Exam 70-445: my personal impressions

On Wednesday I had my 70-445 exam. I wanted to be certified as MCTS in the BI-area. First of all - I failed. I got 551 points, which is "slightly" less than required 700. So, the next attempt comes in 2 weeks or so. I cannot disclose the questions, but I can tell you my impressions and give some hints.

First of all, the questions there are really very technical. Actually. you must know where certain options in the BIDS or in the Management Studio are set, how the colour of the cell in a report can be controlled, and how a failover cluster of the SSAS can be configured. I spent certain time with several MS courses (294, 2795, 2796), but I think, that the content of the courses does not really match the depth of the questions. The courses can help you to organize your knowledges, which you gained while working with "SQL Server & Co.", BUT they (courses) will not really contribute to the level of the knowledges.

If you want to get an overview of the topics covered by the exam, you may have a look at these posts: http://peterkol.spaces.live.com/Blog/cns!68755AEAC31F9A6C!196.entry and

http://www.kodyaz.com/blogs/software_development_blog/archive/2006/11/30/480.aspx

. I'm going to post my list of topics in a couple of days here.