Microsoft 70-467 Designing Business Intelligence Solutions with Microsoft SQL Server

I have taken the Microsoft 70-467 exam recently and here is my experience and advise on it.

This exam is intended for business intelligence (BI) architects, who are responsible for the overall design of a BI infrastructure and how it relates to other data systems in use.

There were 45 questions in total in the exam. This comprised of two Case studies, one in the very beginning and one at the last.

Most of the questions are scenario based and will ask you to propose the best performance solution to an architecture problem.

The total time for the actual exam is 150 mins and 30 more mins including survey and feedback.

My advise for preparation.

1)The MVA for 70-467 exam is a must-watch. It gives a lot of useful information from an exam perspective. And I would go ahead and suggest all the upcoming Solution architects to watch it as well. It gives a lot of ideas and tips to design an overall datawarehouse solution. Here is the link.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3FcYzgvQ0Y&list=PLGE8wiXP2glNFYuFpbnJV5W34qahYhtZU

2) Do go through the preparation links given on the Microsoft site for this exam.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/learning/exam-70-467.aspx

3) Some topics to focus on -
SSIS

• SSIS Deployment method - Project deployment and Package deployment
• SSIS Package configuration options - XML, SQL Server, environment variable etc
• Slowly Changing Dimensions
• Package Monitoring - catalog database
• SSIS logging - Performance, Verbose, Basic etc
• Data profiler

SSRS

• subscriptions
• report parts
• SSRS report credentials - stored credentials
• parameters and filters
• SSRS predefined roles

SSAS

• Partitions and Storage
• Aggregation Design Wizard
• Usage Based optimization
• Remote partitions
• Partition binding techniques (Table/Query)
• Process options( Process Full/Default etc)
• Partition switching
• SSAS Dimensions relationships( Referenced, Many to Many, Fact etc)
• SSAS measure group
• SSAS Multidimensional Vs Tabular
• Proactive caching
• MOLAP/ROLAP/HOLAP - low latency , medium latency)
• SSAS User access
• Creating Roles
• Cube synchronization
• KPI

Miscellaneous

• Datawarehouse concepts - junk dimension, many to many, views
• Clustered, Non-clustered, columnstore indexes
• Database backups
• Database compression
• Nodes failover, AlwaysOn

Taking the certification helped me gain a lot of knowledge surrounding the Datawarehouse architectural concepts. This certification would definitely help me get ahead in my career as a Solution architect.

Wishing you too 'All the best' if you decide to take this exam!