The Definitive Guide to SharePoint 2010 Certification

Date: Mar 15, 2011

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SharePoint 2010 is a popular tool for creating Intranets, customer portals, and almost any web-based solution. It’s a powerful product that can address an impressive number of business solutions. As such, it’s also quite complex. When organizations look to hire professionals to help them with their SharePoint implementation, they prefer to find individuals who can demonstrate proficiency through knowledge and experience. One way to measure a professional’s level of knowledge is to review the individual’s certification status. And if you’re a SharePoint professional, it’s a way to demonstrate a minimum bar of proficiency.

In this article series, I’ll cover an overview of the various certifications, along with each of the four core exams, focusing on a different exam each month. I’ll also cover the top-tier certifications for SharePoint 2010, devoting a full month’s article to each of those. I’ll also provide helpful tips and resources to help you pass the exams.

Before we get into the schedule for the series, let’s start by taking a look at how Microsoft organizes the various levels of certification that an individual can achieve.

Microsoft Certification Levels

In the Microsoft Certified Professional program, there are four levels of competency:

• Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist (TS)
• Microsoft Certified Professional (PRO), which could include either IT Pro or Professional Developer
• Microsoft Certified Master (MCM)
• Microsoft Certified Architect (MCA)

These four levels hold true for the SharePoint 2010 certifications as well. Specifically there are several categories of SharePoint certification:

• TS, with one each for administrators and developers
• PRO, with one each for IT professionals and developer/solution designers
• MCM, which combines a deep and rigorous understanding of both IT pro and developer skills
• MCA, which adds a board-level review of solution design knowledge and experience

Each level of competency builds on the one before it, as shown in Figure 1.

Let’s start with the four core exams, which are the ones that the majority of the SharePoint technology community will choose to pursue.

The SharePoint 2010 Core Exams

The four core exams are broken down into two primary categories: SharePoint administrator (for IT Professionals) and SharePoint developers. They are also categorizes by the first two stages of Microsoft Certification (TS vs PRO). Table 1 summarizes the four exams.

Table 1. The four core SharePoint 2010 Certification Exams.

The TS Certifications and Exams

Let’s start with the first level exams (the TS exams). There are two TS exams for SharePoint 2010, one for admins and one for developers. When completing either of these exams, you obtain a Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist (MCTS) for SharePoint 2010 certification (or simply TS: Microsoft SharePoint 2010) in that respective skill:

• The TS: Microsoft SharePoint 2010, Configuring for admins
• The TS: Microsoft SharePoint 2010, Application Development certification for developers

70-667 TS: Microsoft SharePoint 2010, Configuring

This exam focuses on the administrative aspects of SharePoint 2010 including deployment, upgrade, management, and operation on a server farm. For this exam, the candidate will want to be familiar with the configuration skills needed to administer a SharePoint 2010 installation. This includes being an IT administrator involved with SharePoint installation and configuration, experience with deployment and management of SharePoint architectures and solutions, proficiency in IIS 7.0, DNS, Active Directory, Windows Server 2008, and Microsoft SQL Server, and experience with Windows PowerShell 2.0 and command-line administration.

70-573 TS: Microsoft SharePoint 2010, Application Development

This exam focuses on the development aspects of SharePoint 2010, including hands-on experience with ASP.NET and C# (or VB.NET). This candidate should be a developer who works with Microsoft SharePoint 2010 to build web portals and integrate business applications. This includes writing code that extends SharePoint 2010, writing code for and test custom features in a SharePoint solution such as a Visual Web Part or Event Receiver, knowledge of Visual Studio 2010, and the ability to implement a solution designed by lead SharePoint Developer.

The PRO Certifications and Exams

Next, let’s move onto the second-level exams (the PRO exams). There are two PRO exams for SharePoint 2010, one for admins and one for developers. When completing either of these exams, along with its prerequisite exam, you obtain either the Microsoft Certified Professional Developer (MCPD): SharePoint Developer 2010 or the Microsoft Certified IT Professional (MCITP): SharePoint Administrator 2010. For these certifications, you’ll have to pass the TS exam, then take one of the following, depending on which certification you select. Let’s discuss each of those exams here.

70-668 PRO: SharePoint 2010, Administrator

This exam focuses on the design aspects of an overall SharePoint deployment. Candidates for this exam design and deploy Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 infrastructures. These candidates are likely senior administrators who act as the technical lead responsible for the planning and deployment of SharePoint 2010 environments. This exam is case-study based and focuses on evaluating business requirements and then selecting the best solution elements.

70-576 PRO: Designing and Developing SharePoint 2010 Applications

This exam focuses on the design aspects of a SharePoint solution. Specifically, the candidate should have experience designing custom code for projects that are deployed to SharePoint servers. This includes technology selection, team development, and code deployment strategy. The candidate should have development team leadership experience and extensive ASP.NET and web development experience.

MCM and MCA

In addition to the four base certifications, there are two additional certifications that combines the IT Pro and developer content and takes the level of knowledge up a few bars.

Microsoft Certified Master

The Microsoft Certified Master (MCM) is a world-class certification that produces only a handful of professionals each year. While there may be tens of thousands (or more) certified SharePoint 2010 TS or PRO professionals, there are only several dozen Microsoft Certified Masters in the world. An MCM has to attend a three-week training in Redmond and pass an extensive set of three written exams and an eight-hour qualification lab exam. Before the candidate is even accepted into the program, they have to pass an extensive interview process and pass the four core exams. The Master certification will be covered more extensively in a future article.

Microsoft Certified Architect

The highest point of SharePoint 2010 certification one can attain is the Microsoft Certified Architect, SharePoint 2010. This certification requires that an individual already be a Microsoft Certified Master. The next step is for the individual to pass a series of boards—essentially interviews by a set of board members— in order to obtain the certification. There will likely be a pre-board exam and submission of the candidate’s portfolio of some real-world examples of his or her work. The MCA Board Presentation will provide the board with a technology-specific delivery that was designed by the candidate.

Preparing for Exams

There are many ways to prepare for the exams. Some popular favorites are exam prep books, flash cards, hands-on labs, MSDN training videos, and practice exams. In each monthly article, I’ll provide notes on the registration process plus tips for preparing for each exam.

About the Article Series

In this article series, I’ll be focusing on a different certification each month. I’ll also provide helpful tips and resources to help you pass the exam.

The series schedule will include:

• The definitive guide to SharePoint 2010 certification (February 2011)

This article that provides an introduction to the SharePoint 2010 certification portfolio as a whole.

• Preparing for 70-667: TS: Microsoft SharePoint 2010, Configuring (April 2011)

This exam covers configuration of SharePoint 2010 including deployment, upgrade, management, and operation on a server farm.

• Preparing for 70-668: PRO: Microsoft SharePoint 2010, Administrator (June 2011)

This exam covers advanced SharePoint 2010 topics including capacity planning, topology designing, and performance tuning.

• Preparing for 70-573: TS: Microsoft SharePoint 2010, Application Development (August 2011)

This exam covers SharePoint development using Visual Studio 2010.

• Preparing for 70-576: PRO: Designing and Developing Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Applications (October 2011)

Choosing technologies for and scoping a SharePoint project, best practices for SharePoint development, configuring a SharePoint development environment, advanced use of SharePoint developer features, and debugging of code in a SharePoint project.

• Preparing for the SharePoint 2010 Microsoft Certification Master and Architect Certifications (December 2011)

This article covers the top-tier certifications – the MCM and MCA options.

Summary

The SharePoint 2010 certifications are an invaluable part of an overall training and certification plan. Organizations looking to ensure that the individuals that they hire have a minimum level of knowledge might consider looking for the individual’s certification (MCP) status. And if you’re a Microsoft Partner, certifying your team can help you improve your silver and gold competencies.

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