Passing the 70-767 Implementing a Data Warehouse exam has been a goal of mine for a while now, and I finally achieved that on 11/30/2020! The exam is going to be retired soon (January 31st, 2021), so this was cutting it close. And since the exam is going to be retired in 62 days of starting this post, I’m not going to post in my usual format for passing an exam. If you do have questions, please feel free to leave them in the comments. (Note: I do not plan on breaking the Microsoft NDA I signed in the exam, so any content in the comments will adhere to the NDA or will be removed.)
Continue reading “Hurray! I passed my 70-767 and earned my MCSE!”Category: Education
Hooray! I earned my Scaled Agilist (SAFe 5) badge!
On 10/6/2020, I took the Scaled Agile Framework 5 (SAFe 5) (Scaled Agilist – Leading SAFe) exam and passed! I want to thank my company SAIC for sponsoring me for this exam as it can be difficult and pricey to obtain. (This varies based on experience.) While I’m sure you are here to read about the exam and tips I have on it, I think it’s also important to go into what SAFe is and why you would want this certification.
Continue reading “Hooray! I earned my Scaled Agilist (SAFe 5) badge!”Truncate vs Delete
There are many myths and misconceptions regarding TRUNCATE in SQL Server. I think this is heavily influenced by how other Relational Database Management Systems (RDBMS) handle TRUNCATE. Continue reading “Truncate vs Delete”
ELI5 how are join statements semantically structured?
There are some folks just starting out to SQL Server, maybe they come from another flavor of database or perhaps they have no history with SQL at all. The terminology we use to talk about the work we do can get a little confusing, and I was lost when I began learning about schema structures. This is my “Explain it like I’m five – on how join statements are semantically structured.”. This is geared to new users who are in the first 1-6 months of learning SQL Server. Continue reading “ELI5 how are join statements semantically structured?”
T-SQL Tuesday #108 Learning non SQL Server technologies
This month’s T-SQL Tuesday is hosted by Malathi Mahadevan. Our topic comes during the PASS Summit, a SQL event filled with learning, networking, and the #SQL Family! So it is only fitting that our topic is regarding learning and education. Thank you Malathi for hosting this month and for the great topic!
The topic is to pick one thing that is not SQL Server that we want to or already know. How do we or did we learn this skill and how do we add it to our resume? Continue reading “T-SQL Tuesday #108 Learning non SQL Server technologies”
Hurray! I passed the 70-762 exam!
Hurray! I passed my 70-762 exam! Passing both the 70-761 and the 70-762 means I am officially a Microsoft Certified Solutions Associate for Developing 2016 SQL Server Databases! Continue reading “Hurray! I passed the 70-762 exam!”
Why and who should become certified?
There are three camps of people I’ve met when it comes to discussing certificates in IT.
- Oh, that’s nice to have, but I’m indifferent otherwise. (95% of the people.)
- Oh, you are certified?! That’s amazing! I need to talk to you all about that! (3% of the people.)
- Oh… you are certified? So you’re one of those paper DBA’s huh? (Cue them throwing your resume in the trash.) (2% of the people.)
Certs can have a bad rap because there are many certs that you can achieve that hold little weight. Like when you complete a couple hour video training course that you pretty much need to just click through and at the end, you can pay money to have them issue you a cert. Continue reading “Why and who should become certified?”
How I studied for the 70-762 exam
Back in March I created a spreadsheet to help me track my studying for the 70-762 Developing SQL Databases exam and posted about some of my resources. I plan on taking the 70-762 on Monday, 2018-07-23. I wanted to share my experiences studying for the exam prior to taking it and the methodology to my studying. After the test on Monday I plan on posting about how my exam went (within the rules of the NDA) and I plan on making a few posts later about why and who should become certified. Continue reading “How I studied for the 70-762 exam”
My study guide to the 70-762: Developing SQL Databases
I couldn’t find a spreadsheet that would help track the topics, ETA, and other notes online, so I decided to compile all of my resources into a singular spreadsheet to help me keep track of studying and to help the community for those taking the 70-762. You can copy / make a copy of this and track yourself.
The tab Topic Resources has been taken from Daniel Calbimonte and his post on MSSQLTips. Huge thanks to him for taking the time to compile all of those resources on those topics!
In the Additional Resources, I’ve listed out links to things I thought are incredibly beneficial to my studying of the 70-762. This also lists out a Time to Study table where you can average how many hours of studying you plan to do on certain days of the week and then it gives you an estimate of the hours necessary to study based on what you estimate each topic will take you to learn. I’ve already filled in the hours for an estimated optimistic and pessimistic goal, as you fill in the actual hours worked you’ll notice it will adjust for actual time spent instead of only estimated time.
The Topic and Hours page lists out the topics as per the test page from Microsoft and breaks it out into a table that you can track hours you spend in each topic. This gives you a manageable approach to figuring out how much time this will take you to complete. I’ve filled in my own estimate of the optimistic and pessimistic guidelines, so feel free to adjust this as you need to match your own knowledge. I figured I would want at least 30 minutes to a hour on each topic even if it’s a brief overview just to refresh myself.
The last page is the planner. This is where I keep track of the date I studied, the high / mid / detail level topics I worked on, the amount of time I worked on it, and there are two extra fields. One for notes if there is something I need to come back to or perhaps I found some additional resources I want to touch base on later. And then there’s the Other Topic column. I’m still reading through the Internal Pros book, so when I log time it’s specific to reading that book rather than any of the categories I’ve listed. I decided when I begin working on the 70-762 study guide I’ll begin filling in time on the topics and making sure I understand the topics to meet the detailed level of the topics listed by Microsoft. This will make for an interesting PowerBI graph later to see how my time was spent studying. Maybe I can use that data to study more efficiently for 70-767!
Happy studying and see you on the other side!
Review of Itzik Ben-Gan’s Books
I’ll start by saying this isn’t a paid review nor do I have any association with SolidQ publishing.
T-SQL Fundamentals (third edition) was highly recommended as a read for the 70-761 exam along with his other two books, T-SQL Querying and Training Kit (Exam 70-461): Querying Microsoft SQL Server 2012.
Looking at the three books, you can gather the fundamentals book is probably more base skill set and the exam is structured for obviously an exam. So are all three books worth a read? Which ones should you read and in what order?
The 70-461 book is unbelievably deep and well written. While it is ultimately meant to help pass an exam, I think you can take a lot of practical application from it. That said, I think if your goal was not to pass the 70-461 exam, the T-SQL Fundamentals and T-SQL Querying books would be a fine read on their own and you could pass up the exam book. If you had the training exam available for you to read for free however, I would definitely recommend to at least cherry pick the chapters you felt needed additional attention and study time!
T-SQL Fundamentals is definitely the book I’d read first though. This is also the book I wish someone had told me I needed to go and read when I first began work in databases. It touches on the basic key concepts for SQL Server then it gives practical examples and application use. The code is easy to follow and expertly written, no word is wasted and it’s extremely well edited. If you are a manager of junior to intermediate data professionals who primarily use SQL Server, you should make time for them to read this book. (Just my humble opinion.) This is what I’d consider to be, the single best compilation of the must need to know basics that any T-SQL developer will use. If you are on the senior end, it’s a fun read and you may re-remember some lost tidbits or perhaps you had a few holes in your knowledge that you needed patched. I still think it’s worth the read, including the other exam book. But this is definitely geared to the junior to intermediate folk with splatterings of expert advice.
Comparing to T-SQL Fundamentals, T-SQL Querying does not hold back, it’s a tome of information. This would be the book I’d want my team of senior SQL Server data professionals to read. T-SQL Querying may be too advanced for junior to intermediate readers however. I would recommend to try and read through samples or page through it in the store prior to purchasing. It’s a big book and extremely in depth with amazing detail. If you are in a senior SQL role and primarily use SQL Server, this is a great book for you. I’d recommend the Fundamentals first to make sure the first base layer of knowledge is in place, but it is skippable if you have enough experience. The exam booklet would be a great secondary read, otherwise I’d read T-SQL Querying last.