Understanding The Microsoft Certified Master Program
Date: Feb 23, 2011
If you’ve spent much time around any of the many technical communities built up and around Microsoft platforms and technologies—such as Visual Studio, the various Windows Server and desktop versions, Exchange Server, SQL Server, and so forth—you’ve probably also run into those esteemed and knowledgeable members of such communities known as Microsoft MVPs. In this case, MVP stands for “Most Valuable Professional” rather than the more usual meaning (Most Valuable Player), though it’s clear that Microsoft MVPs are real, serious players within the various specialized worlds that they inhabit.
The MVP program is described on the company’s website in a series of pages it devotes to Most Valuable Professional information. On those pages, you’ll find the following observations. “MVPs freely share their knowledge, real-world experience, and impartial objective feedback to help people enhance the way they use technology. Of the more than 100 million users who participate in technology communities, around 4,000 are recognized as Microsoft MVPs.”
By now, I hope you’re wondering why I started a discussion of the Microsoft Certified Master (MCM) program with a tangential discussion of the company’s MVPs. As it happens, this discussion is by no means tangential, appearances notwithstanding, because several of the MCM program managers with whom I’ve discussed this certification program have all identified “their” MVPS—that is, the MVPs who’ve earned that distinction within the subject area for one of the specific MCM credentials—as key and important target candidates for the MCM certification. To understand the MCM credential and the kind of person it seeks to single out, then it’s important to understand that it aims at the very best and brightest in certain subject areas. Who better to match this description than the elite MVP population? Please keep this in mind as you read the rest of this article, and ask yourself, “Do I have what it takes to be an MVP? Can I rank among the best and brightest in my technical area?”
MCM: The Generalities
“MVP-caliber professional” is a pretty epigram for an ideal MCM candidate, as I’ve already tried to explain. Microsoft describes the program as aimed at experienced IT professionals who seek “to deepen and broaden their technical expertise on Microsoft server products.” Their goal is to mold such professionals into individuals who can “stand out to employers and customers.”
Training experienced professionals is a different proposition than training entry- or mid-level career people, who will often be the first to tell you not only that they still have a lot to learn, but who are generally enthusiastic and interested in as much more learning as they can get. At the higher ends of the technical spectrum, things get more challenging: such students are much more prone to challenge their instructors, question their materials, and put the whole process through the wringer on their way to meeting educational objectives—and if they don’t agree with those objectives, they’ll tell you about that too, and probably try to convince you to change them.
That’s why Microsoft routinely puts its MCM candidates through three weeks of grueling classroom training, featuring the very best of its instructors and product experts, with three computer based tests (one for each week’s worth of material), plus a half-day hands-on lab-based exam that is designed to test the very depths and breadths of knowledge that the program seeks to inculcate.
Table 1 lists the five different MCM certifications, where is tied to some Windows Server based technology or product platform.
Table 1: The Five MCM Certifications
|
Platform |
Certification Name |
Notes |
|
Exchange Server 2010 |
MCM: MS Exchange Server 2010 |
standard curriculum and exams |
|
Lync Server 2010 |
MCM: MS Lync Server 2010 |
standard curriculum and exams |
|
SharePoint Server 2010 |
MCM: MS SharePoint Server 2010 |
standard curriculum and exams |
|
SQL Server 2008 |
MCM: MS SQL Server 2008 |
Classroom training is optional |
|
Windows Server 2008 R2 |
MCM: Windows Server 2008 R2 Directory |
standard curriculum and exams |
At present, the only MCM program that permits candidates to skip the three weeks’ worth of classroom training and challenge the exams directly is the one for SQL Server 2008. It’s been around the longest, has developed the biggest cadre of MCMs, and is operating from a belief that MVPs will be more likely to challenge in and earn the MCM if they (or their employers) don’t need to pony up $18,000 for classroom training along the way. That said, the exams by themselves do cost $2,500, so the program is still not cheap, even when the classroom portion is omitted.
The MCM Experience
But one of the things you quickly notice when you talk to actual MCMs is that they possess incredible esprit de corps. Three weeks in the classroom may be difficult, time consuming, and expensive, but it is apparently also one heck of an awesome bonding experience as well. One of the things I heard from every MCM I talked to was how much they enjoyed the training, how strongly they bonded with their classmates and instructor, and how much they’d learned by working their way through the mountain of labs and materials presented to them during that period. Because two of the MCMs I talked to were Microsoft employees at the time of our conversation (but not, I hasten to observe, at the time they earned their MCMs), it isn’t out of line to suggest that the MCM has provided fertile ground for Microsoft’s own staff development as well.
Values and Benefits for MCM Certification
Who besides Microsoft is hiring MCMs nowadays? Big corporations, major service firms, large consulting companies, and development organizations that build tools or add-ons to augment the various Windows Server platforms for which the MCM credential is available (namely, Exchange Server 2010, Lync Server 2010, SharePoint Server 2010, SQL Server 2008, and Windows Server 2008 R2 Directory Services). These professionals invariably earn over $100K per year, and some MCMs pull in more than $150K. Add in massive respect from your colleagues and peers, an active and dynamic community of like-minded and similarly–skilled professionals, and job opportunities abounding and you’ve got a pretty potent combination indeed. Kudos to Microsoft for creating a truly remarkable and enviable certification program.