Earning a Microsoft certification acknowledges your expertise in working with Microsoft products and technologies and sets you apart from the crowd as a development professional. Microsoft certification demonstrates that you have the ability to successfully implement Microsoft business solutions for your organization or client.

This article will provide a basic understanding of the scope of the certification and will also give details about the certification along with the useful resources to get started.

Introduction

With .NET, Microsoft is also espousing a vision, this time about how the Internet can make businesses more efficient and deliver services to consumers. The present enterprise setup's need to have n-tier architecture with diverse platforms and object models communicating with each other. The present applications are to be created such that those applications have to run in any platform (like Windows, Linux, Mac, Unix etc.) and which consist of components written in many programming languages and object models.

Many language vendors have tried to upgrade their languages, but there is a limit to which they have been successful since they have to maintain backward capability and face many other problems too. To solve the problem of the current programmers Microsoft has come with a very promising solution "The .NET Platform".

.NET provides a number of benefits that will make developers more productive, reduce the number of bugs, speed application development, and simplify deployment. IT managers are understandably wary, since .NET is a new technology that requires a moderately steep learning curve. For most organizations, however, the benefits will far outweigh the negatives; and with .NET, you'll see great productivity gains for future development projects.

.NET certification is the premier credential for professionals who design and develop leading-edge business solutions with Microsoft .NET development tools, technologies and platforms.

You might want to consider taking the MCSD 70-316 exam to:

• Gain valuable skills, knowledge and expertise
  

• Raise your income
  

• Increase your job opportunities
  

• Earn more respect from your peers
  

• Improve your job security
  

Earning a Microsoft certification acknowledges your expertise in working with Microsoft products and technologies and sets you apart from the crowd as a development professional. Microsoft certification demonstrates that you have the ability to successfully implement Microsoft business solutions for your organization or client.

This article will provide a basic understanding of the scope of the certification and will also give details about the certification along with the useful resources to get started.

What you need to know for MCSD 70-316?

As a competent developer, you should be proficient in creating Windows applications that have a smooth look and feel.

In the Exam 70-316, Microsoft tests your skills on developing Windows based applications with VS.NET/C# on seven objectives.

Exam Objectives Weightage of Questions

1. Creating User Services 15 %
   

2. Creating and Managing Components and .NET Assemblies 18%
   

3. Consuming and Manipulating Data 20%
   

4. Testing and Debugging 12%
   

5. Deploying a Windows-based Application 18%
   

6. Maintaining and Supporting a Windows-based Application 5%
   

7. Configuring and Securing a Windows-based Application 12%
   

For a detailed break up of topics covered in the MCSD .Net 70-316 exam, you can visit the Microsoft certification web page.

The above certification page will provide you with a bird’s eye view of the skills you should focus on. During the course of this article I’ll point you to resources where you can go and read up on the skills listed on this page. The Skills being measured section of the page has the break up of the seven objectives as to which skills will be measured in the exam.

Microsoft’s exam 70-316, “Developing and Implementing Windows-based Applications with Microsoft Visual C# .NET and Microsoft Visual Studio .NET”, is a core requirement for the MCSD (Microsoft Certified Solution Developer) for Microsoft .NET certification and is a core or elective requirement for the MCAD (Microsoft Certified Application Developer) for Microsoft .NET certification. It is designed for candidates who “work on a team in a medium or large development environment that uses Microsoft Visual Studio .NET, Enterprise Developer Edition.”

The MCSD 70-316 exam measures your ability to develop and implement Windows-based applications by using Windows Forms and the Microsoft .NET Framework. Candidates have at least one year of experience developing Windows-based applications. Candidates should have a working knowledge of Microsoft Visual C# .NET.

MCSD 70-316 Exam Specifics

All the questions are Multiple Choice Questions and the total number of questions in the exam ranges from 55 to 60. The time allotted is 150-175 minutes. This exam is moderately difficult and costs 125 USD. It may be taken from Pearson Vue or Thomson Prometric. Previously, Microsoft used to provide only Pass/Fail status for the MCSD 70-316 exam, but now 700 is the minimum score required. Microsoft has also incorporated a new style of question where you get a split-screen. The question is at the very top, drag-and-drop items on the bottom left and configuration screens on the bottom right. You will have plenty of time to answer the exam questions, so there is no need to rush. If you have spare time available, you can double check the questions and ensure that you have read them correctly and actually answered the question as intended.

What you need to do to pass MCSD 70-316 exam?

First, you should get involved in overview of .NET framework and also identify the tools and services provided by .NET framework. After getting familiar with the tool and services available, you need to get well versed with the windows forms. To get started on Windows forms you can read the article available on MSDN. It'll give you a good introduction to Windows Forms.

.NET is completely object oriented. It is likely that you will see a question or two on OOP concepts. You need to get a through understanding of OOP Concepts like Encapsulation, Polymorphism, Exceptional Handling etc. Interoperability is an important area to focus on while preparing for MCSD 70-316 exam. Active X controls of the pre .NET age are not directly supported by Winforms but they are completely re-usable using wrapper classes. You will be asked a question or two on the accessibility features of Windows for the physically challenged users.

After getting familiar with user services, you should get familiar with how to create and manage components. This involves dealing with how to create and manipulate .NET assemblies. In this regard satellite assemblies seem to be one of the favorites of Microsoft for MCSD 70-316 Exam. So you may get some questions related to satellite assemblies and not to mention, resource assemblies also.

When it comes to manipulating data in .NET, there are two sources of data you would widely be dealing with - XML & Relational Databases. You will be using ADO.NET to interact with relational databases. A good grasp on ADO.NET is very essential for clearing this paper. MSDN provides you an article that gives you a good overview of ADO.NET.

I will also recommend Professional ADO.NET from Wrox Publications as a good resource. Professional C# also has a very good section on ADO.NET.

Another objective checked in the 70-316 exam mainly concentrates on your familiarity with the Visual Studio .NET debugger. You need to have a clear understanding of the tools provided by Visual Studio .NET for debugging the application. Apart from Visual Studio .NET this section largely stresses upon Tracing. Tracing is a feature by which you can write logs to a particular location (could be a text file). You can change the level of tracing you want to perform in a live production environment.

One of the advantages of using Visual Studio .NET is the ease of deploying an application. There are many deployment options available in .NET and you must have a clear understanding of using these deployment

There will be a few questions that stress more on optimizing code/deployment to increase performance.

Configuring a Windows application is also one of the areas that will be tested and you need to have an understanding about the configuration options available. MSDN provides an article that gives useful information about the configuration options.

Security is one of the key considerations of any application. Microsoft has taken a great initiative to give many options to secure the .NET application. You must ensure that you have a thorough understanding about the security policy and also about the tools available in .NET to secure the application.

Tips and Pitfalls for MCSD 70-316 Exam

Roadmaps to the skills development and career opportunities that the Microsoft .NET platform provides for developers and recommended learning pathways through Official Microsoft Learning Products and Microsoft Press books are available now. In addition to your hands-on experience working with the product, you may want to take advantage of the tools and training on the Get Started with Microsoft Visual Studio .NET Development page to help you prepare.

Dos and Don’ts during the exam and while preparing for it

Dynamic control creation is important to know. Microsoft is focusing more on user-driven content than static content with .NET. Make sure you understand how to create .NET satellite assemblies and localized components. A portion of this has to do with what operating system name and version you have, but there are specific steps you can take to package and deploy your application properly. Focus your data studies on what works optimally with SQL Server.

Brush up on stored procedures if you're a little rusty. Understand the different types of SQL Server authentication as well as the different types of authentication offered by Windows operating systems. Sure you can pick out code errors when given examples. Specifically, know how to resolve looping errors, import errors, and general syntax errors.

Make sure you understand Windows Installer technology and how it relates to applications written in Visual Studio .NET. If you're not a developer who's focused on enterprise-based applications, you may not have a lot of exposure to localization and globalization of software. This is one area where Microsoft believes a certified developer should have a significant background.

Make sure you understand how security works in .NET. Understand which accounts have privileges to run which sections of code. Although it may be a little bit of work, study the .NET policy extensions and how they fit into the operating systems your company is running. We must not forget legacy environments.

Make sure you brush up on ActiveX controls from Visual Studio 6.0. Know how to instantiate the control and work with it in the new environment. It is especially important to understand how legacy components interact with the .NET development environment.

Learn how to use the DataSet object to generate XML and vice versa. You should know how to create schemas and validate the data, as well as create strongly typed datasets. Overall, you are expected to have a thorough understanding of XML as in .NET to succeed in MCSD 70-316 exam.

Conclusion

With Microsoft targeting all its future applications on .NET and companies adopting the Microsoft new initiative, it is quite obvious that .NET is going to pave its way for the future and will be Microsoft’s weapon for its future vision. .NET is a major leap of Microsoft with intranet in mind. Getting knowledge of .NET and eventually the MCSD .NET certification will certainly help you in maintaining consistency with the future releases of Microsoft.

Useful Resources

Books

Following good books are available at the time of writing this document, which are written specifically from MCP exam point of view.

• MCAD/MCSD Self-Paced Training Kit: Developing Windows-Based Applications with Microsoft Visual Basic.NET and Microsoft Visual C#.NET, Second Edition by Matthew A. Stoecker/Microsoft
  

• MCAD/MCSD Training Guide (70-316): Developing and Implementing Windows-Based Applications with Visual C# and Visual Studio .NET by Amit Kalani
  

• MCAD/MCSD EXAM (70-316) QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS, WITH HANDS ON LABS, Developping WINDOWS APPLICATIONS WITH Visual C# [eBook: Adobe Reader] by Mike Wright
  

Other than these, following are some good books on the subject:

• Programming C#, Third Edition by Jesse Liberty
  

• Windows Forms Programming in C# by Chris Sells
  

• Professional C#, Second Edition by Simon Robinson, K. Scott Allen, Ollie Cornes, Jay Glynn, Zach Greenvoss, Burton Harvey, Christian Nagel, Morgan Skinner, Karli Watson
  

• Microsoft Visual C# .NET Language Reference by Microsoft Corporation
  

• Inside C#, Second Edition by Tom Archer, Andrew Whitechapel
  

• C# and the .NET Platform, Second Edition by Andrew Troelsen
  

When you are ready to prepare for MCSD 70-316 exam, here's where you should start.

Instructor-led Courses for this exam include:

• Course 2389: Programming with Microsoft ADO .NET
  

• Course 2555: Developing Microsoft .NET Applications for Windows (Visual C# .NET)
  

Microsoft Online Resources

• TechNet: Designed for IT professionals, this site includes How-to’s, best practices, downloads, technical chats, and much more.
  

• MSDN: The Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN) is a reference for developers, featuring code samples, technical articles, newsgroups, chats, and more.
  

• Training & Certification Newsgroups: A newsgroup exists for every Microsoft certification. By participating in the ongoing dialogue, you take advantage of a unique opportunity to exchange ideas with and ask questions of others, including more than 750 Microsoft Most Valuable Professionals (MVPs) worldwide.
  

Apart from that, there are other useful sites as follows:

• www.Gotdotnmet.com
  

• www.codeproject.com
  

• www.csharpcorner.com
  

• www.developer.com
  

• www.mcpmag.com
  

Of course - nothing can top the MSDN site for technical content - it is a very comprehensive resource - however, it’s a bit too comprehensive, as it caters to a larger set of developers than just the ones developing applications on C#/Windows.

Exam Simulators

Whizlabs, the market leader in IT Certification Exam Preparation, provides MCSD .NET 70-316 Exam Simulator. The simulator is quite useful and effective in fine-tuning your preparation within a limited timeframe.

Certification Forums

Certification forums are a very good resource to align you preparation with your peers. You can discuss any insight, problem, or issue with like-minded professionals and keep yourself updated all the time through the forum. Whizlabs MCSD .NET Certification Forum facilitates such a platform for you to succeed in the 70-316 exam and enhance your learning experience.

*First Published at Whizlabs’ site.

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