- Exam Details
- Trouble Spots
- Preparation Hints
- Recommended Study Resources
- Exam Objectives
- Where to Go from Here
Preparation Hints
Exam 70-658 can be an especially difficult exam to prepare for due to the lack of study materials that are available. While it is true that there are numerous brain dump sites claiming to sell actual exam questions, such resources should be avoided. Your best bet is to take Microsoft’s two day training classes.
There are two things that are key to passing this exam. First, as stated in the previous section, you need a good working knowledge of backup and restore procedures for Exchange Server, SQL Server, SharePoint, Hyper-V, and Data Protection Manager (you need to know how to back up one Data Protection Manager server with another).
The other thing that is key to passing this exam is to pay attention to product version details. Data Protection Manager is capable of backing up very specific versions of the various Microsoft products. You need to know what software versions can be backed up, as well as in what instances Data Protection Manager supports 32-bit or 64-bit architectures.
Additionally, you should make sure that you are familiar with the System Recovery Tool. The System Recovery Tool isn’t even technically a part of Data Protection Manager because it must be downloaded separately. Even so, you can expect to see references to it in several questions.
Another bit of advice that I would give you is to take some time to brush up on failover clustering. Data Protection Manager fully supports backing up Exchange Server clusters and SQL Server clusters, so you will probably see some questions related to the protection of clustered resources.
Finally, Data Protection Manager extends Windows PowerShell to include Data Protection Manager specific commands. Take some time to learn these commands. Most of the exam questions involve using the GUI, but you are certain to see some PowerShell related commands.
Incidentally, you will also need to know that PowerShell 1.0 is a prerequisite component required for installing Data Protection Manager 2007. Make sure that you know the other prerequisites as well.