When are exams retired?

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Hello,

I've recently started looking into getting certified, and was going to start down the MCSE or MCSA route and then upgrade to a MCITP.

However, I notice that the 2000 exams are all retired now. As Server 2003 is now 7 years old, are the exams for that likely to be retired anytime soon? As it can take a few years to do all necessary 7 exams for MCSE, I'm worried that the exams will be retired by the time I take them wasting a lot of time and money.

What's the general opinion on this? Is now too late to start working towards 2003 certs?

Thanks,
Sean

 

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It's always a danger.
Retirements are usually linked to the end of a product lifecycle and MS are supposed to give you a year's notice. Not much help if you're half way through an MCSE, I grant you.

There are generally upgrade paths available and the MCSE is still popular.
You've probably got a good few years yet, but not enough to dawdle.

 

2003 exams wont be retired for a few years yet. Most companies still use xp.

what is your experiences level? you do know that you shouldn't do MCSA or MCSE unless you have the required on the job experience as it can make your job search harder don't you?

 

I'm going to start studying for the XP exam next week after I get the necessary books from my friend who has already done them all.

So if I do everything within the next 2 years or so? I should be ok? I know it's a risk though. Just don't want to waste all that time And I don't really want to jump straight into an MCITP as I know a lot of companies are still XP/2003 based.

I currently support XP desktops and the 2003 servers and network for the company I work for. I've been doing this job for just over 2 years.

Everything I know so far has been learned on the job though, and I need to start looking for a new job soon due to a company takeoever. Unfortunately, most recruiters are asking for certifications to back up experience, and I think I need them to move up to the next level really.

 

cool, why not get some basic certs too such as the A+,N+ and MCDST before jumping into the big ones?

 

Time I suppose, and money. If I can do the big ones straightaway then I will. I've got the N+ course material so I'm going to have a look through that first to see what it's like.

I suppose doing the more basic certs wouldn't really educate me that much as I've worked in similar IT roles since I was 18. I know there would be stuff in there that I didn't know, but I know I wouldn't find it as interesting.

 

Certification isn't designed to educate you on new stuff... certification is designed to show an employer what you can already do.

 

If it didn't educate people, then we wouldn't need to use the books

I know what you're saying though, I just don't feel I need to do the more basic certs.

 

as said certs are supposed to show what you already do for a living. Having MCSE means your a systems engineer and that when you went for a systems engineer job you would require no training because you know what your doing and that is what any IT manager worth their salt would expect.

If you feel you can go straight ahead and do all 7 exams for the MCSE then do it but you may find that it makes your job search harder when you start applyign for MCSE level jobs.

 

What I meant was that there is still a lot of stuff in the MCSE studying that you learn that you may not have used before. A lot of stuff in the MCSE I already do in my job, but I'm sure there's still some things that I've not come across before, like clustering etc due to the size of the network.

 

You can certainly learn things while studying for a certification... but that's not the point of certification.

 

I've never done a certification where i didn't learn something from the studying, going through 70-620 infact, i actually learnt something during a simulation in the exam.