Well I finally got around to completing the MCSA aspect of the SQL Server 2012 Certification and I’m pleased to say i passed with flying colours. As some of you may be aware I managed to nab and pass 3 of the Beta exams (70-461, 70-462 and 70-465) back in April and decided to see the MCSE through.

I really wasn’t sure how this exam was going to go as I’ve been working a lot recently with MDS 2012 and SSIS 2008 and revised the new 2012 features but went in with no real expectations. The exam consisted of 55 questions, again ranging from multiple guess, select the 3 things you’d do in order to a new feature i’ve not seen before and that is a drag n drop facility of a SSIS control flow which I thought was nifty. 

The area I thought I’d struggle on was DQS but in fact found that aspect relatively simple, the difficult area for me was the “select the 3 things you’d do in order” relating to the new Project Deployment area of SSIS 2012. I’ve done a fair bit of “tinkering” with this over the last few months but its obvious I’m not as prolific as I thought as I found certain questions difficult to get my head around what it was suggesting in the answers. I obviously did ok in this area (according to the score sheet) but at the time i was sweating a bit.

Anyone wanting hints and tips, I obviously can’t go into detail but I’d definitely brush up on the new features of SSIS 2012!!! 

Oh, and anyone wanting to know, the pass mark is 700 – none of the Beta exams told you this and I know some have said it was actually 800……

Now onto 70-464 – Developing Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Databases, to complete the SQL Server 2012 MCSE certification!!!!