MCSA Windows Server 2012 R2 Complete Study Guide: Exams 70-410, 70-411, 70-412

This book weighs a ton... Now I am wishing I would have bought it in Kindle form, since most of my reading is done in bed and it's pretty unwieldy to have to hold in that position. Thus far, I am pretty satisfied with the content. The process for redeeming the online content wasn't very intuitive, though. I had to search on the web a bit and found that you have to register on the website listed in the book and it will ask you some questions about the content of the book to verify you are entitled to access the bonus/supplemental materials. Looking forward to rounding out my studies and testing out, since I have it on my calendar to get my MCSE/Private Cloud this year.

I've earned multiple certifications over the past 13 years; my last Server OS exam was 7 years ago, so I choose this book to dive back in. I was looking at taking the -417 exam (I can vouch that, yes, -417 will upgrade a 2003 MCSE certification). After having failed my first exam attempt, and passing my second, I can say this book alone is definitely not enough to get you ready to pass -417 (or any of the other exams, either).I have used MS Press books for most of my career. My learning strategy may be different than most. I setup my own virtual lab my own way, read through the book, and then try to do variations on the exercises - I don't do them the exact same way. I use different names, different IP addresses, etc. so I'm not just working rote out of the book. I'm also used to the way some of the MS Press books are written - you start out with an infrastructure that is small, but expands as you go through the book - so the examples in the book tend to flow from chapter to chapter and give you a feel that you are building something all the way through to the end. This book is not like that at all. Most of the exercises seem to occur in a vacuum, and aren't detailed enough for my liking. My first Windows 2000 lab was quite robust once I finished all my studying. My lab after following this book felt hollow.Having been focused as a DBA, application developer, and SharePoint administrator for the past 8 years, this book was a good refresher for a lot of the aspects I already knew. However, -417 focuses on what's changed since 2008, with some review thrown in. I saw many other reviewers say this book wasn't enough to pass the test, but I didn't appreciate how right they were.To echo other reviewers, PowerShell and Azure are not covered enough. The -412 content is covered the worst of all. Federation Services, DirectAccess, clustering, and Hyper-V aren't given near enough depth. After reading the Federation Services chapter twice, I still felt as if I had learned nothing coherent. The author does mention "you should find your own labs" for some of these topics, and boy was he correct. Microsoft does make some excellent labs for AD-FS and DirectAccess (I highly recommend them).This book hits all the correct topics, just not with enough depth or good enough examples for me to recommend it to anyone.

The book came very early as i'm expecting it to come by 5 February. The speedy delivery was made possible by Amazon Export Sales (Order Fulfillment team) and by their partner, ARAMEX. As I browse (and read some portions of the book), it seems that this is the book that I really need to further my learning and to develop my skill as Windows Server Administrator. Links that will aid me to learn further is available and I'm successfully registered. I gave it 5 because of the quality of the contents and the Author was able to explain in clear manner the topics. I think I will enjoy this new book and hoping that I can get my MCSA Windows Server 2012 certification by the aid of this book. Thank you Mr. William Panek and Sybex! :D

I usually don’t write reviews, but in this case thought it might be helpful to some people. Let me start by saying that the book itself was very good. I thought it was a good comprehensive resource for the material. That said, my complaint is that it’s designed as a resource to prepare you for 70-417. Using the study questions in the book as well as the online study materials. That is where I think this product falls significantly short. Some background: I’ve been Microsoft certified for over 20 years (NT 4.0 MCSE, Windows 2000 MCSE, Windows 2003 MCSE, Windows 2008 R2 MCITP). I’ve been working with 2012 R2 since it came out, but I haven’t kept up with my certifications (last test was 7 years ago for 2008 R2), so decided to study for 70-417, and used this as my primary resource for studying. In prior years I used the Transcender practice tests exclusively. Since they were bought by Kaplan, the quality is less than stellar, so looked elsewhere for resources, which is how I chose this book.I sat for the 70-417 test this week after studying for approximately 3 months and failed. And failed miserably. Using the Sybex online practice tests, I was consistently getting over 95%, so felt well prepared for the test. The problem is that the focus of the real test in no way matched the Sybex practice test contents. Specific examples:• DirectAccess• Hyper-V• IPAM• NPS• FailOver Clustering• Storage Spaces• ADFS/WAP• Azure cloud backup (there were at least 3 questions on this alone!)I am well aware that there are banks of questions on the real Microsoft tests, and you will never know what you are going to get on any given test day. But this was ridiculous. As an example, there are very few questions on the Sybex material covering DirectAccess. So I touched lightly on that area. In my test, there were at least 8 questions devoted to that topic alone. Another example is that on the real test there was not a single question where I needed to know subnet masking. I won’t go into more detail, but for these reasons, I feel the Sybex material was a very poor representation of the actual test.

This is a midway review as at least three times that when trying to lab something, the book misleads you. For example has you create an IP scope, and then asks you do do two more to make them into a superscope.....but these other two you can't do off the bat, as they override the original one you did. So that needs deleting before you carry on.It's a massive book, i'm 1/6 of the way through it and i just hope there's no more misleading parts!

The book is a good start but some of the material in the exam is not covered in the book. I passed because of prior experience but someone approaching the subject ab initio would struggle using this material as their only source.

Regarding the 70-417 content, or lack thereof. Read the description carefully as this is NOT covered in the book itself but is part of the online accessible tools and tests. Was a bit confused at first.

El libro contiene mas de 100 páginas, con ejemplos gráficos y tips del día a día, lo que le da un valor agregado ya que no solo se enfoca en los puntos de la certificación. también contiene material didáctico en línea que puede ser de mucha utilidad. Con respecto al envío el libro llegó en buenas condiciones. Siempre es bueno regalar un libro y si este regalo va a mejorar la calidad laboral de alguien pues mucho mejor.

Good price, quick delivery. The book doesn't come with a PIN (least mine didn't) but you go to the website and select my product didn't come with a PIN and it gets you to register the product and then it emails you your access code/pin. Happy studying all!