Attend TechEd this year and you could leave it with the new MCSE Private Cloud certification without having to pay for exams.
Microsoft is offering a raft of free and discounted exams to attendees at TechEd North America, taking place in Orlando June 11-14 and at TechEd Europe in Amsterdam June 26-29.
Two of free exams are among those required for the recently announced Microsoft Certification Solutions Expert for the Private Cloud (MCSE: Private Cloud):
Exam 70-246 | Monitoring and Operating a Private Cloud with System Center 2012
Exam 70-247 | Configuring and Deploying a Private Cloud with System Center 2012
and the claim made in the video below is that TechEd delegates how choose to do so will be able to leave TechEd having completed this new certification, a total of five exams, all for free.
The other free exams at TechEd 2012 are in beta, which means no scores at the time but they will count once the exams go live. They are:
Exam 71-410 | Installing and Configuring Windows Server 2012 - a pre-requisite for MCSE
Exam 71-687 | Configuring Windows 8 -the first exam towards Microsoft Certified Solutions Associate (MCSA)
Exam 71-480 | Programming in HTML5 with JavaScript and CSS3 - which counts towards the new MCSD: Windows Metro Style Apps certification
Referring to the free exams, Shelby Grieve, Director, Microsoft Learning says:
This is a really good opportunity, there's really no reason not to go try
It's not just the exams that are free. There's also free help with preparation, starting in Amsterdam with a free pre-conference session from Shelby, Certification 101.
The conference will have an on-site Study hall, MCT ambassadors to answer question and provide help and exam crams and practice tests taking place within normal sessions. The advice is to pre-register for the exams as seats are limited and then plan your study sessions around the other sessions you want to attend.
There are also 30% discounts on another eight exams:
Exam 70-243 | Administering and Deploying System Center 2012 Configuration Manager
Exam 70-400 | Microsoft System Center Operations Manager 2007, Configuring
Exam 70-461 | Querying Microsoft SQL Server 2012
Exam 70-583 | Designing and Developing Windows Azure Applications
Exam 70-640 | Windows Server 2008 Active Directory, Configuring
Exam 70-642 | Windows Server 2008 Network Infrastructure, Configuring
Exam 70-646 | Windows Server 2008, Server Administrator
Exam 70-659 | Windows Server 2008 R2, Server Virtualization
The focus of the video is TechEd Europe, since TechEd North America is already sold out, but there are even more exam discounts to be had in Orlando - 50% off two Microsoft Certified Master Exams:
Exam 88-970 | SQL Server 2008 Microsoft Certified Master: Knowledge Exam
Exam 88-974 | Microsoft Certified Master: Exchange Server 2010, Knowledge Exam
Providing certification opportunities within TechEd seems like a good move to increase the popularity of both the event and the certification programs - the the video is certainly trying to encourage anyone who has missed the chance of gaining the Private Cloud MCSE at TechEd in Orlando to consider a trip to Amsterdam next month to do so.
One of the smaller items of news from Google IO is that there are now three new Android Geo APIs that will make it easier to build location and activity information into apps.
