70-433 - Exam

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After having passed the 1Z0-047 Oracle Database SQL Expert Exam, I decided that it would make sense to take 70-433 (Microsoft SQL Server 2008, Database Development Exam) as my next exam. First of all, I have taken 70-431 (Microsoft SQL Server 2005 - Implementation and Maintenance) exam before, so it would make sense to update it to current version of SQL Server, plus I practices writing a lot of queries to the Oracle exam (even though the syntax sometimes can be so much different) and finally it would make sense to take this exam before I start studying to the .NET 4.0 exams, which based on my experience from previous exams might have a few questions regarding SQL Server 2008. So as always before starting studying to the exam, I try to learn about the exam as much as possible from those who have taken the exam.


There isn't much of very useful information, however one can find that MCTS Self-Paced Training Kit book doesn't even come close to covering topics in the exam, so if you go for the test without a considerable amount of SQL2008 and other version experience or training you are going to be in trouble when you take the exam. One interesting point I found was that "when you seat for the real test, Microsoft will try to "kill" you with really strange T-SQL options and queries that you barely see in real world". As far as Real MCTS Server 2008 70-433 book, it can help a lot but it's not quite enough to actually pass the exam (like no information about Service Broker). Dave mentioned some things that are either new or not very well known that each test taker should know like (filtered index, using APPLY operator to run Table Value Function against all rows in the table, or that an indexed view needs to use WITH SCHEMABINDING, and as a consequence the index must be UNIQUE CLUSTERED). The Best Study Guide for 70-433 site mentions only that to continue preparing with the SQL 2005 materials if you have as SQL 2008 added *new* things to SQL 2005, but there’s nothing in SQL 2005 that won’t be valid knowledge in SQL 2008, and then focus efforts on the *new* things in SQL2008 using SQL Server Books Online.
So based on the information as above, my study plan is to use the following books:
One might ask why some many books on SQL Server 2005. The answer is very simple: because I already own them so I don't feel like spending all the money on the same books for 2008, which will contain only few pages that are not in the previous books. That's why I will use SQL Server 2008 Books Online to learn new features that I could not find the books I already have. As far as posts are considered, I'll probably try to write about the new features introduced by SQL Server 2008 or maybe about some syntax that is typical to T-SQL like Output clause or recursive CTE.

1 comments:

On October 7, 2012 at 5:29 AM , emmy said...

hello,
i have 70-433 syngress -the real mcts sql server 2008 exam.is this a good book??>plz help me