Save US$5,550 on the Microsoft Certified Master Program of Your Choice (Worldwide)

Today, Microsoft provides additional support to its customers and partners by offering a limited-time 30 percent discount (US$5,550) for the Microsoft Certified Master programs, allowing to you to save on your training investment.
If you're a seasoned IT professional focused on the Microsoft platform, it's time to differentiate yourself from your peers while bringing further IT efficiency to your organization. The Microsoft Certified Master (MCM) advanced training and certification programs have opened their classroom doors for candidates from around the world in Redmond, Washington, United States. The classes are designed for IT professionals with approximately 10 years of experience in the industry and focus on one of the following core Microsoft Server technologies: Microsoft Exchange Server 2007, Microsoft SQL Server 2008, Windows Server 2008--Directory, Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007, or Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007.
A recent survey of program graduates reported increased productivity and billable rates for some certified individuals.

•Learn more about the Microsoft Certified Master Program.

•See the full schedule of classes and register.

Apply now. Upon acceptance, provide payment by February 14, 2009, to save US$5,550 on the Microsoft Certified Master program of your choice (a 30 percent discount).

Note: Offer expires on February 14, 2009. No other offers, including discounted beta training classes (50 percent discount), may be combined with this offer.

The MCM registration site is now open, and for the first public rotation the price is 50% off..

http://www.microsoft.com/learning/mcp/master/register/default.mspx 

Here are the prereqs for the Active Directory MCM:

Also you must have at least the following:

You must have the following exams below completed in order to qualify for the Microsoft Certified Master: Windows Server 2008: Directory.

Pricing structure

Nonrefundable program application fee: US$125
Program fee: US$18,500
Non-lab exam retakes: US$250
Lab exam retakes: US$1,500

Note The program fee includes the price of first attempts at passing all required tests, including the final lab exam.

Participants who attend the first public beta rotations (training program and exams) will receive a 50 percent discount. Public betas for Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 and Microsoft SQL Server 2008 are scheduled for October 2008. The Windows Server 2008 Active Directory public beta is scheduled for November 2008.

Good luck, hope to see you in November...

-Chris

Well it's finally out, Microsoft Certified Masters is opening to the world.

http://www.microsoft.com/learning/mcp/master/default.mspx

So what is Microsoft Certified Masters? It's one of the new certifications being released by Microsoft Learning, and will be pushing the proof of skills and technical understanding to the limits. In the past there has been a huge gap between the level MCSE/MCITP tested at, and what the field felt was true testing of a senior engineer competencies. Microsoft Certified Masters will be one of the ways to tackle this by providing a top tier certification that tests book knowledge with real world applied skill set. Aligned with MCA (Microsoft Certified Architect), this will allow a true mapping of someone's skills, experience, and competencies to a field recognized certification, be it as an Architect (MCA) or an Engineer/Consultant (MCM).

MCM for Active Directory will be most likely opening the doors for the first public rotation in November, and content is targeted at heavy 300+ design/troubleshooting skill sets. With 3 weeks of some very intense training, written tests, and a pretty advanced lab certification, this will not be for the weak of heart.

Skills to be tested will range for AD Internals, such as AD Backup and DR, Kerberos/Auth, Client Logon/Interactions, AD Replication, Sites & Services design, deployments and troubleshooting, FRS, DFSR, Group Policy, DNS, RODC, Server Core, and of course the whole line up of AD products like Federated Services, Rights Management Services, Certificate Services, ADAM/LDS, and to finish it off, throw in some MOF/ITIL content, and that will make for a heck of long and hard 3 weeks.

The Masters training programs will be running $18,500, and will be based in Redmond for the first year. Worldwide training is expected the next year.

During the internal warm up sessions i was lucky enough to help gather and generate content for the training and certification labs, and it's actually quite a hard thing to find and build rock solid level 300-350 training content that is both challenging, and yet relevant. The program manager for MCM Directory, Walter Boyd, many others, and I are working hard to make the content killer, with the amount of content we have, and the talent we are coordinating, this should be a great program, we are pulling in some of the most talented trainers and engineers in the industry.

Hope to see you there in November...

Chris Ransom / MCM:Windows Directory 2008