This morning I sat the Microsoft certification exam 70-350 for ISA Server 2004. I’d been putting this one off for a while, having already worked through the Microsoft Press training guide, a lot of whitepapers, and worked with the product for a lot of different customers over the last couple of years. I passed the exam with plenty of room to spare.
Someone gave me the tip that the exam is not particularly difficult. I tend to agree, but that would largely have to do with all of the work and study I’ve put into it beforehand. ISA Server 2004 is a great product, and the new versions are excellent too. The biggest hurdles in understanding it seem to be early on when you first start using it.
If you’re looking to do some training on ISA Server 2004 with the goal of certifying then I would strongly recommend the Microsoft Press training guide. The books contents will thoroughly prepare you for the exam provided you work through the material properly and don’t skimp on the practical exercises or review questions.
You can also make use of the extensive ISA 2004 Technical Library on the Microsoft website. The documentation there could be used for all of your training instead of using the training guide, but won’t take you through the subject in the same fashion. However it does make for excellent complimentary material for your training and for your real world work with the product.
I would give you tips on which areas to focus on but really the exam questions I faced pretty well broadly covered the entire product. There was no particular areas to focus on to the exclusion of others. I would certainly recommend though that you do not sit the exam until you are thoroughly familiar with fundamental networking concepts such as subnetting and routing, and with the ISA Server 2004 networking model.
