Preparation Guide for Exam 70-442

PRO: Designing and Optimizing Data Access by Using Microsoft SQL Server 2005

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	Exam news
	Audience profile
	Credit toward certification
	Preparation tools and resources
	Skills measured

Exam news

The Microsoft Certified Professional (PRO) exam, Exam 70-442: PRO: Designing and Optimizing Data Access by Using Microsoft SQL Server 2005, became available in April 2006.

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Audience profile

Candidates for this exam are professional database developers who design and implement database solutions. They have three or more years dedicated to database work, which may include writing Transact-SQL queries, designing and implementing programming objects, optimizing databases, designing databases at both the conceptual and logical levels, and implementing databases at the physical level. The typical work environment is an enterprise or a medium-sized organization. Candidates should be experienced in using Microsoft SQL Server 2005.

Candidates for this exam should have expertise in the following areas:

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Credit toward certification

When you pass Exam 70-442: PRO: Designing and Optimizing Data Access by Using Microsoft SQL Server 2005, you earn credit toward the following certifications:

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Preparation tools and resources

To 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" section.

Microsoft online resources

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Skills measured

This certification exam measures your ability to design and optimize data access by using SQL Server 2005. Before you take the exam, you should be proficient in the job skills that are listed in the following table.

KEY:

= The course provides a general introductory overview of this task. You will need to supplement the course with additional work.     = The course includes some material to prepare you for this task. You will need to supplement the course with additional work.     = The course includes material to prepare you for this task.

Skills measured by Exam 70-442	Course 2781	Course 2783	Course 2784
Designing Efficient Access to a SQL Server Service
Design appropriate data access technologies.
Design an appropriate data access object model.
Design a cursor strategy for a data access component. • Decide when to use cursors. • Decide how to maximize cursor performance. • Detect which applications are using cursors and evaluate whether to remove them.
Design caching strategies. • Select ADO.NET caching. • Design custom caching functionality. • Design a refresh strategy for cached data.
Design client libraries to write applications that administer a SQL Server service. • Design server management objects (SMO) applications. • Design replication management objects (RMO) applications. • Design automation management objects (AMO) applications. • Design SQL Server Networking Interface (SNI) for asynchronous queries.
Design queries that use multiple active result sets (MARS). • Decide when MARS queries are appropriate. • Choose an appropriate transaction isolation level when you use MARS. • Choose when to use Asynchronous queries.
Designing a Database Query Strategy
Write and modify queries. • Write queries. • Modify queries to improve query performance.
Design queries for retrieving data from XML sources. • Select the correct attributes. • Select the correct nodes. • Filter by values of attributes and values of elements. • Include relational data, such as columns and variables, in the result of an XQuery expression. • Include XML attribute or node values in a tabular result set. • Update, insert, or delete relational data based on XML parameters to stored procedures. • Debug and troubleshoot queries against XML data sources.
Design a cursor strategy. • Design cursor logic. • Design cursors that work together with dynamic SQL execution. • Select an appropriate cursor type. • Design cursors that efficiently use server memory. • Design cursors that minimize blocking. • Design a strategy that minimizes or eliminates the use of cursors.
Designing Error-Handling Routines
Design code that validates input data and permissions.
Design code that detects and reacts to errors.
Design user-defined messages to communicate application events.
Designing a Transaction Strategy
Manage concurrency by selecting the appropriate transaction isolation levels.
Design the locking granularity level.
Design transaction scopes.
Design code that uses transactions.
Performance Tuning a Database and a Database Application
Optimize and tune queries for performance. • Evaluate query performance. • Analyze query plans. • Modify queries to improve performance. • Test queries for improved performance. • Detect locking problems. • Modify queries to optimize client and server performance. • Rewrite subqueries to joins. • Design queries that have search arguments (SARGs). • Convert single-row statements into set-based queries.
Optimize indexing strategies. • Design an index strategy. • Analyze index use across an application. • Add, remove, or redesign indexes. • Optimize index-to-table-size ratio.
Scale database applications. • Specify a data-partitioning model. • Design queries that target multiple servers. • Implement scale-out techniques like federated database, service broker, distributed partitioned views. • Design applications to distribute data and workload transparently. • Identify code or processes that can be moved to a different tier to improve performance. • Rewrite algorithms to improve efficiency.
Resolve performance problems. • Analyze application performance across multiple users. • Capture workload information. • Find out the causes of performance problems. • Specify resolutions such as: changing algorithms, scaling up, and scaling out, terminating a session.
Optimize data storage. • Choose column data types to reduce storage requirements across the enterprise. • Design appropriate use of varchar across the enterprise. • Denormalize entities to minimize page reads per query. • Optimize table width.

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.

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