Designing Highly Available Web Solutions with Microsoft Windows 2000 Server Technologies
Design elective for the MCSE on Windows 2000

Here's the resource I can REALLY recommend. Michael Stewart and Kevin Lundy have done a great job putting together Sybex's excellent study guide. I talked with Kevin while he was writing it and have some idea of the hours he put into it. If this book had been available when I was stuyding for 70-226, I probably would not have done the work to assemble this page. I'm glad I did ... but this is a very thorough book. It comes with 2 case-study-type practice tests which the authors work hard at making life-like -- but without being plagiarized from the real test -- to help you get onto that style of test and also know when you're ready to spend your $125 on the real thing.


This exam is now available as of September 5th, 2001. I passed the test the end of October. Tough exam. The link below to the Application Center Resource Kit is what I found most helpful. But there's a lot that doesn't cover. I was glad I'd read quite a bit on Cluster Services clustering. What I don't have a link to, but wish I did, is information on Active/Active SQL clustering and SQL partitioning. I didn't read that much of the Cisco stuff and really didn't miss it. I think I saw just a question or two on switches and routers.
Passing score is 540. You get 215 minutes for it, broken up into 5 sections. Each section gets 35-60 minutes each. Each section, or testlet, is about one business. You answer 8-12 questions on each, then go on to the next testlet. (That's probably typical for MS' case-based tests -- first one of that style that I've taken.) I hope you find this and my other lists helpful. Good luck & good studying to all.

Application Center 2000 Resource Kit is an excellent resource recommended to me by Dr. Ray Turner. Don't expect it to cover everything, but it does cover a whole lot. All 14 chapters are available online as well!

70-226 Exam Objectives

MOC 2088 Course Outline

The Software to play with

Order Windows 2000 Advanced Server Trial from MS for $8-$10
Designing Cluster and Server Architectures for Web Solutions

Step-by-Step Guide to Installing Cluster Service

overview of Windows 2000 Clustering Lots of links here to more information.

An Introduction to SQL Server Clustering

SQL Server 2000 Failover Clustering -- link to this 90-page Word doc was provided by Paul Lynch on news://microsoft.public.cert.exam.mcse

LearnKey's course to prepare for 70-223 on clustering has a free detailed outline which may be helpful for studying this part of the material. 70-226 is broader than I understand 70-223 to be, but not as deep into the details of clustering.

System Redundancy -- Big on Windows Distribute interNet Applications (DNA) and NT4.0's MS Cluster Service (MSCS)

Web Server Load Balancing and Redundancy -- Why & How -- Round-Robin DNS, Load Balancing Switches, NLB
Designing a Highly Available Network Infrastructure

High Availability

Building a Highly Available and Scalable Web Farm

Building a Highly Available Database Cluster

Cluster-Aware Applications

Planning for Reliability and High Availability -- especially Commerce Server 2000, but much of it is actually broader than that.

Always-On Availability for Multiservice Carrier Networks -- Software isn't everything -- here's Cisco's advice.

Fault Tolerant Network Configuration -- Cisco

Overview of the Duwamish Online example network
Planning Capacity Requirements

Planning for Capacity and Performance

Capacity Planning -- Includes a case study of MSNBC
Designing Security Strategies for Web Solutions

Security Services -- native W2k stuff -- IPSec, EFS, PKI, kerberos, smart cards, etc.

Windows 2000 Security in an E-Commerce Environment -- DNA, COM+, Kerberos, etc.
Designing Application and Service Infrastructures for Web solutions

E-Commerce White Paper Series

IIS 5.0 -- IIS 5.0 Documentation Actually, I'm only reading about the first 1/3 of this book. I really hope I don't have to know every last thing about ASP for this test.

IIS 5.0 -- The Art and Science of Web Server Tuning with Internet Information Services 5.0 -- 39 pg white paper

Architectural Design: A Scalable, Highly Available Business Object Architecture

How to Perform SQL Server Log Shipping This covers log shipping under SQL Server 7. In short, it could be configured, but it was not natively handled by the system. There is quite a series of stored procedures needed for it. Still, it's good to know if you support an enterprise that has chosen not to upgrade to 2000.

Log shipping overview in SQL 2000 This is the same as in BOL.

Sizing and Tuning Windows 2000 for Maximum Performance -- excerpt from Curt Aubley's book as a 2.7 MB PDF. Available here or from its original location.

Other Resources
Not many of these out there yet ...

the eMCSD collection

Article in TechRepublic on 70-226

Cramsession for 226

Chris Butterworth's list -- a little short on this exam, but it may grow.




If you know of more resources which should be listed here, please email a link to me. I very much appreciate other resources to study and will be sure to acknowledge you on this page.