Took the SQL Server 2008 Business Intelligence Development and Maintainance beta exam today (exam 71-448 which will eventually become 70-448 when it goes live) and here are some of my thoughts [more]
Business Intelligence is more like a hobby (or just in something in my wishlist) for me as of the moment since I haven’t worked on a real world BI application involving all three major components except for Reporting Services.
Nevertheless I’m guessing that someone who passed 70-445 would find the exam easy and pass it like a breeze since like other reviews, there weren’t really much SQL 2008 specific questions.
Going over the preparation guide (here), it looks like most (if not all actually) of the items describe there had corresponding questions in the exam so it’s definitely worth a look. So that’s my hint, pay attention to every item in the prep guide.
The questions are also distributed well across SSIS, SSAS and SSRS and although the prep guide seems to show that SSAS is expected to have more coverage I didn’t feel it that much.
I learn most of the BI stuff from the 70-445 training kit and is a good compliment to the prep guide. If you need to cram though then I suggest just going over prep guide and research the item you’re not that familiar with. I also have the 70-445 transcender prep but I haven’t even seen half the questions so not really sure if it will help a lot. As far as those I’ve encountered from the test prep though, they were definitely helpful.
Overall the exam was satisfactory for me as the prep guide was helpful and being an MCTS exam it was indeed generally more focused on getting a job done rather than making decisions and design for PRO level (MCITP/MCPD exams).
I’m not expecting a very good result from this one but at least got an bit of idea where I am in (relative to the exam and not necessarily in the BI world) and will probably take 70-445 when I get the chance to review. And if I do flunk this one then I’m determined to take the live version even if I don’t really need this for my current work. BI is fun! 🙂