Some weeks ago I received an email from Microsoft certification team that my MCSE: Private Cloud expires 19th of December 2015. Currently, to re-certify (maintain) MCSE: Private Cloud you need to take and pass exam 70-981. As I didn't want to have my certificate expired and later (if necessary) take and pass at least 2 exams I decided to take that exam even I didn't have so much time to prepare. Fortunately, Microsoft likes reinstanting its popular Second Shot program, which offers MCP test takers a free retake when they fail on their first try 🙂 What you have to do is scheduling exam/exams between specific time (Second Shot offer time) and if you fail, you need to re-take the exam within max 30 days. And I did exactly in this way 🙂
There are some important things about 70-981 exam as follows:
- 50 questions
- Exam time - 180 minutes
- Questions type: single and multi choice, drag and drop, hot area
- Some questions divided as case studies (not timed separately from the rest of the exam)
- No simulations
- Exam divided for sections with some questions or case studies and not possible to back if you finish each section
- Questions with close answers and you have to choose the best answer
Exam objectives:
- Configure data center process automation
- Deploy resource monitoring
- Configure and maintain service management
- Configure the fabric
- Configure System Center integration
How to prepare to this exam?
This is a re-certification exam so your experience should be enough. If you want to prepare, unfortunately there are no exam books (such as Training Kits) available to prepare to this exam. However, as the exam is based on the objectives from Exam 246 and Exam 247 you can use books to those exams to refresh your knowledge.
Fortunately I passed the exam on the second attempt (I needed to use a benefit of the Second Shot 🙂 and my MCSE: Private Cloud should be maintained for three years 🙂