MCDBA (SQL Server 2000) exams still available ?

Can anybody answer :
Are MCDBA (SQL Server 2000) exams still available today ?
Is it worth going for this exam today, in spite of the fact SQL Server 2005 has been released ?Of course the credentials are still good and will be available for awhile. You can find more information on the microsoft site.|||even if they were, why bother? mainline support for 2K ends next April and I suspect the credentials go dead soon as well. it's like you can still get a job doing VB6 but it is not likely going to be a good or exciting job.|||mainline support for 2K ends next April

not that I care, but I was under the impression that MS support for each major release of SQL Server goes for 10 years. apparently that's not the case?|||i am pretty sure that extended support begins next April, but mainline support ends and I believe extended support comes at a cost.|||not that I care, but I was under the impression that MS support for each major release of SQL Server goes for 10 years. apparently that's not the case?

depends on your definition of "support".

Mainstream support will end April 2008. I believe that you are right that "extended support" will continue for another 5 years beyond that point. I believe that it means there will be no more patches, no more hotfixes (at least none that are for general release) after April 2008, but MS will take your money and answer your calls and maintain links to existing downloads on their site. There's an MS web site somewhere that details what the phases of support are and what they consist of and how long each lasts. I don't have that google magic tonight.

...sigh...it's been a long week and a long day.

Regards,

hmscott|||Hotfixes are NOT for general relese, and I'm so bored with the Microsoft Courseware when it comes to terminology:

Description of the standard terminology that is used to describe Microsoft software updates (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/824684/en-us)|||even if they were, why bother? mainline support for 2K ends next April and I suspect the credentials go dead soon as well. it's like you can still get a job doing VB6 but it is not likely going to be a good or exciting job.
Well, in my opinion the 2000 certs have something I miss from 2005, and visa versa. I'd actually like DBAs to have both.

The 2005 certs (MCITP) are really great as they cover a lot of design issues, as well as a requirement for broad knowledge (MCTS) of the product. However, the MCITPs (and especially Database Administrator) does not test certain skills which should be mandatory, as general troubleshooting of server, network, directory service etc. This skills should be mandatory, and tested. In 2000 they were, at least to a point.

I certainly hope that Microsoft takes the best from both the 2000 and the 2005 track when they start developing the certification track for Katmai|||Well, in my opinion the 2000 certs have something I miss from 2005, and visa versa. I'd actually like DBAs to have both.

good thing I'm not a DBA. I have neither! :)|||Hotfixes are NOT for general relese, and I'm so bored with the Microsoft Courseware when it comes to terminology:

Description of the standard terminology that is used to describe Microsoft software updates (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/824684/en-us)

Then M$ is not very good at following it's own terminology:

Cumulative hotfix package (build 2153) for SQL Server 2005 is available (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/918222)

:D

But what else is new...?

Regards,

hmscott|||Well, in my opinion the 2000 certs have something I miss from 2005, and visa versa. I'd actually like DBAs to have both.

I have met DB professionals with both or one or the other I would not hire or let near my DB servers. Last year I had this 22 or 23 year old kid in support and I swear all he did was spend a month on Braindumps per exam and boom he was certified. No sweat. Repitition and regurgatation. Doesn't make him a good dba. I think he got a 900 or close to it on both exams.|||I have met DB professionals with both or one or the other I would not hire or let near my DB servers. Last year I had this 22 or 23 year old kid in support and I swear all he did was spend a month on Braindumps per exam and boom he was certified. No sweat. Repitition and regurgatation. Doesn't make him a good dba. I think he got a 900 or close to it on both exams.

Conversely, I have met individuals with no certifications whatsoever who could run rings around me (or just about anyone else).

Formal education/certification is a means to an end (competence and skill) and not an end in and of itself.

Regards,

hmscott

May I have my attributes discretized based on my own expression?

Hi, all here.

I am just having one question about discretization of continous attributes values. Cos the current discretization methods available in SQL Server 2005 data mining engine are these 3 ones:

.......................................................................................

automatic;

equal areas;

clusters.

..........................................................................................

So how these 3 methods work respectively? I mean like clusters method, how dose it discretize the continous values?

More importantly, can we have a discretization based on our own expression? like when i have one column with values ranging from 1 to 10, may we discretize this column based on expression like: 1-3,4-6,7-10?

Thanks a lot for any guidance.

User-defined ranges are not supported.

Here are descriptions of the supported discretization methods:

· Clusters: This finds buckets by performing single-dimensional clustering on the input values using the K-Means algorithm. It uses Gaussian distributions.

· EqualAreas: This examines the distribution of values across the population and creates bucket ranges such that that the total population is distributed equally across the buckets. In other words, if the distribution of continuous values were plotted as a curve, the areas under the curve covered by each bucket range would be equal. This is useful when there are a large number of duplicate values.

· Automatic: If this is selected, we try obtaining the requested number of buckets by applying the above discretization methods in the following order: Clusters, EqualAreas. We use the first method that gets closest to the number of requested buckets.

The Clusters method use random sampling (with a sample size of 1000) so EqualAreas may be used in situations where sampling is not desirable.

|||Hi, Thanks a lot.|||

However, you can always add a calculated column to do your own discretization. For example you can add a column "AgeDisc" with the expression

CASE WHEN [Age]<20 THEN 'Under 20'
WHEN [Age] <= 30 THEN 'Between 20 and 30'
ELSE 'Over 30'
END

Of course, you will have to map any input data to these values for predictions.

|||Jamie, thanks a lot. Very helpful.