Microsoft Certification Updates for Exchange

Microsoft Certification is changing again to remain current and relevant with the new set of Microsoft products.

The Exchange 2007 Certification path has changed certainly. For Exchange 2003, we had MCSA:Messaging and MCSE:Messaging. It seems for Exchange 2007, the names have changed to MCTS:Exchange 2007 Configuration and MCITP:Exchange 2007 Enterprise Messaging Administrator. As of this posting, the Microsoft certification site does not seem to have a description of the MCITP Exchange certification level.

MCTS stands for Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist and is applied to many Microsoft products. The Exchange-specific exam for this certification level is 70-236:Exchange Server 2007, Configuring. This is the basic level for Exchange 2007 covering installation, configuration, monitoring and disaster recovery.

MCITP stands for Microsoft Certified IT Professional and is the next step beyond MCTS. There are two, more challenging (at least 70-238 is more challenging) Exchange-specific exams pertaining to this certification which are 70-237:Designing Messaging Solutions with Exchange Server 2007 and 70-238:Deploying Messaging Solutions with Exchange Server 2007. A key difference between the two is 'designing' versus 'deploying', though the theme for both seems to be 'planning'. These exams cover high availability, security and compliance, co-existence, migration, and enterprise-level maintenance.

Good luck!

William Lefkovics