Exam 70-453:

Upgrade: Transition Your MCITP SQL Server 2005 DBA to MCITP SQL Server 2008

Published:	November 11, 2008
Language(s):	English, French, German, Japanese, Spanish, Chinese (Simplified)
Audience(s):	IT Professionals
Technology:	Microsoft SQL Server 2008
Type:	Proctored Exam

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Overview

Preparing for an Exam

This exam is scheduled to retire on July 31, 2012.

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The Microsoft Certification website and this preparation guide contain a variety of resources to help you prepare for an exam. Preparing for and Taking an Exam — FAQ provides answers to frequently asked questions about exam registration ,preparation ,scoring ,and policies , including:

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Exam question types and formats.
Exam time limits and number of questions asked.

We recommend that you review this preparation guide in its entirety and familiarize yourself with the FAQs and resources on the Microsoft Certification website before you schedule your exam.

Audience Profile

Candidates should have one to two years of experience using SQL Server 2008 or two to three years of experience using a previous version of SQL Server. Candidates for this exam are IT professionals who work in jobs in which database administration is their main area of responsibility, or they work in environments in which databases are central to their primary job roles.

These job roles include the following:

IT generalists who work in environments in which SQL Server 2008 is part of an overall solution
IT professionals who manage systems that run SQL Server 2008
Developers who build applications that use SQL Server 2008
IT professionals who work with third-party applications that are built on SQL Server 2008

Credit Toward CertificationWhen you pass Exam 70-453: Upgrade: Transition Your MCITP SQL Server 2005 DBA to MCITP SQL Server 2008, you complete the requirements for the following certification(s):MCITP: SQL Server 2008 Database Administrator

Note This preparation guide is subject to change at any time without prior notice and at the sole discretion of Microsoft. Microsoft exams might include adaptive testing technology and simulation items. Microsoft does not identify the format in which exams are presented. Please use this preparation guide to prepare for the exam, regardless of its format.

Skills Measured

Skills Being MeasuredThis exam measures your ability to accomplish the technical tasks listed below.The percentages indicate the relative weight of each major topic area on the exam.The higher the percentage, the more questions you are likely to see on that content area on the exam.

The information after “This objective may include but is not limited to” is intended to further define or scope the objective by describing the types of skills and topics that may be tested for the objective. However, it is not an exhaustive list of skills and topics that could be included on the exam for a given skill area. You may be tested on other skills and topics related to the objective that are not explicitly listed here.

Installing and Configuring SQL Server 2008

Install SQL Server 2008 and related services.
This objective may include but is not limited to: file locations; default paths; service accounts
Configure SQL Server instances.
This objective may include but is not limited to: sp_configure
Configure SQL Server services.
This objective may include but is not limited to: configuration manager; SQL browser

Maintaining SQL Server Instances

Manage SQL Server Agent jobs.
This objective may include but is not limited to: create and schedule jobs; notification of job execution; disable/enable jobs; change job step order; logging
Implement the declarative management framework (DMF).
This objective may include but is not limited to: create a policy; verify a policy; schedule a policy compliance check; enforce a policy; create a condition
Back up a SQL Server environment.
This objective may include but is not limited to: operating system-level concepts

Managing SQL Server Security

Manage users and database roles.
This objective may include but is not limited to: user mapping; user-defined roles; fixed roles; guest, public, dbo; creating and deleting user roles
Manage SQL Server instance permissions.
This objective may include but is not limited to: logon triggers; permissions vs. fixed role membership; cross-database ownership chaining; impersonation
Manage schema permissions and object permissions.
This objective may include but is not limited to: manage schema ownership
Audit SQL Server instances. This objective may include but is not limited to: use DDL triggers and logon triggers; C2; common criteria; login failures; event notifications

Maintaining a SQL Server Database

Back up databases.
This objective may include but is not limited to: full backups; differential backups; transaction log; compressed backups; file and filegroup backups; verifying backup
Restore databases.
This objective may include but is not limited to: online restores; full restores; differential restores; transaction log; file and filegroup restores; verifying restore; tail of the transaction log
Manage and configure databases.
This objective may include but is not limited to: files, file groups, and related options; database options; recovery model; attach/detach data

Performing Data Management Tasks

Manage data partitions.This objective may include but is not limited to: switching data from one partition to another; add a filegroup; alter a partition function; alter a partition scheme
Maintain indexes.This objective may include but is not limited to: create spatial indexes; create partitioned indexes; clustered and non-clustered indexes; XML indexes; disable and enable indexes; filtered index on sparse columns; indexes with included columns; rebuilding/reorganizing indexes; online/offline

Monitoring and Troubleshooting SQL Server

Identify SQL Server service problems.
This objective may include but is not limited to: DB Engine service; SQL Agent service; SQL Browser service
Identify concurrency problems.
This objective may include but is not limited to: blocks, locks, deadlocks, activity monitor; relevant Dynamic Management Views

Optimizing SQL Server Performance

Collect trace data by using SQL Server Profiler
Collect performance data by using Dynamic Management Views (DMVs)
Use Performance Studio

Implementing High Availability

Implement database mirroring.
This objective may include but is not limited to: monitoring, configuring, failover
Implement a SQL Server clustered instance.
This objective may include but is not limited to: monitoring, configuring, failover

Designing a SQL Server Instance and a Database Solution

Design for CPU, memory, and storage capacity requirements.
This objective may include but is not limited to: RAID, calculating table size, IO throughput, transaction per second, data compression, non-uniform memory access (NUMA), tempdb capacity
Design physical database and object placement.
This objective may include but is not limited to: heap and index placement, filestream, data and log files, filegroups, partition placement, large object placement, full text catalog

Designing a Database Server Security Solution

Design database, schema, and object security paramaters.
This objective may include but is not limited to: users, roles, certificate and key management, Service broker, Common Language Runtime (CLR), ownership chains
Design a security policy and an audit plan.
This objective may include but is not limited to: Policy-Based Management Framework, security functions, sp_helprotect, catalog views, extended events, notifications

Designing a Database Solution for High Availability

Select high-availability technologies based on business requirements.
This objective may include but is not limited to: failover clustering, database mirroring, log shipping, replication
Design a failover clustering solution.
This objective may include but is not limited to: cluster resource group, cluster setup considerations, number of nodes, service accounts
Design database mirroring.
This objective may include but is not limited to: whether to use a witness server, Windows Server considerations, suspend vs. stop, automatic or manual failover, automatic page repair, database snapshots for reporting, managing instance-level objects

Designing a Backup and Recovery Solution

Design a backup strategy.
This objective may include but is not limited to: recovery model, compression, choosing backup types, scheduling, backup media, file and filegroups backup, verifying backups, key management, mirrored backups, cluster considerations
Design a recovery strategy.
This objective may include but is not limited to: page, file, filegroup, partial and online restores, orphan users, instance rebuild, encryption considerations, handling media failures, transaction logs, point in time and mark recovery, filestreams
Design a recovery test plan.
This objective may include but is not limited to: log shipping, replication, hardware considerations, scheduling a database restore test, handling high availability failures

Designing a Monitoring Strategy

Design a monitoring solution at the instance level.This objective may include but is not limited to: instance, database and object monitoring, data collection, event notifications, dynamic management objects, analyze results
Note: data collection was called performance data warehouse in SQL Server 2005.
Design a solution to monitor performance and concurrency.
This objective may include but is not limited to: Dedicated Administrator Connection (DAC), locking, blocking, deadlocks, dynamic management objects, index utilization, tracing, analyze

Designing a Strategy to Maintain and Manage Databases

Design a maintenance strategy for database servers.
This objective may include but is not limited to: rebuild for page-level compression, index and heap maintenance, partition management, statistics
Design a management automation strategy.
This objective may include but is not limited to: SQL Server PowerShell, Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI), SQL Server Agent, event notifications, DDL triggers

Designing a Strategy for Data Distribution

Administer SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS) packages.
This objective may include but is not limited to: design security for accessing packages, troubleshoot and restart package, schedule package execution, deploy packages to same or different instances
Design a replication strategy for data distribution.
This objective may include but is not limited to: selecting replication types, conflict resolution, health monitoring, horizontal and vertical partitioning

Preparation Materials

Preparation Tools and ResourcesTo help you prepare for this exam, Microsoft Learning recommends that you have hands-on experience with the product and that you use the following training resources. These training resources do not necessarily cover all of the topics listed in the "Skills Measured" tab.

Learning Plans and Classroom Training