Late last month, Microsoft made its first real foray into certification requirements for nuts-and-bolts Windows security administration. It came in the form of a new exam preparation guide: "Implementing and Administering Security in a Microsoft Windows 2000 Network" (Exam 20-214).
I see the 70-214 exam as the first real Windows security exam from Microsoft mostly because exam 70-220 "Designing Security for a Microsoft Windows 2000 Network" -- like most designing exams -- concentrates more on analysis, security policies, postures and solutions than routine day-to-day security.
Likewise, although 70-227 "Installing, Configuring and Administering Microsoft Internet Security and Acceleration (ISA) Server 2000, Enterprise Edition" has a lot of strong security-related content, it's focused almost entirely on Microsoft's ISA product and its related firewall, Web and server publishing, proxy and application gateway capabi
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lities.
In short, 70-214 -- scheduled for beta release in November and commercial release by early 2003 -- is the first Microsoft exam to concentrate on routine matters of Windows security implementation and maintenance for system and network administrators. A quick review of its major categories' skills matrix shows why:
To my knowledge, this is the first and only Microsoft exam that covers operational, day-to-day security matters both broadly and specifically for Windows-based networks. I look forward to watching this exam unfold as the beta and commercial release dates approach. This could spell a whole new era of security coverage and awareness in the MCP community!
Ed Tittel is a principal at a small content development company based in Austin, Texas, and the creator of the Exam Cram series, and has worked on over 60 books on Microsoft, CompTIA, CIW, Sun/Java, and various security certifications.
