The story so far…

Frack! this is hard! I have bags under my eyes and don’t’ know what day it is unless I check my mobile. I knew it would be tough, but all I’ve done since arriving is study and drink coffee. Wake, study, go to class, study all day, come ‘home’ to my hotel room and you guessed it study some more.

The days and weeks all melt into one big endless slog here. I honestly couldnt tell yo what day it is most of the time. And since we study weekends they don't really matter much either.

Results:

28th May, 70-270 Installing, Configuring, and Administering Microsoft Windows XP Professional, Pass 89%
6th June, 70-290 Managing and Maintaining a Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Environment, Pass 87%

15th June, 70-291 Implementing, Managing, and Maintaining a Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Network Infrastructure, Pass 82%

22nd June, 70-293 Planning and Maintaining a Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Network Infrastructure, Fail 56%

.. don’t know WHAT happened there, completely lost it somehow.
The test had a lot of questions in areas I wasn’t really expecting, there just isn’t time in the class to cover every topic in detail, so when you’re asked..

… you administer a three-node network load balancing cluster. Each cluster node runs server 2003 and has a single NIC. The cluster has converged successfully. The nodes in the cluster run at almost full capacity, you want to add a fourth node, you enable network load balancing on the fourth node.

The cluster does not converge in a four-node cluster. In the log on the existing three nodes, you find the same error. "The system detected an IP conflict at address 10.10.10.1 with the system of network ID 01:AB:0C:22:88:42."

In the System log on the new fourth node, you find a similar event with the same error except for the network ID. You confirm that IP address 10.50.8.70 is configured as the cluster IP address on all four nodes.
What should you do?

A. Configure the fourth node to use multicast mode.

B. Remove 10.10.10.1 from the NIC properties of the fourth node.

C. On the fourth node, run the nlb.exe resume command.

D. On the fourth node, run the wlbs.exe reload command.

E. Pack up and go home.

Then you will just have to pick E. I know I did. (And for those of you shouting ‘hey bozo it’s A! .. A you frickin’ idiot. Thanks.)

27th June, 70-294 Planning, Implementing, and Maintaining a Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Active Directory Infrastructure, PASS 73%

What a stinker! Scraped through by the skin of my teeth. Yes!

And today I took this one and did well. 29th June, 70-298 Designing Security for a Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Network, PASS 92%

And now I have 2 more exams to take, 70-350 ISA Server and the 70-293 retake. But the pain should end next Friday when I’ve completed all 7 tests and claim my MSCE 2003 qualification. I'll be like rocky running up those steps and cheering ... c,mon!! Show me the cheeeeseeee!! or something like that.

Right, I'm off to study for the next puppy, cheers for all the emails y'all ... nice to hear from you.

Its ya birthday !!

So last week it was my birthday - YAY!! - older, fatter and very much more drunkerererrrr haha.

My new mates on the training course did me proud.. cheers to Neil, Mark and Jim for a 'reyt good do'.

On the photo with the cake thats Jim on the left, me and then Neil (mark is the photografererer wearing a red t-shirt). What a handsome lot we are lol.