Exam Profile: Pro: Windows Server 2008 R2, Virtualization Administrator (70-693)

Date: Nov 30, 2012

This article profiles the Programming in HTML 5 with JavaScript and CSS3 (70-480) exam for HTML5 programmers. Pearson IT Certification provides a variety of exam preparation tools to help our customers in their quest for certification, including the 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.

Virtualization has shaped IT perhaps more than any other trend in the last decade. As such, IT pros with server and desktop virtualization skills are in high demand. This exam is designed to demonstrate proficiency in managing a virtualized environment based on Windows Server 2008 R2.

Exam Details

Number of questions: Microsoft does not disclose the number of questions on their certification exams, but this exam is estimated to have about 50 questions.
Type(s) of questions: Microsoft does not disclose the exam format, but the bulk of the exam is reported to be made up of multiple choice questions. You may also encounter simulations, reorder, or build a tree questions.
Passing score: 700/1000
Time limit: Microsoft does not disclose the time limit for their exams, but most exams have a time limit of about two hours.
How to register: Prometric

Trouble Spots

The most difficult aspect of this exam might be the ambiguity of the exam objectives. Exam 70-693 is a high level exam designed to test your ability to engineer various virtualization related solutions and to solve business problems through virtualization. It is not a general knowledge exam. As such, Microsoft does not outline the technical skills that you will need in order to pass this exam. Instead, the assumption is that the candidate will already have a comprehensive knowledge of Hyper-V and of server virtualization in general.

Trouble Spots

Preparation Hints

Anyone who takes this exam should already have a good working knowledge of Hyper-V and of general server virtualization. As such, you are better off spending your study time focusing on other technologies, particularly with regard to the way that they relate to Hyper-V.

For example, you should spend a considerable amount of time studying basic storage technology. This exam expects you to know how to design a storage infrastructure that addresses various business problems. Although you don’t have to be a SAN expert, you should know how to work with Fibre Channel and LUNs. You should also be familiar with pass through storage.

Also, even though it is not explicitly mentioned in the exam objectives, spend plenty of time gaining experience with System Center Virtual Machine Manager. Many of the aspects of this exam related to virtual machine management and physical to virtual conversions tend to be based around the use of System Center Virtual Machine Manager.

Finally, make sure that you are well versed in failover clustering. The exam contains a number of questions related to building, operating, and maintaining a failover cluster of virtual machines.

Recommended Study Resources

Unfortunately, there aren’t a lot of study resources available for this exam. Microsoft offers a five day class called 50273B: Planning and Designing Microsoft Virtualization Solutions.

Aside from that, there are some Hyper-V books that may prove helpful, but they do not focus on the exam. These books include:

Mastering Microsoft Virtualization

Mastering Hyper-V Deployment

Preparation Hints

Exam Objectives

The objectives for this exam, as stated by Microsoft include:

Designing a Virtualization Strategy

Recommend a virtualization technology.

This objective may include but is not limited to: server virtualization, Application Virtualization (App-V), virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI), Remote Desktop Services (RDS), Microsoft Enterprise Desktop Virtualization (MED-V), Microsoft Virtual PC

Plan capacity.
Plan licensing.

This objective may include but is not limited to: operating system editions

Design solutions for integration with third-party products.

This objective may include but is not limited to: hypervisors, VDIs, and management tools

Designing the Physical and Virtual Infrastructure

Plan hardware and virtual resource requirements.

This objective may include but is not limited to: CPUs, memory, disk, host, parent, child, performance, networking, Second Level Address Translation (SLAT), CPU Core Parking

Design storage.

This objective may include but is not limited to: dynamic, fixed, differential, pass-through; logical unit number (LUN) considerations

Design networking.

This objective may include but is not limited to: virtual network type, host NIC configuration, VLAN, TCP chimney, jumbo frames, Virtual Machine Queue (VMQ)

Plan snapshots and checkpoints.

Designing a Highly Available Virtual Environment

Design parent for high availability.

This objective may include but is not limited to: Windows Server 2008 Failover Clustering, migration types, Cluster Shared Volumes (CSV)

Design child for high availability.

This objective may include but is not limited to: Windows Server 2008 Failover Clustering, Network Load Balancing (NLB), shared storage

Design for migration type.

This objective may include but is not limited to: quick migration, live migration, storage area network (SAN) migration, network migration

Designing a Deployment Strategy

Design a virtual machine deployment.

This objective may include but is not limited to: Virtual Machine Manager, Self-Service Portal (SSP), Windows PowerShell, scripting, Configuration Manager

Plan a virtual machine conversion.

This objective may include but is not limited to: physical to virtual (P2V), virtual to virtual (V2V)

Design a virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) deployment.

This objective may include but is not limited to: broker, profile management, applications, methods of access, static and dynamic deployment

Design an App-V deployment.

This objective may include but is not limited to: server roles, server role placement, application compatibility

Designing a Management Strategy

Plan backup and recovery for parent and child partitions.
Design a monitoring strategy.

This objective may include but is not limited to: design for a parent, design for a child; integration with Operations Manager

Plan updates and maintenance.

This objective may include but is not limited to: offline image maintenance, hardware maintenance, integration services

Design an administrative strategy.

This objective may include but is not limited to: management networks, remote administration, Virtual Machine Manager, Authorization Manager

Where to Go from Here

Passing Exam 70-693 alone does not result in a certification. Instead, the exam counts as credit toward the Microsoft Certified IT Professional: Windows Server 2008 R2 Virtualization Administrator certification. Earning that certification also requires candidates to pass the following exams:

Exam 70-659: Windows Server 2008 R2, Server Virtualization
Exam 70-669: Windows Server 2008 R2, Desktop Virtualization