MCSE Training Kit

In response to the other reviews, I do not believe that any one book is going to prepare you for the exam. And this book itself does not claim to. Throughout the text, there are ample references to Kalen Delany’s “Inside SQL Server 2000″ (A must have for any serious DB Designer/Admin) and to the BOL. If you use the book as it instructs, and you have the requisite experience (as outlined in the “About” section) then you will have learned a great deal and be prepared to pass the exam. If you are just looking for quick exam prep then buy the Troytech or Testkiller cheatsheets, but if you actually want to learn something then get this book and the aformentioned title by Ms. Delany.
Also, the other reviews are correct regarding the “generic” nature of the examples. The idea being to provide the prospective examinee with the fountations of good design and implementation practices. If you’ve been designing MS SQL solutions than it is an excellent way to review these principles. And if you’ve never designed MS SQL solutions then it’s not a bad place to start.
Follow the instructions and you can’t go wrong.
Rating: 5 / 5

Although this book will probably help get you “ready” for the test (70-229), you will need several other resources to gain a true understanding of the concepts set forth. The excercises are far too general, but the essay type reviews at the end of each chapter are extremely helpful.

I would suggest Professional SQL Server 2000 Programming and SQL Server 2000 Developer’s Guide as companions.
Rating: 3 / 5

I thought was a very good Training Kit for the 224 exam. One of the included CDs had .avi’s showing all Practice Exercise’s that were very usefully incase you dont have access to test equipment. The book was well written and I did not found any blatant errors. For my test prep, I used this and the Exchange 2000 Resource Kit. The training kit provided a great overall coverage and example exercises. The Resource Kit then was able to pound the deeper more technical aspects into my brain.

Again I will go back to the exercises and .avi’s. I personally dont have a cluster server to test on, but the training guide steps you through the install and configure process, while you watch it on video. The book also includes an eval copy of Exchange 2000 Enterprise and Outlook 2000
Rating: 5 / 5

I recently worked on a Win2K/E2K project for a new n/w of approx 150 Users. My area of specialization is W2K and a work mate was dealing with E2K Side. We were scheduled to go live within 3 weeks when my colleague got faced with major family problems, hence wasn’t going to be available for atleast 2 months. I’ve worked with Exch 5.5 in the past at a very high level, but hadn’t dealt with E2K. Being the Head Engineer of the project i was in a fix, my first reaction was to obtain an external contractor, but obtaining an E2K expert was close to impossible. I decided to buy an E2K book, let me tell this book is God sent, I setup a lab as specified in the book and started reading aggressively mainly at night after work. Within 3-4 days i was ready to start the installation. I used the hardware requirement section to allocate the correct RAID drives for Exchange servers, installed Exchange, edited to default recipient policy to assign first.last e-mail addresses (%g.%s@emaildomain.com), created user mailboxes, OWA, Routing Group Connector (btn the 2 sites), public folder replication and even configured an instant Messaging server :-). The ebook installed on my laptop was great for quick references while onsite as i didn’t want to carry a training kit to the clients site considering they were paying top dollar for the project. I wrote a detailed disaster recovery document using information in the disaster recovery section.

My value has increased greatly since successfully completing this project, thanks to this book. Am not yet an E2K GURU but it won’t be long before I become one. Guys if u plan to deploy E2K make sure this book is part of your collection.
Rating: 5 / 5

I would not recommend this book to someone who needs a comprehensive textbook or manual for SQL Server. I would recommend it to someone who feel they know SQL Server well and just want to get ready for the exam. It seems to do a pretty good job of identifying the exam objectives and giving you summaries and practice exercises for those subject areas.

If there’s a lot of stuff in the book that you don’t know – or don’t understand – then you probably need to learn more of the basics of SQL Server. Get another book, read Books Online, or maybe take a class. Use this book to identify your weakpoints – and then go from there.

The CD contains a fully-functional 120-day evaluation copy of SQL Server Developer edition that you can install on your PC. This can really help because you need to practice things, and try stuff out in order to do well on the exam. The exam is oriented toward problem-solving, not just regurgitating facts. I don’t see how anyone could pass the exam without being able to try things out and practice with it.
Rating: 3 / 5