believe me, for this exam you don't need any book, especially this book, as long as you had some basic aknowledge on database theory. this book is too heavy and useless. the trescender is VERY GOOD!

This book not only covers what you'd need to know for the exam, but puts an emphasis on 'learning' the material. Its case study approach for every few chapters really tests the readers' understanding of what is covered.

The book would go through a concept or two, and puts the focus back on the case study and how the concept applies there.
Tip : Try to come up with the application of the concept on the current case study before reading the actual concept application section.

I hadn't come across this book until this past year, and I wish I had it earlier. It sits on my shelf where it will be helpful now and in the future. Thank you, Cornish, et al.

As a MCP who's completed 70-100 I can wholeheartedly recommend you buy this book as an (excellent) primer into the world of Solution development. Wonderful cases and exercises make this book worth your time (if not for the sake of the exam). It also has a good sense of humor and doesn't bore you to death with facts (unlike some MS Press books I could name) Anyways, my recommendations are that you study the exam (with this book) and then forget all there is to know about it. Then, focus on Chapter 10. It is the ONLY chapter you will need. The rest is irrelevant (if somewhat useful) exam preperation material. I advise you acquire a Transcender demo so that you acquaint yourself with the special way you are tested. Don't worry the built-in Exam Gear software is fabulous and will show you how to use the exam software. All in all from a technical standpoint this book deserves a C+.

One more thing, do not buy the MS Press 70-100 exam preparation book, it has nothing, NOTHING to do with this exam.

As a MCP who's completed 70-100 I can wholeheartedly recommend you buy this book as an (excellent) primer into the world of Solution development. Wonderful cases and exercises make this book worth your time (if not for the sake of the exam). It also has a good sense of humor and doesn't bore you to death with facts (unlike some MS Press books I could name) Anyways, my recommendations are that you study the exam (with this book) and then forget all there is to know about it. Then, focus on Chapter 10. It is the ONLY chapter you will need. The rest is irrelevant (if somewhat useful) exam preperation material. I advise you acquire a Transcender demo so that you acquaint yourself with the special way you are tested. Don't worry the built-in Exam Gear software is fabulous and will show you how to use the exam software. All in all from a technical standpoint this book deserves a C+.

One more thing, do not buy the MS Press 70-100 exam preparation book, it has nothing, NOTHING to do with this exam.

No cert book hits the nail on the head for 100% of the questions or covers all the material covered by the cert test, but this book does a fairly good job.
Additionally this book is does a great job of presenting how software design SHOULD go. (But never does) Anyway, great for newbies to IT and a general ref. and review for the more experienced. Kinda dry in spots for the experienced developer.
Bright spot is the test on CD that comes with the book. EXCELLENT practice exam. Every bit as useful for review as the ones I pony up cash dollars for.

No cert book hits the nail on the head for 100% of the questions or covers all the material covered by the cert test, but this book does a fairly good job.
Additionally this book is does a great job of presenting how software design SHOULD go. (But never does) Anyway, great for newbies to IT and a general ref. and review for the more experienced. Kinda dry in spots for the experienced developer.
Bright spot is the test on CD that comes with the book. EXCELLENT practice exam. Every bit as useful for review as the ones I pony up cash dollars for.

This is a good book to read, however, it is MARGINALLY helpful
for the exam. When I passed the exam, I wished I had not spent
so much time with this book. I read it 2X and should have only skimmed it. Good luck!!!

This is a good book to read, however, it is MARGINALLY helpful
for the exam. When I passed the exam, I wished I had not spent
so much time with this book. I read it 2X and should have only skimmed it. Good luck!!!

New Riders continues to be the only choice for serious exam preparation. Using this book as my only text reference for this exam, I passed with over 940 the first time I took the exam.

It is long, and requires patience, but working each section along with the case studies provided not only gives you the information you need, but gets you thinking about how to read and analyze the case studies. The detail provided helps you determine what in a case study is relevant, and this is exactly what you need to succeed in this test.

I am an engineering student, but works in IT field. I picked up this book to attain a good foundation on software design principle. Then I want to sit for the 70-100 exam to get my MCSD status. This book assists me in accomplishing both.

Do not solely rely on this book on exam. The real exam's major emphasis is on data modelling, E-R diagram and data flow design. This book may not guarantee you to pass the exam. Couple this book with Transcender or Troytec and you will be 100 % safe.

Overall, it is a nice book. It gives me a good concept how I shold approach software design better, and prepares me better in challenging tasks. I think my money is well worth spent.

Having just passed 70-100, an completed my MCSD, this book really didnt help much. While its is not a bad real world analysis and MS solution architecture book , it's "PASS ME" (Performance, Availbility, Security, Scalability, Maintainance, Extensability) case study analysis method won't help passing the exam. PASS Me is better applied to the real word than the exam.

One could do without this book for the exam. In fact its got the usual errors and might lead one astray with it's home grown concepts like "one to one or many" and "one to none or many" relationship! It strays a bit from good solid basics. The accompaning ExamGear practice software is also a bit marginal. Errors in it also, along with not being representative of the exam content, presentation or Look-Feel(Next button on the right, and not knowing how to score diagrams, trees, relationships.

But, I did pass the test so I'm sure is does help. (I also used other study giudes too)

If ya want to pass the test, read( and know how to apply) the MS Enterprise Application Model from MSDN. MSDN and your other product exam knowledge is all ya really need to know for 70-100, plus good, quick, thorough, reading comprehension for the case studies.

This book is the best book for the subject on the market today in my opinion. It covers most of what you need to know and to get you started. However, to pass the exam, you also need to have additional two other skills: 1) Relational database concepts with focus on primary keys, foreign keys, and referential integrity. You should feel very comfortable with translating and drawing ER diagram based on a given scenario or a set of requirements. I took the exam today and passed it. But I was so surprised that the database skills carry so much weight on my exam. 2) Exam skills (the format of this exam is very different than other Microsoft exams).

In my opinion, 1) If you are not familiar with the subject, get this book. 2) Brush you database skills, if you can't find a good book for you, then you need to make some friends with real database developers, get their advices and start to draw a lot of database ER diagrams. (Caution: This exam is not targeted to database experts, so you need to think the Microsoft way to handle the exam, not in the real world to develop commercial products.) 3) Practice the exam skills

Wish you a happy reading and good luck on your next exam!

-Joshua

MCSD, MCDBA, MCSE+I

I pased the exam on the first try.

If you are a developer with limited business or design experience this book is a good resource for exposing you to the concepts of business requirements analysis, database design, and logical vs physical design. If you are an experienced systems designer, much of the material is a good review, and the case studies used are very helpful in preparing for the exam.

After taking the Transcender practice exams (highly recommended) I realized I needed more depth with the Microsoft-specific technologies (COM, ADO, etc). The references in this book were good, though I found myself wondering why a book this size couldn't have included the key information from the references instead of making you search them out. I found that the Sybex book for this exam covers the technologies pretty well, and also has some very good practice cases. I would recommend the Sybex book as a companion study tool for this exam.

On the down side, there are numerous editing mistakes in the book, especially discrepancies between the case studies and the "correct" answers to the review questions in some chapters. It looks like the authors of the questions weren't always working from the final manuscript. For example, in one question the answer is explained with "Since XYZ company has selected Oracle..." and the case study for XYZ never says a word about Oracle. Hopefully New Riders will correct this in later printings.

Several reviewers have commented on the practice exam software included. I also had difficulty installing the practice exam software under Windows 2000. New Riders support said it was not tested to run under Win2K and offered me a full refund. I found a Win98 machine and was able to run the practice exams without difficulty. They are ok for the multiple choice part of the exam, but you will need to be very confident with the "build a tree", database modeling, and flow diagramming covered in the case studies to pass the exam.

This book will help you prepare for the MCSD exam. Unlike all the other exams I took for my MCSD though, this book alone is not enough to pass the exam.

As usual New Rider has excellent exam questions at the end of each chapter. The problem is the format of the exam itself, it is much easier if you are an experienced software developer. In my opinion this book can help you on this exam as much as any book, it's just that this exam is very thorough.

To pass the exam, you probably want to read at least two other books. -->Software Project Survival Guide, Steve McConnell -->Any database design book

I saw some complaints about the practice exam, but I had no complaints. (a word of caution, the Microsoft Press study guide for this exam is HORRIBLE, it has almost no relevance to the exam)

This book was excellent, and it did everything it could to present test-relevant material.

The case studies that precede the chapters are very similar to the real exam, so it will get you used to the kind of story problems you'll have to analyze in the test room.

Where this book fails is that it cannot prepare you for the E-R diagrams and work-flow process diagrams that you'll have to deal with on the 70-100. The only thing that can prepare you for that is a pencil and some paper and about 10 hours of solid diagramming.

My advice? Buy this book, read the case studies, and actually draw some diagrams as you read. And make sure to read appendix E at the end of this book - excellent hints on how to properly analyze the case studies.

Good luck!

I just passed the test! I read this one along with a couple of others, and this one seems to give the best review of the material on the test, and the look and feel of the test itself. Best of luck to you!

This exam, 70-100, is a strange one to prepare for. After plowing through the minutiae of VB, DCOM, ADO, SLQ Server, etc., reading case studies of what the CEO wants and what the receptionist doesn't want seems more like reading a short story. As it turns out, the actual 3 hour exam consists of about 85% verbose, fuzzy "interviews" with "clients". Cornish, et al., reflect this fairly well (though their scenarios make a little more sense than some of the ones on the exam incarnation I took).

I have also read the ExamCram and the Prendergast books for this exam. If you are a C++ developer, the Prendergast book is probably a better choice. I think most VB developers will find Cornish to be much more comfortable reading. With either book, I would recommend the ExamCram to catch it from a slightly different angle, and fill in the gaps.

Now, about that exam... It doesn't matter how much you know, you will have difficulty passing it without some practice on the poorly chosen metaphors (such as the "build a tree" type question) which Microsoft introduces with 70-100. Unfortunately, this book's exam software (on the accompanying CD) misses the mark by a wide margin. I would encourage all candidates for this particular exam to download at least the free DEMO from Transcender.

Conclusion: For VB developers, this book is an excellent choice for a "big" book. Also consider a small book, like ExamCram, and at least a peek at an accurate test simulation.

Passed the exam on the first try! Microsoft states that the 70-100 exam is for experienced developers. Cramming for this exam is mostly ineffective. However, of all the books, this one came closest to addressing the topics actually covered on the Microsoft exam.

Less experienced architects should spend more time following the suggested web links and Suggested Reading.

I found most of the chapters helpful and ALL of the case studies to be similar in style to those found on the exam.

There are two additional parts of the book that were most helpful - Appendix E (How to Interpret Case Studies) and the exams on the enclosed CD.

It is ONLY a good reading book ,but nothing to learn in i

This is a must have book for all MCSD aspirants. It covers all the aspects that you need to know for the Solutions Architecture exam. The book ic very well presnented.

Well I passed the exam so it can't be too bad. The book covers many areas quite well, but you will need to do extensive reading to fill in the background. If you are a beginner or don't have a lot of experience in analysis you will find the 70-100 exam very tough. The most important section, database normalisation, is accurate but could be improved with more examples using the unique format of the exam. Microsoft's sample exam is EXACTLY the format of the real exam.

The writing style of this book makes it very easy to work through. The author has a nice turn of phrase and an easy way of conveying information. The editing could have been better, especially in the data chapter, where you can tell they redid the example at least once during the editing process. On the whole I highly recommend this. I passed the exam very comfortably this morning, and give much credit to this book, the Exam Cram, and Transcender.

If I was going to change something, it would be the Exam Gear software. That thing could definitely use some tweaking. Go with Transcender instead.

Good luck!

I found this book useful not only from the point of preparing for the exam, but also for getting a solid overview of Microsoft technologies in general. This is not a perfect book for the exam (I have yet to see one!), but overall it covers the bases quite properly. The material in this book will also help you answer many questions in interviews (as I recently found out myself)!