I took and passed the exam today after five weeks of exam specific study. In the last week of January, I completed the 20489B exam at MAX Technical Training. It was a weeklong course taught by MVP Mike Smith and was an excellent course that mapped very well to what was actually covered in the exam. There were, however, a few holes as there always are. The major benefit that I got out of the course were the virtual labs. I was able to use them for review and experimentation throughout the month and I plan to reuse the VMs to assist with taking the 70-488 at the end of March. My motivation for taking the Advanced Solutions before the Core Solutions was based strictly on the fact that work was willing to pay for the 20489B course.

The exam itself was the hardest Microsoft certification exam that I have every taken...