SQL Server Certs Begin Their Turnover for 2016

It's been a busy year for Microsoft, and an even busier summer. With the release of SQL Server 2016 on the first day of June, and the debut of Windows Server 2016 itself scheduled for the Ignite conference at the end of September, much of the infrastructure on which the company's certification programs rest is changing.

And as we all know, new software means new certification exams and/or exam coverage to match. For SQL Server 2016, available for three months already, those changes are already underway for MCSA: SQL 2016.

Each of the three tracks for this credential requires taking two exams. For each track, one exam in the pair is already in beta test (as of late August), with the other in development and expected to go into beta before the end of October. Here's a snapshot, as of September 8:

MCSA: SQL 2016 Database Development
Exam 1 70-761 Querying Data with Transact-SQL (Status: In Development)
Exam 2 70-762 Developing SQL Databases (Status: Beta test, as of 8/26/2016)

MCSA: SQL 2016 Database Administration
Exam 1 70-764 Administering a SQL Database Infrastructure (Status: In Development)
Exam 2 70-765 Provisioning SQL Databases (Status: Best test, as of 8/26/2016)

MCSA: SQL 2016 Business Intelligence Development
Exam 1 70-767 Implementing a SQL Data Warehouse (Status: In Development)
Exam 2 70-768 Developing SQL Data Models (Status: Beta test, as of 8/26/2016)

Related courses from Microsoft, including both on-demand (online) and instructor-led classroom training variants, are already available for all of these topics.

This naturally begs the question: "What's up with the MCSE credentials for SQL Server 2016?" A quick look at the two current flavors — namely MCSE: Data Platform and MCSE: Business Intelligence) — shows that the 2016 stuff has yet to appear on these cert pages.

I launched a query to Larry Kaye, Senior Business Strategy Manager for Certification at MS, to see what I could find out. And while he's not yet ready to share details, he informed me that the coverage and content for these credentials would be updated in the next month or so. (I have taken that to mean: sometime in September or October.)

As soon as I get more word on what's going on here, I'll report further. Nevertheless, I expect the exams that go beyond the MCSA requirement (2 each for the two current flavors of MCSE that touch on SQL Server) to get makeovers during this process, just as the MCSA items snapshotted above did.

Stay tuned for further details!