Linux Foundation Exams and Arcane Linux Spells

I recently purchased a "Super Bundle" of exams from the Linux Foundation Training Team to brush up on my Linux skills, get trained up on geek pronunciation of terminology and practice arcane Linux spells. 

I'm a tech history geek, and I am interested in the history behind old hardware, and where the commands in shells like Bash and DOS originate.  As I started to take the course, it raised more questions than answers.

Why are we talking about print queues, job queues, and floppy mounts in 2020?  Did I just push a job in the background on a Linux command shell using nohup in 2020?  What do I do with all these old ribbon cables from the 80s and 90s in my basement? How do I make music with my $150 5 1/4" floppy drives?

How are people still managing mainframes?  How are /tmp and pagefile.sys different? Why did copying an ISO file to my /tmp folder fill up my RAM?  What commands and practices live for backwards compatibility or due to tech-religious fanaticism?   Can I contact the ISS using my Linux PC and a Yagi antenna?

Who are the founders of the tools we use every day, and are they still alive, doing code reviews or writing wiki or man pages?

I also have a general interest in languages, and how different people pronounce the terminology.  Do you mount /usr and /tmp on their own separate devices or partitions?  Do you call usr "user" or u-s-r?  Is sudo pronounced s-u do or soodough?  Lib(rary) or Lihb?  Have I been pronouncing sudo wrong all these years?  /lib is not pronounced like lib'by's beans? Don't get me started on GIF and JIF....


The LFS201 and LFS2011 courses provides training for the Linux Certified System Administration, Linux Foundation Certified System Engineer exams.  The details and course outlines are on the web site.  The Essentials of Linux System Administration course is taught by Jerry Cooperstein, Training Program Director of the Linux Foundation.  There's an Intro to Linux course on edX to get started before purchasing the LFS courses.

In parallel with the LFS training, I am following the Kubernetes path the hard way, pending changes in the space which may transform Kubernetes into something quite different than today's platform and ecosystem of apps. 

I have less confidence that the tools I use and learn on today for k8s (or k3s if you're local, or k9s if you're cool) will be the tools I use next year.  If you're learning software by using a course called Kubernetes "The Hard Way" (by Kelsey Hightower, I'm a big fan) you're probably interested in burning out some brain voxels too.

Every few weeks we are upgrading Kubernetes clusters, and, like the cloud, with such rapid change materials and what you know can quickly turn stale. 

The LFS258 course provides training for the Kubernetes Fundamentals Exam.
The LFD259 course provides training towards the Certified Kubernetes Application Developer exam.

Linux is just going to get bigger and convergence, with Windows and WSL spreading adoption.  Do you know you may have a full-blown Linux distribution under your Windows 10 PC? 

The Wall of Death, The Wall of Wonder, Kanban

The Wall Of Death at Atlassian (9 years ago)
http://fishbowl.pastiche.org/2005/09/28/the_wall_of_death/

Kanban Explained
http://kanbanblog.com/explained/

1. Identify Queues or Delivery Phases
2. Focus on a Limited Number of Tasks
3. Prioritize tasks
4. Get Things Done

Lucy needs Kanban?
http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=lucy+factory&FORM=HDRSC3#view=detail&mid=69549FB9A3C866BD1ADA69549FB9A3C866BD1ADA

20 Productive Ways to Use Your Free Time - lifehack.org

 

Everyone works differently, so the best use of your free time really depends on you, your working style, and what’s on your to-do list. But it’s handy to have a list like this in order to quickly find a way to put that little spare time to work instantly, without any thought. Use the following list as a way to spark ideas for what you can do in a short amount of time.

Source: 20 Productive Ways to Use Your Free Time - lifehack.org

Free e-learning

SQL Server 2005

After offering free delta courses Microsoft now offers a whole bunch of free E-Learning courses, which will enable you to pass the Exam 70-445 for the Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist (MCTS) SQL Server 2005 Business Intelligence.

You will find the complete Course Catalog at www.microsoftelearning.com

There are also some other resources for free at the moment at a subsite from Microsoft SQL Server 2005 – Learning Portal they called Dig Deep. Especially the free e-book Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Administrator's Pocket Consultant is a very useful resource and worth reading.

Sharepoint Technology

There is another bunch of free E-Learning courses for the Sharepoint Technology, which can be found here.

Visual Studio 2005 and .Net 3.0

And as expected developers are not left alone and there are also free E-Learning courses and a Dig Deep available for Visual Studio 2005 and .Net 3.0.

Practice Test - 70-445

 

Self Test Practice Test is the tool you need to pass the test. Our realistic questions and detailed explanations help you figure out what you know and gives you the answers to what you don't. With the flexibility to use our test in both Learning or Certification mode, you'll have everything you need to get the job done right.

• Certification Test Simulation Download Practice Test Demo
• 139 Practice Test Questions
• 209 Flash Cards
• CD purchase includes instant download
• Get it on CD for only $12 shipping (U.S. addresses)

Peter Koller's BI blog - Exams 70-445 & 70-446

 

70-445 TS: Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Business Intelligence - Implementation and Maintenance

General

• A lot of arranging tasks in the right order to achieve some goal (like adding a user group with specific rights to SSRS)
• Other than that, standard multiple choice questions and some "select all that apply" variants
• No cases, only specific questions

Topics Remembered (I have goldfish memory)

Reporting Services

• Formatting report items
• Handling reporting services security
• Subscriptions (especially data driven ones)
• Linked Reports
• Drilldown reports both for matrix and table items
• Deployment (deploy to a remote server, deployment manifest etc.)
• Groupings and subtotals (ie. sum())
• Filters
• Setting up parameters in various ways
• Moving a RS installation (including encryption keys. ouch)
• Report Models for Report Builder (I think I only got one question on Report Builder and that was it)
• External code (i got a question on the syntax of calling a function in an assembly)

SSIS

• DTUtil.exe and its various parameters
• Transactions in SSIS (surprisingly many questions on this)
• Precedence constraints (nothing fancy, just AND-OR stuff)
• Generally handle the flow in the dataflow to achieve some objective
• Setting up logging (what events etc.)
• Package configurations
• Running packages through SQL Server agent (how to set values in configurations etc)
• How to configure package checkpoints (a couple of questions on this, pretty detailed ie. what properties to set where etc.)
• Debugging (Where / how to set up various viewers)

SSAS

• Some simple MDX
• Some (probably) simple DMX
• Fact / Dimension relationships (Many-to-Many, Reference etc.)
• Attribute relationships (Defining them, troubleshooting errenous relationships)
• MDX definitions of the various components of KPIs (ie set up trend indicator by using PrevPeriod etc)
• Various properties of dimension attributes such as HIdeMemberIf etc.
• Datasource Views, named quieries and computed columns
• Data Security (Cell and dimension)
• Security (Setting up various roles, integrating with AD etc.)
• Processing options for the UDM
• Processing options for Data Mining
• Installation issues (clustering, instances)
• Parent-Child hierarchies
• Logging (Where, what, how)
• Generating SSAS metadata for backup and recovery
• Storage modes (MOLAP, HOLAP, ROLAP) in various scenarios
• Aggregation design
• Actions (I got a question on selecting where to define the action)
• Creating calculated members (oddly, I only got one question on this)
• All kinds of data mining stuff (I need to read up on this, I was pretty blank)

Database Engine topics

• Mostly locking issues and the avoidance thereof
• Partitioning (how to set up)

PRO: Designing a Business Intelligence Infrastructure by Using Microsoft SQL Server 2005

Unfortunatly I am quite a bit more scetchy on this one, it was the first one I took today.

General

• All questions are related to cases (like in the other SQL Server 2005 PRO exams). I feel the cases were a bit more complicated than in the other exams for SQL Server 2005.
• No simulations, only multiple choice and "choose all that apply"

Topics Remembered

General datawarehouse / mart design

• Designing various permutations of star-schemas (ie. add a dimension table and relate it to the fact table etc.)
• When to use surrogate keys (Apparantly Microsofts answer is to only use surrogate keys in SCD2 scenarios)
• Partitioning of load tables
• Staging areas and how they can be useful
• SCD design in dimension tables

SSAS design

• A lot of choose between various ways to retrieve data to the DSV type questions (views, named queries etc.)
• Unknown dmiension member handling both when processing and in dimension design
• Setting up roles to restrict data access to users in various ways
• Lazy Aggregations property
• Choose between various storage modes / proactive caching alternatives to achieve some goal
• All kinds of datamining topics that i more or less guessed on

SSRS design

• Various ways to create RDL (BIDS, Report Builder, Custom application)
• Choose betwwen various ways to handle drilldown (subreports, hiding groups etc.)
• Report snapshots
• Choose where to put code (in-line or external assembly)
• Choose between various maintenance strategies

SSIS design

• Quite a few SCD2 scenarios
• Functionality of Merge, Merge Join, Left Join components
• Data flow error handling (set up a lookup transformation not fail on no match errors etc.)

All in all, the preparation guides from Microsoft for 70-445 and 70-446 do a good job at describing the topics covered in the exams. Reading about each topic in BOL should provide you with sufficient knowledge to pass both exams if you have some experience with implementing BI solutions on SQL Server 2005 and some basic datawarehousing theory background.

Source: Peter Koller's BI blog

Jump Start Your Career

 

To help you achieve your certification goals, Microsoft Canada is pleased to offer you a certification study kit. Six different kits were created based on popular demand. Each kit relates to a specific certification and contains the associated Microsoft Press Book along with other resource materials. We hope these give you the additional motivation to take that exam you’ve been meaning to get. The rest is up to you!

Source: Jump Start Your Career