Exam Profile: MCTS 74-404 Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2-UC Voice Specialization

Date: Oct 1, 2012

This article profiles the Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 – UC Voice Specialization exam (MCTS 74-404), considered essential for anyone who wants to master VoIP based communications using Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 and Microsoft Exchange Server. Pearson IT Certification provides a variety of exam preparation tools to help our customers in their quest for certification. As part of our service to you, we have developed this Exam Profile series. Each profile is developed based on the testing experience of one of our trainers or authors. You won’t get exact questions or answers, but you will get a real feel for the exam. Each profile describes question forms, trouble spots, hints for exam preparation, and recommendations for additional study resources. Find out what you can expect to see on the exam and how you can better prepare for it.

Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 has earned a reputation for being one of Microsoft’s more complex server products. It should therefore come as no surprise that Exam 74-404 is anything but easy. Even so, this exam should be considered an essential for anyone who wants to master VoIP-based communications using Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 and Microsoft Exchange Server.

Exam Details

Number of questions: Microsoft does not disclose the number of questions on their exams, but this exam is estimated to have about 50 questions
Types of questions: The exam consists primarily of multiple choice questions, but you may encounter build a tree, build list, and reorder questions as well.
Passing score: 700/1000
Time limit: Microsoft does not disclose the exam’s time limit, but it is estimated to be about 90 minutes.
How to register: Prometric

In recent months, Microsoft has made a direct effort to limit access to the types of exam statistics listed above. The number of questions, types of questions, passing score, and time limit listed here are based on information found on various Internet message boards, but Microsoft could adjust these aspects of the exam at any time.

Trouble Spots

Given the difficulty of this exam, practically the entire exam could be considered a trouble spot. However, the one area that seems to trip people up more than anything else has to do with normalization.

Microsoft expects you to know how to convert phone numbers into normalized dial patterns. For example, a user might dial a phone number using one plus the area code, an area code without the one, dial as if it were a local number, or dial an extension number. Regardless of how the user dials the number, you have to use normalization strings to convert the phone number into a format that OCS understands. These normalization strings tends to be cryptic, so make sure that you devote plenty of time to understanding how they work.

Preparation Hints

There are virtually no study resources available for this exam. Your best bet (besides having plenty of hands on experience with OCS 2007 R2) is to first take exam 70-638 TS: Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007, Configuring. Passing this exam will ensure that you have mastered the basics of OCS.

Another helpful thing to know is that Exam 74-404 is very similar to Exam 74-924. Exam 74-924 deals with OCS 2007, while Exam 74-404 deals with OCS 2007 R2. Therefore, if you have trouble tracking down study resources for Exam 74-404, you might have better luck looking for 74-924 related study materials. The two exams obviously are not identical to one another, but there is a lot of overlapping material.

Recommended Study Resources

One of the big challenges with regard to the 74-404 exam is that it is extremely difficult to find reputable study materials that are specifically designed for this exam. Even though 74-924 is the older version of this exam, it is difficult to find reputable study materials for that one as well. As of the time that this exam profile was written, the resources listed below were the only ones available on Google Shopping.

Self Test Engine: 74-924: Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 – UC Voice Specialist

Self Test Engine: 74-404: Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 – UC Voice Specialist

Exam Objectives

The exam objectives are broken up into four different categories. The 74-404 exam measures your ability to accomplish the technical tasks listed below.

The objectives for Exam 74-404 as stated by Microsoft are as follows:

Architecting and Designing Microsoft Unified Communications (UC) Voice Solutions

Given a set of customer requirements, design an appropriate voice architecture solution.

This objective may include but is not limited to: standard vs. enterprise; design for high availability; design for scalability; placement of Mediation servers and gateways in a global deployment; multi-site vs. single site deployment; plan for front-end load balancing (HNLBs)

Given a set of customer requirements, design a conferencing solution.

This objective may include but is not limited to: language support; scalability; provide usage scenarios; external vs. internal; geographic placement of server roles; geographic placement of dial-in conferencing numbers

Design a dial plan architecture, including dialing, routing, and normalization requirements.

This objective may include but is not limited to: single site vs. multi-site and least cost routing; determine class of users; design phone usages and policies

Design for availability of public switched telephone network (PSTN) connections.

This objective may include but is not limited to: plan for multiple gateways, multiple Mediation servers, and redundant routes; design for high availability; media path resiliency

Identify bandwidth, network, DNS, and certificate requirements for all Office Communication Server 2007 R2 server roles.

This objective may include but is not limited to: service bandwidth requirements such as voice and video; media streams (PRIs and/or SIP); codecs; Live Meeting protocols; peer-to-peer bandwidth requirements; MCU traffic flow requirements; required DNS records to support Voice endpoints; existence/use of certified gateways capable of securing voice traffic

Given a set of remote access requirements, identify the appropriate Microsoft-supported deployment topology.

This objective may include but is not limited to: Edge topology and differences between OCS 2007 and OCS 2007 R2; consolidated Edge with NAT; A/V Edge scaling

Administer User, Client, and Usage Scenarios

Configure Office Communications Server 2007 R2 client voice capabilities.

This objective may include but is not limited to: Team Call, Sim Ring, Delegation, Attendant Console

Configure Office Communications Server 2007 R2 client conferencing capabilities.

This objective may include but is not limited to: Outlook Conference Plug-In, Dial-In Conferencing

Deploy and configure Office Communicator 2007 R2 Phone Edition devices.

This objective may include but is not limited to: Office Communicator Phone Edition devices; DNS entries; update process for devices; DHCP scope options

Configure and manage user settings for enterprise voice, unified messaging, and dial-in conferencing.

This objective may include but is not limited to: user property settings; required entry format; meeting policy settings; dial plan; enable users for dial-in conferencing

Configure the Response Group Service.

This objective may include but is not limited to: create and manage contact objects, agents, groups, queues, and work flows

Configure servers and components

Configure Office Communications Server 2007 R2 server roles and policies.

This objective may include but is not limited to: bandwidth limitations; QoS marking; certificates

Configure location profiles to support normalization requirements.

This objective may include but is not limited to: build regular expression and address normalization statements; optimize device dialing; external access prefix; internal enterprise extension

Configure phone usages, policies, and routing to support a voice solution.

This objective may include but is not limited to: restrict long distance; voice routes for least cost routing; route redundancy

Configure Mediation servers and Session Initiation Protocol (SIP)/Media gateways.

This objective may include but is not limited to: SIP trunking and security; NIC configurations; transport protocols; inbound normalization through Mediation server and not needing “+” in source or destination phone numbers; removeplusfromrequestURI

Configure Office Communications Server server roles to support audio/video conferencing, Edge servers, and firewalls.

This objective may include but is not limited to: determine media path for remote users; configure Mediation server for A/V Edge; determine media path for PSTN calls

Configure Office Communications Server 2007 R2 and Exchange Server Unified Messaging for voice integration.

This objective may include but is not limited to: exchucutil.ps1; ocsumutil.exe; SIP secure; dial plan configuration

Configure Conference Attendant properties.

This objective may include but is not limited to: establish dial in numbers; map dial in numbers to location profiles

Troubleshoot Office Communications Server 2007 R2 Deployments

Troubleshoot common issues in an Office Communications Server 2007 R2 environment.

This objective may include but is not limited to: voice quality issues; dialing issues; audio flow issues; conferencing issues; external access issues

Detect and analyze issues in an Office Communications Server 2007 R2 environment.

This objective may include but is not limited to: Snooper; DVT; BPA; Validation Wizard; Enterprise Voice Route Helper; Network Monitoring Tool 3.3

Interpret QoE reports generated by a Monitoring Server.

This objective may include but is not limited to: identify Voice endpoints that are in use; call detail reports; how to resolve a report that contains a poor MOS score; identify issues between locations

Troubleshoot normalization issues.

This objective may include but is not limited to: enterprise-level deployment issues; Call Manager; address book normalization; use sample_company_phone numbers file

Where to Go from Here

One of the odd things about Exam 74-404 is that the Microsoft Learning Web site (http://www.microsoft.com/learning/en/us/exam.aspx?id=74-404#tab1) does not indicate that you actually earn a certification for passing this exam. Even so, the name of the exam (Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2-UC Voice Specialization) implies that passing the exam results in receiving a certification.

Although this exam does not count as credit toward any additional certifications, those who pass Office Communications Server 2007 related exams often go on to take Exchange Server and Active Directory related exams.