In the spirit of continuous professional development and in pursuit of an MCSD, I recently wrote and passed the Developing ASP.NET MVC Web Applications Exam (Exam 70-486).

Preparation

Like the previous exam (40-483), I read through one of the MS prescribed books for the exam: Exam Ref 70-484: Developing ASP.NET MVC Web Applications book (by William Penberthy).

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I also watched a few of the videos on Pluralsight - do this if you can - especially the security module. It was a great help to brush up on some of the lesser day-to-day used concepts and technologies. I was very selective as to which videos I watched as the total time for all the videos listed is over 60 hours. I did watch most of the first course: Building Applications with ASP.NET MVC 4 and in hind sight, I would also recommend watching at least the introductory Azure courses, I’ll probably focus on those for 70-487.

  Course Duration
  Building Applications with ASP.NET MVC 4 7h 22m
  ASP.NET MVC 5 Fundamentals 7h 22m
  Web Security and the OWASP Top 10: The Big Picture 2h 03m
  OWASP Top 10 Web Application Security Risks for ASP.NET 8h 06m
  What’s New in the OWASP Top 10 for 2013 1h 34m
  Mobile First Responsive Web Design 2h 57m
  HTML5 Advanced Topics 2h 45m
  ASP.NET Bundling, Minification & Resource Optimization 4h 22m
  ASP.NET 3.5 Advanced Topics 6h 00m
  Extending IIS 7.5 with Modules and Handlers 2h 47m
  Search Engine Optimization with ASP.NET 1h 05m
  Introduction to Windows Azure 2h 25m
  Windows Azure Web Sites 1h 35m
  Windows Azure Access Control Service 2h 10m
  Windows Azure Diagnostics 3h 18m
  IntelliTrace 5h 30m
  Total 60h 20m

Exam content distribution

This time round - I learned much more than the previous C# exam. The MVC framework is huge and IIS as well as Azure and the surrounding technologies were very interesting. In the book I especially enjoyed the ability of the author to sketch practical scenario’s and provide relevant applications of the technologies. In addition he was able to clarifying when a certain option is better, even though both options would work.

  • Design the Application Architecture (20%-25%)
  • Design the User Experience (15%-20%)
  • Develop the User Experience (20%-25%)
  • Troubleshoot and Debug Web Applications (20%-25%)
  • Design and Implement Security (20%-25%)

For more detailed information on exam content see this blog post by Leann Turpin

Now for: Exam Ref 70-487: Developing Windows Azure and Web Services

Moral:

So what can we take from Phil’s infinite wisdom?

  • “The most amazing things that can happen to a human being will happen to you, if you just lower your expectations.” — Phil Dunphy [Phil’s-osophy]

    Whahahahaha, I can’t add anything to this one!