Dale Rainwater Consulting
MCP:  Solution Architectures

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Description

A Microsoft Certified Professional (MCP) in Solution Requirements and Architectures has the ability to design and implement distributed or enterprise application solutions using various Microsoft technologies including Windows NT Server and Visual Basic 6.0 and is required to successfully complete Microsoft Exam 70-100, Analyzing Requirements and Defining Solution Architectures.  The exam objectives are listed below.

The Microsoft Certified Solution Developer (MCSD) certification track for Visual Basic 6.0 requires completion of four Microsoft Certified Professional (MCP) exams comprised of three core exams and one elective exam.  The Analyzing Requirements and Defining Solution Architectures Exam 70-100 is a core exam.

Currently, target markets of Dale Rainwater Consulting are the geographical regions of New York City, NY and Northwest Arkansas.

Exam Content / Objectives

(Note: Click blue diamonds below for details, not all diamonds have details)

 

Analyzing Requirements and Defining Solution Architectures

 

Analyzing Business Requirements

 
bulletAnalyze the scope of a project. Considerations include existing applications; anticipated changes in environment; expected lifetime of solution; and time, cost, budget, and benefit trade offs.
bulletAnalyze the extent of a business requirement.
bulletEstablish business requirements.
bulletEstablish type of problem, such as messaging problem or communication problem.
bulletEstablish and define customer quality requirements.
bulletMinimize Total Cost of Ownership (TCO).
bulletIncrease Return on Investment (ROI) of solution.
bulletAnalyze current platform and infrastructure.
bulletIncorporate planned platform and infrastructure into solution.
bulletAnalyze impact of technology migration.
bulletPlan physical requirements, such as infrastructure.
bulletEstablish application environment, such as hardware platform, support, and operating system.
bulletIdentify organizational constraints, such as financial situation, company politics, technical acceptance level, and training needs.
bulletEstablish schedule for implementation of solution.
bulletIdentify audience.
bulletAnalyze security requirements.
bulletIdentify roles of administrator, groups, guests, and clients.
bulletIdentify impact on existing environment.
bulletEstablish fault tolerance.
bulletPlan for maintainability.
bulletPlan distribution of security database.
bulletEstablish security context.
bulletPlan for auditing.
bulletIdentify level of security needed.
bulletAnalyze existing mechanisms for security policies.
bulletAnalyze performance requirements. Considerations include transactions per time slice, bandwidth, capacity, interoperability with existing standards, peak versus average requirements, response-time expectations, existing response-time characteristics, and barriers to performance.
bulletAnalyze maintainability requirements. Considerations include breadth of application distribution, method of distribution, maintenance expectations, location and knowledge level of maintenance staff, and impact of third-party maintenance agreements.
bulletAnalyze extensibility requirements. Solution must be able to handle the growth of functionality.
bulletAnalyze availability requirements. Considerations include hours of operation, level of availability, geographic scope, and impact of downtime.
bulletAnalyze human factors requirements. Considerations include target users, localization, accessibility, roaming users, Help, training requirements, physical environment constraints, and special needs.
bulletAnalyze the requirements for integrating a solution with existing applications. Considerations include legacy applications, format and location of existing data, connectivity to existing applications, data conversion, and data enhancement requirements.
bulletAnalyze existing methodologies and limitations of a business. Considerations include legal issues, current business practices, organization structure, process engineering, budget, implementation and training methodologies, quality control requirements, and customer's needs.
bulletAnalyze scalability requirements. Considerations include growth of audience, growth of organization, growth of data, and cycle of use.

 

Defining the Technical Architecture for a Solution

 
bulletGiven a business scenario, identify which solution type is appropriate. Solution types are single-tier, two-tier, and n-tier.
bulletIdentify which technologies are appropriate for implementation of a given business solution. Considerations include technology standards such as EDI, Internet, OSI, COMTI and POSIX; proprietary technologies; technology environment of the company, both current and planned; selection of development tools; and type of solution, such as enterprise, distributed, centralized, and collaborative.
bulletChoose a data storage architecture. Considerations include volume, number of transactions per time increment, number of connections or sessions, scope of business requirements, extensibility requirements, reporting requirements, number of users, and type of database.
bulletTest the feasibility of a proposed technical architecture.
bulletDemonstrate that business requirements are met.
bulletDemonstrate that use case scenarios are met.
bulletDemonstrate that existing technology constraints are met.
bulletAssess impact of shortfalls in meeting requirements.
bulletDevelop appropriate deployment strategy.

 

Developing the Conceptual and Logical Design for an Application

 
bulletConstruct a conceptual design that is based on a variety of scenarios and that includes context, workflow process, task sequence, and physical environment models. Types of applications include SDI, MDI, console, and dialog desktop applications; two-tier, client/server, and Web applications; n-tier applications; and collaborative applications.
bulletGiven a conceptual design, apply the principles of modular design to derive the components and services of the logical design.
bulletIncorporate business rules into object design.
bulletAssess the potential impact of the logical design on performance, maintainability, extensibility, scalability, availability, and security.

 

Developing Data Models

 
bulletGroup data into entities by applying normalization rules.
bulletSpecify the relationships between entities.
bulletChoose the foreign key that will enforce a relationship between entities and will ensure referential integrity.
bulletIdentify the business rules that relate to data integrity.
bulletIncorporate business rules and constraints into the data model.
bulletIdentify appropriate level of denormalization.
bulletDevelop a database that uses general database development standards and guidelines.

 

Designing a User Interface and User Services

 
bulletGiven a solution, identify the navigation for the user interface.
bulletIdentify input validation procedures that should be integrated into the user interface.
bulletEvaluate methods of providing online user assistance, such as status bars, ToolTips, and Help files.
bulletConstruct a prototype user interface that is based on business requirements, user interface guidelines, and the organization's standards.
bulletEstablish appropriate and consistent use of menu-based controls.
bulletEstablish appropriate shortcut keys (accelerated keys).
bulletEstablish appropriate type of output.

 

Deriving the Physical Design

 
bulletAssess the potential impact of the physical design on performance, maintainability, extensibility, scalability, availability, and security.
bulletEvaluate whether access to a database should be encapsulated in an object.
bulletDesign the properties, methods, and events of components.

 

 

 

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