Know About the 70-290 Certification

Two important system administration certifications from Microsoft are Microsoft Certified System Administrator (MCSA) and Microsoft Certified System Engineer (MCSE). Each of these certifications can be achieved by passing certain exams associated with these.

The 70-290 exam is falls under the MCSE certification path, and certifies that the individual is skilled to manage and maintain Windows 2003. The important concepts covered in 70-290 are listed below;

Managing and Maintaining Physical and Logical Devices

• Manage basic and dynamic disks.
• Optimize server disk performance.
• Troubleshoot server hardware devices.
• Install and Configure server hardware devices.
• Monitor server hardware.
  

Managing Users, Computers and Groups

• Manage local, roaming and mandatory user profiles.
• Create and manage computer accounts in Active Directory environment.
• Create and manage groups.
• Create and manage user accounts.
• Troubleshoot user accounts.
• Troubleshoot user authentication issues.
  

Managing and Maintaining Access to Resources

• Configure access to shared folders.
• Troubleshoot terminal services.
• Configure file system permissions.
• Troubleshoot access to files and shared folders.

Managing and Maintaining a Server Environment

• Monitor and analyze events.
• Manage software update infrastructure.
• Manage software site licensing.
• Manage servers remotely.
• Troubleshoot print queues.
• Monitor system performance.
• Monitor file and print servers
• Manage a web server.
• Monitor and optimize a server environment for application performance.

Manage and Implement Disaster Recovery

• Perform system recovery for a server.
• Mange backup procedures.
• Recover from server hardware failures.
• Restore backup data.
• Schedule backup jobs.

The 70- 290 examination is a multiple choice questionnaire, and the candidate needs to select the 'best' answer, out of the options. The minimum passing score for this exam is 700 out of 1000. All Microsoft Certifications exams are administered by Prometric.

Here are some of typical questions asked by Microsoft in 70-290 exam:
Q 1. _________ is a command-line tool that enables you to manage objects, such as disks, partitions, and volumes from the command-line.
a.DiskMan, b. DiskPerf, c. DiskPart, d. DiskCom

Q 2. In Windows Server 2003, a group denotes a set of users, computers, contacts, and other groups that can be used as Security groups and _______________.
a. Fax Groups,
b. E-mail Distribution Groups,
c. Name Resolution Groups,
d. None of the Above

Q3. When you copy a shared folder, ____________________
a. The original shared folder is still shared, but the copy is not shared.
b. The original folder as well as the copy is shared.
c. The original folder is not shared anymore, but the copy is shared.
d. The original shared folder and the copy both are not shared anymore.

Q4. What should you do when you want to track disk space use on a per-user basis, but do not want to deny users access to a volume?
a. Enable disk quotas,
b. Enable disk quotas and set the disk quota warning level,
c. Enable the disk quota warning level only,
d. Disable disk quotas

Q5. What are the advantages of network backup?
a. Network backup can be used to back up the entire network and requires fewer tape drives, or disks.
b. Network backup decreases network traffic,
c. Network backup can be used to backup the Registry on remote computers.
d. All of the above

MCSE exams are quite challenging, and are not easy to clear. Therefore, it is recommended to practice well, both for theoretical as well as practical questions.