The Microsoft Exam 70-294 is all about the infrastructure of Active Directory of the Windows Server 2003 operating platform. It is the counter part of the exam 70-217, which is for the Windows 2000 Server operating system. The Exam 70-294 is requirement for the Microsoft Certified System Engineer or MSCE for the certification in Windows Server 2003.

Objective of Exam 70-294

The objective of the exam focuses on the capacities of features of the Windows 2003 server active directory. These features are those that are the same with the Window 2000 active directory and feature that are added and new with the Windows 2003 server.

Skill Tested In the Exam

The contents of the exam are composed of five main areas. The first one is on the implementation and planning of an Active directory infrastructure. This requires the examinee to know about the basic structures of Active Directory. The planning and implementing of infrastructure section of the exam involves making a strategy for the placement of global catalog servers involving the evaluation of network traffics and the evaluation of the need to facilitate a universal group caching. The exam also covers planning flexible operations master role placement and implementing Active Directory service domain structure and service forest. Implementing an Active Directory service for the forest focuses on the creation of forest root domain, creation of a child domain, configuration of data partitions and installation of an Active Directory domain controller. This section of the exam also involves the implementation of the site topology of the Active Directory. This covers configuration of site links and bridgehead servers. The skill measured in the second part of the exam is the capability to maintain and manage the infrastructure of an Active Directory. This involves troubleshooting Active Directory, Restoring its services, managing its site ad monitoring its replication failures. The monitoring of replication failures part is provided with support tools and event viewer. The third section is on implementing and planning User, Group and Computer strategies. This includes planning and implementing an OU structure and planning for a security group strategy. The fourth part is on the planning and implementing of the group policy strategy. It also includes the configuring the user environment with the use of Group policy. The last part is on the Management and maintenance of the group policy.

Additional Information

The format of the questions in the exams is drag and drop, list, multiple choice and reorder. There are 50 questions and is given a time limit of 90 minutes.