The Journey Towards MCSE: Data Management and Analytics

Many many years ago, 15 to be exact, I was fresh out of high school looking to make a foray into the IT world. I was deeply interested in technology. A few years prior, I was working summer jobs and evening gigs to buy my first computer. From that point forward, I was hooked and spent most of my free time tinkering and learning about technology; it was an obsession. The big question always lingered, what part of the Information Technology world should I get into in my post-secondary studies.

I wasn't attracted to programming, so that ruled most university programs. Secondly, living in Quebec and speaking French, I felt the language would be limiting....and realistically, 99% of the IT knowledge was in English. Lastly, I wanted to learn quick and get to work. So my plan was to take courses that would help me earn IT certifications. The "plan" was to complete a few Comptia's (A+, Network+), Microsoft (MCP all the way to MCSE), some Novell (which I never did for reasons I won't belabor), and some Cisco exposure with CCNA. Looking back, it feels like a card collecting game! Also, the plan did change significantly because I ended up going to college and completing a bachelor afterwards. I dabbled into a Masters program...but the whole research thing just didn't do it for me.

I completed most of the planned certs (all except Novell) and entered the workplace. Funny enough, even after writing close to 10 Microsoft exams....I never got to take apply the knowledge because I ended up gravitating towards Linux, AIX and application administration...what a waste!

Fast forward 15 years, I am back at it; preparing and writing Microsoft exams again. However, this time around, I am going at it with a purpose and a more defined goal in mind; leveraging cloud technology and services to drive business value & FAST.

Since my last Microsoft exam, things have changed greatly. What used to be seven exams to achieve an MCSE is now a mere three. However, exam breath has significantly expanded; perhaps a little too much, more on that later. Exams can now be taken from the comfort of your home through remote proctoring (when the technology works that is). This change alone saves a huge amount of time and adds flexibility. You can almost book an exam 2 days out instead of pre-planning and scheduling + no commute stress to get to a testing center.

To reach my goal of attaining the MCSE: Data Management and Analytics status, I selected 3 exams from the available options. In the process, I would also earn the MCSA: Data Engineering with Azure designation as nice byproduct. However, the sequencing would not be as recommended in the curriculum which recommends 775 & 776, then an elective.

1.  70-775 Perform Data Engineering on Microsoft HDInsight
2. 70-475 Designing and Implementing Big Data Analytics Solutions
3. 70-776 Perform Big Data Engineering on Microsoft Cloud Services

I chose the above sequence to write the exams because of my background in ETL, Data Warehousing, and big data experience on the Hortonworks Data Platform. Also, my architect background would greatly help me fill in the blanks where I didn't have deep hands-on experience. Further, my role at Mosaic gives me exposure to a good chunk of the toolset covered in these exams.

Over the next few weeks, I will share my experiences and my preparation materials to complete the exams. I've already completed the first two, one to go. This will likely turn into a 4 part series (study strategy, and one article per exam to cover the material used to prepare)

Stay tuned...