Introduction
Although this book was written primarily to help you prepare for Exam 70-339: “Managing Microsoft SharePoint Server 2016,” it is also intended to be a reference that you can refer to during your experiences with SharePoint Server 2016. In several cases, the steps to perform the more advanced tasks are shown in this book to help you feel comfortable with related questions on the exam, as well as provide a reference on how to perform the task in a real-life situation.
The 70-339 is an advanced solutions examination, although the level of detail in this book might exceed content required for the exam. This does not mean there won’t be specific questions about steps required to perform a task or requirements needed to install a service application; what it does mean is that you should not focus on minutia such as being able to spell out a command correctly or knowing every possible parameter for the command. Instead, focus on the concepts, the overall steps involved with a task, and the required components needed for a solution.
If you focus on these concepts and go through the tasks in this book, you will be well on your way to passing the exam. It should be noted that this 2016 exam requires a broader spectrum of experience, as it combines concepts that were previously covered in two separate tests: 70-331 (Core Solutions of Microsoft SharePoint Server 2013) and 70-332 (Advanced Solutions of Microsoft SharePoint Server 2013) exams. If you didn’t previously take these tests, don’t worry; just expect that there are a lot of potential topics to be covered.
This book is generally intended for exam candidates who have four or more years working with SharePoint Server and related technologies such as SQL Server and Windows Server. Candidates should have hands-on experience with a multiserver SharePoint farm, specifically focusing on planning, implementing, and maintaining this farm. This experience includes (but is not limited to) the areas of high availability, disaster recovery, capacity planning, and exposure to Office 365 and hybrid implementations.
Despite having multiple years of experience with a multiserver SharePoint farm, it is doubtful that exam candidates will automatically have experience with each and every technology set covered by the exam; thus, they should focus on the areas in which they have the least experience or understanding. Also, any of the newer features recently added to SharePoint Server 2016 will likely receive additional coverage on the exam.
This book will help you prepare for the exam, but nothing can take the place of real-life experience. In an effort to make the exam content an accurate measure of product knowledge, the test might include a series of case studies along with the standard multiple-choice questions. Expect to see questions that present you with a business and technical problem, then require you to place steps in order and answer questions in which you have to choose the right set of items from a large list of possible answers. In these cases, previous practice with the actual implementation of the functionality covered in this book will help you far more than just trying to memorize facts and answers.
This book covers every exam objective, but it does not necessarily cover every exam question. Only the Microsoft exam team has access to the exam questions, and Microsoft regularly adds new questions to the exam, thus making it impossible to cover specific questions and answers. You should consider this book a supplement to your relevant real-world experience and other study materials.
If you encounter a topic in this book that you do not feel completely comfortable with, use the reference links provided in the text to find more information, then take the time to research and study topics in which you lack experience or understanding. A great deal of planning and implementation for SharePoint is available on MSDN, TechNet, and other blogs and forums.
Organization of this book
This book is organized by the “Skills measured” list published for the exam. The “Skills measured” list is available for each exam on the Microsoft Learning website: http://aka.ms/examlist. Each chapter in this book corresponds to a major topic area in the list, and the techniques in each topic area determine a chapter’s organization. If an exam covers six major topic areas, for example, the book will contain six chapters.
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Acknowledgements
Several people are involved in the development of a book such as this; from an author standpoint, I’d like to thank Karen Szall as well as Lisa Flinchbaugh and Kim Spilker who helped to finish this project. Jeremy Taylor of Content Master was my technical reviewer, and provided top-notch feedback, particularly around the hybridization of SharePoint. Finally, thanks to Mary Stone and Chris Norton for helping close this effort out.
On the home front, I’d like to thank my family and friends for putting up with me being the occasional writing hermit. In particular, I want to thank Marlene Lanphier, who always seems to be available when I need someone to listen to a particular portion of this text.
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