVE) and my last day in Microsoft Learning will be October 30^th. I know you see these types of emails a lot, I’ve read my share, written a few myself, but none has been as close to my heart as this one. So – apologies for rambling on, feel free to stop reading any time.

For the past 7 years, I’ve been involved with ‘Ranger’ / Master / MCA in some way or another. My hiring interview into Microsoft was basically my application to attend Ranger, a few years later I ran the Exchange program, created the technical MCA certification, added SQL and Directory tracks, and finally debuted the Master certification family while adding SharePoint and OCS and consolidating all MCA certifications in one home. There have been ups, there have been downs, I’m proud of many things that were accomplished, know some things could have been done better, and also know there is still – as always – more work to be done to make these programs as wildly successful as they deserve to be.

These programs are a collective gem; they are so unique. They are like nothing that I’ve ever had the honor of being associated with inside or outside of Microsoft, and it’s very, very tough to let go. The thing that makes them so special is the people. For starters, the people that run them (‘The Master Team’), who are so accomplished in their careers and so motivated to create the highest level of training and certification in the world in order to make a difference for our business groups and ultimately our customers. They are among the best consultants and architects in their fields, and the surrounding team is equally as bright, motivated, and successful. To ‘The Master Team’: thank you for coming on board, several of you moving your family’s across oceans to do so, and thank you for your friendship, passion, intelligence and the ever so critical ‘just getting it’. I will miss working with you all the most.

The instructors. Without the quality of instructors that we have been able to  secure over the years, the programs would be a charade. No one on the outside can truly know, truly appreciate the amount and depth of knowledge one gets from these individuals until they have gone through it themselves.  It’s just not possible. One of the most consistent pieces of feedback from candidates has been, “I had no idea what I didn’t know!”, and that’s all because of our instructors. Thanks to all of you for your excellence, and your personal commitment.

Finally, the community. It’s amazing how many kind, bright, and motivated ‘candidates’ I have met. By virtue of going through these high stakes programs, individuals’ characters come through very quickly and honestly, and the relationships that are built there ring true indefinitely. Being able to be a small part of each person’s journey has been hugely rewarding. Thanks to all of you for your efforts, and the opportunity be a part of your lives in some small way. Here also I’d like to call out the MCA community, and the Advisory Council for our Infrastructure and Solutions tracks: thanks for your continued support.  I’m most appreciative and look forward to keeping tabs on a momentum filled year.

Across all of the above (and a lot of others that would makes this email even longer were I to mention them), I’m very thankful for the lasting friendships that I look forward to maintaining. I know you will all continue to make these programs prosper, just by being yourselves. MSL will backfill my position, and a job opportunity should be posted shortly on Microsoft’s career site. In the meantime, Greg (who runs the Exchange program today) will guide the ship day to day; you’re in great hands, no doubt about it.

Until we cross paths again, I’ll say it one more time: “Know what you know, know what you don’t know, and never confuse the two.” J

Thank you for everything,

Per

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 early, get ready for a long first week, and whatever you do, don't be late, especially to my program. If you do, you'd better know the words to "I'm a little teapot" because I might ask you stand at the front and sing it, or the whole class gets extra homework. Don't say I didn't warn you....

Looking forward to the learning, a lot. :-)

The seventh SQL Microsoft Certified Masters rotation is almost finished.  It has been a jam packed 24 hours:

• A full day on the topic of SQL Security from Greg Low
• Last night we had a Meet and Greet in Building 35 - where our candidates had a chance to meet several PMs and Devs from the SQL Engine and SQL CAT team.  Fantastic showing and great conversations.
• Kalen Delaney stopped by for the final signature on Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Internals this morning!  She mentioned that these might be the only copies with all five signatures included.  Not sure if we can pull this off for each rotation, but we'll certainly try.
• The rest of today will be about High Availability.

Now it all comes down to Saturday.  8AM they will have a two hour exam.  11AM they will start their six hour qualification lab.

Wish them luck,

Joe

..don't talk about Advanced Infrastructure. Or so at least it was until now.

What am I talking about? I'm talking about our Microsoft Certified Master: Advanced Infrastructure certification. Never heard of it? Well, you're not alone. This was a Master track that we did an alpha and beta for and then decided not to pursue further for the time being. There were many reasons for this, and it is still in the back of our minds how we can perhaps surface that content in a different way and/or when.

But, our choice to not proceed with the program at the time, should not take away from the great accomplishments the individuals who did manage to pass all of the tests achieved. You'll find those folks listed on our newly published MCM/MCA Bio page.

Please join me in congratulating all of them!

 -Per

We have just started publishing a list of people who have earned an MCM and/or MCA certification over at our Microsoft Learning site. Go take a look here.

We'll be adding names as MCM's and MCA's ask us to, it's entirely optional, and we hope this brings them some much deserved publicity. Gaining a cert like this isn't easy...

Greg

I'm pleased to announce that we have three new members of the OCS MCM community after they completed retakes. There are, in no particular order,

• Robert Burnett - Robert works for CXO Global Solutions in the US
• Jim Raymond - Jim works for Dyntek also in the US
• Agus Rachman - Agus works for Microsoft consulting in Indonesia. Agus is one of the ultra rare breed of double MCMs as he holds the Exchange certification also. Impressive stuff.

Congratulations to them all and welcome onboard.

Adrian

We kicked off the seventh rotation of the SQL Server Microsoft Certified Master program on Monday and I have to say how impressed I am with this latest batch of 12 candidates.  The cumulative experience in the room is significant, and the intelligence and skill level is very high.  Even though we have a room full of experts, this is still a very thoughtful and humble group.  This bodes well for the next three weeks.

It is only the third day of the first week – and the journey is just beginning for them.  Over the next three weeks they’ll be getting instruction from luminaries of the SQL world – including Paul Randal, Kimberly Tripp, Adam Machanic, Gert Drapers, and Greg Low.   

At night, they must study.  During the weekends, they must study. 

Study for what?  Three two hour “written” exams and on the last day, a six hour hands on qualification lab. 

They will get a couple of breaks.  Tonight we’re taking a trip to Seattle for a round of darts, pool and beer.  And on the last week, we’ll be taking a trip to Building 35 to meet a few members of the SQL product team. 

But what will they be doing tomorrow night, or the night after, or next Saturday night?  Studying and lab practice.  Wish them luck!