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Hey guys. Welcome to my channel. My name is Paul Lamine. I eat this apple.
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Whatever you choose to go is fine with me.
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And today, we're going to talk about how I studied for and passed the CompTIA Server+.
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If you're looking to pass the CompTIA Server+, then this video might
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just be for you. So make sure you stick around.
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If you do like the video, make sure you
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hit the thumbs-up button. If you do want to see awesome videos like this
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all the time, make sure you hit the subscribe button and turn on your
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notifications so you don't miss anything.
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This channel is about breaking stuff. It's about fixing stuff.
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It's about failing and then figuring out why we fail and then
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trying to get past that. It's about anything and everything that has to do
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with tech and IT, like someone like me that's trying to go up the IT ladder.
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So make sure you hit the subscribe
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button if you want to see someone struggle to go up the IT ladder.
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So definitely hit the subscribe button, turn on your notifications so you
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don't miss a thing. With that being said,
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let's go ahead. Let's get started. Let's talk about this bad boy.
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[Music].
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Okay, guys. So the first thing we're going to talk about, as always, is
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the book that I use for the Server+.
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So this is the book that I used to study for the Server+.
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I will include the link in the description box below for this so
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you guys that do want to buy it.
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It's a pretty good book, as always. I love
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books that go according to the exam objectives,
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and this one was no different.
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Fun fact: while I was studying for this,
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I was actually sick. So, like, while I was sick,
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I would pick up my book when I felt a little bit better, and I'm like, "Oh."
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I'm just going through it. The struggle is real, but we got to get these
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certificates no matter what. Right? So yeah.
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But anyways, this is the book that I used to study for the certificate.
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I did take the SK004. There's the SK005 out now.
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I'm going to talk about that a little bit during the video when we talk about
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the website and different other components that I use or different other
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things that I used to study for the exam.
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But I did study--I used--I studied for the SK004, not the SK005. Something to keep in mind.
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I think that version is going to be retired in December of this year, so that's
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something to keep in mind. But this is the book that I used
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for the exam. It's a pretty good book. It's a pretty nice book.
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It is pretty well put together. It's right according to the exam objectives.
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There were some mistakes, and I'm--I'm not--
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my first language is not English.
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So I was able to tell there is a mistake in the book itself.
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So that's something that I had to look past because there's not much
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material for the SK004. That was a struggle for me, trying to find material
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for the SK004, trying to find good books for the SK004.
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And this was the only one that I could find that had a really good review
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that goes exactly according to the exam objectives.
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Because when I normally buy them, I go to
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Amazon and I look inside--kind of like the preview
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feature of it--and try to see, hey, this goes according to the exam objectives.
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And it does a pretty good job at going according to the exam objectives.
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And it was a really good book.
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It was a really--it was an easy read for me because I'm quite familiar
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with servers. But one of the things that
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I wanted to make very clear--or one of the
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things that I want to make very clear--is that the whole certificate itself
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is not so much focused on services. It's not so much focused on
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understanding, like, the internal--well, not so much internal--like
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the service part of the server. Like, hey,
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what does a DNS do? Hey, what does a DHCP do?
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Hey, how do you set up and configure group policy to do specific things?
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Or an example of trying to do something with group policy or trying to
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use different services on the server? It talks about them a little bit.
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It gets you to understand different
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parts of, like, server management and tries
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to understand what those services are capable of.
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But it doesn't go into detail about, like, hey,
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this is DNS, and this is like the nitty-gritty that you need to know
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about DNS. It's kind of like top--very top level--hey, this is what it does.
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Let's go back to server hardware.
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Alright? So it's very focused on server hardware. It's very focused on
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getting you to understand the way servers are
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internally, how to take them apart, how to
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put them together, what are some of the
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things that you have to look for, what really makes
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a server work in terms of, like, hey, you turn it on, it's on, but what
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really goes on before it turns on? That kind of thing. So it touches
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base on a lot of the physical parts of a server, but not so much like
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the technical part. Let's just say that the technical part of
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understanding the services in the server--
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it doesn't touch--it doesn't go into that much detail about it. But anyway,
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this is the book that I use. Great book, easy read. For those of you
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guys that are already familiar with servers, this is going to be a breeze.
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It's just going to talk about--for those of you guys that played around with
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servers a lot--it's going to talk about
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different components. It's going to
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talk about different things. Even when I was taking the test,
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I was going through the test and I'm like, oh, okay. Well, I know that. Oh,
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yeah. Yeah. Of course, I know that. Because I've played around with--
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I've played around with servers a lot. I have a server here.
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I have servers on-prem at my job.
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I know that everything is moving to the cloud right now, and that's the case
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from even my job itself. But the ability to be
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able to understand how a server works in case you want to work for,
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like, a data center, that's very vital.
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So for those of you that work at a data center--
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those of you guys that have to kind of play around with servers--
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because people now always talk about how
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everything is moving to the cloud. But the truth of the matter is somebody,
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somewhere, somehow, some technician is playing
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around with their servers--playing around with the servers
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that provide the cloud for everybody else. Right?
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So if that's the route that you want to go and
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you want to walk in a data center, this certificate is a great certificate
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to have because it teaches you a lot
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about understanding the components that you need to understand for
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managing a server that allows you to manage your server a lot better.
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But anyway, that's the book that I use for it. So now let's go ahead and talk
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about some of the other materials that I used to study for Server+.
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Okay, guys. So let's take a detailed look at the exam itself, some of the other
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materials that I used besides the book.
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We're going to talk about the book again a little bit here.
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But let's go ahead and dive into the whole thing and see some
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of the materials that I used--some of the other materials that I used
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to study for the exam other than the book.
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So the first thing we're going to look at, as always, is the
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exam page. So this is the exam page for those of you guys that want to take a
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look at it. I will include the link in the description box below.
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Let's talk about a couple of things.
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So the SK004, which is the one that I took--this guy right here--it's
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going to be retired December of 2021.
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Now, the SK005 is going to take over.
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So now, when they say "retire," they don't necessarily mean that
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you're going to have to retire--if you have the SK004, you're going to have to take the SK005.
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No. One thing about this exam, as I said earlier,
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the exam itself is good for life.
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So a lot of these exams, if you've been in IT
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for a while, you know a lot of the exams--
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when you take them--you need to kind of renew them after three years.
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Most of them after three years. Some of them have a little bit of
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a lengthier time. Some of them have, like, two years.
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Some of them have, like, three years.
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For the most part, most of the exams that
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I've taken, you have to renew them.
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On most of the exams that I have, you have
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to renew most of the certificates that I have.
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You have to renew them, like, around that two to three-year time.
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So, for this one, it's kind of like a good-for-life kind of exam. If you take
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it, you pass it, you don't have to renew it.
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And then I think a lot of things factor into that.
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One, because it's servers. Servers don't change that much.
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But also, you know, a lot of the day-to-day IT tends to move to the cloud anyways.
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So a lot of people don't get to play with servers that often.
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A lot of people don't have kind of like that on-prem
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kind of setup. I have been fortunate enough to have something like that, and
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I've been fortunate enough to play around with a lot of servers. But now
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there's a lot of people that just have straight-up, like, cloud, and
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kind of just go from there. So they don't
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get to touch a lot of servers and things like that.
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And the servers don't change that much either.
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So that's probably why it's kind of like a lifetime thing--good-for-life kind of
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certificate. So if we scroll down a little bit, you can see that,
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July, this one came out in 2015. This is the one that I took--
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the SK004. The new one is already out.
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This one is going to be available till December of this year,
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and this one is already available. So if you want to study for it now--
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I don't think there's that much material,
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because even finding material for this to study for was a bit of a headache.
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It was--it was quite challenging to find material for it.
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Thanks to ITPRO.TV, I had a good course for it.
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So that was good there.
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But it was hard to find material for this. I don't think that there's that much
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material out for this one yet, but we're going to take a look at it.
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It's 100 questions. Maximum of 100 questions.
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You're going to have about--it's a maximum of 100 questions, but
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I don't think they're necessary. I can't remember how many questions I had.
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They're not going to give you 100 questions.
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Most likely, they're going to give you performance-based questions and
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some other questions--that kind of thing.
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So it's a bit of a mixture. 90 minutes. 90 questions. Maximum of 100.
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There you go. So maximum of 100, but you have about 90
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questions and performance-based questions included in it.
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Multiple choice. You know, because I did a
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performance-based question--90 minutes.
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So you have one minute for each question.
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They kind of highlight some of the things that you need to know here.
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You don't necessarily--if you play with servers a lot--you don't necessarily
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need to have the A+ certification. I do have the A+, but you don't necessarily need to
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have the A+ to go take it. If you've played around with servers for
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several years or several months, you should be able to read up on it and
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try to understand some of the concepts and be able to pass the exam.
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The exam, of course, is $338, which
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is quite expensive like a lot of other exams.
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And, of course, if you scroll down, there's
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the bundle. Of course, if you want the
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retake voucher, if you want more stuff, you pay more.
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But for one voucher and just the voucher itself, it's $338.
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And like always, you can go to the Comp Academy website and
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get a discount on this.
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So as far as the website page goes, that's pretty much all you get for it.
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So moving on to the exam objective. Now this is the
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SK005, and this is the SK004. Again, I took the SK004,
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but I want to kind of compare the two
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a little bit for those of you guys that are going to take the SK005.
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Of course, if you want to take the SK004, you have till December,
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which I think is way more than enough time
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to study for it. But, again, that's just me.
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I don't know what other people have going on in their life. Right?
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But anyways, this is the SK004: server architecture, server
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administration, storage, security, network, disaster recovery, troubleshooting.
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One of the things that I found about this exam--like
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I said when I was talking about the book that I used to study for--
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it’s very hardware-focused. It's not so much like
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services like DHCP service, or this service, or that service.
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Like, how do you really get nitty and gritty, like, in there
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in terms of the services on the server
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themselves? They do talk about them, but
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they talk about them in a higher--like, well, I don't want to say in a higher
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level, because a higher level means that they talk about them.
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And then they kind of just touch on them a little bit.
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Like, hey, this is what a DHCP service is, and this
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is what it does. But they don't really go into too much detail about it.
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Or, hey, this is what a DNS service is, and this is what it does.
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But they don't go into extreme detail about it. So that's one thing to keep in mind.
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That's what I found about this exam.
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If there's one thing that was disappointing to me--
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I wouldn't call it disappointing--but if there's one thing that I felt like they
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could have touched on a little bit more, it's to go in-depth,
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like, really in-depth about the services. But they did not.
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They just kind of covered it. And CompTIA is kind of like, you know,
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it's not specific to one vendor. So they have to cover as much as they can about servers.
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So that's why they just kind of go like, "Hey,
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these are the things that we feel like you need to know about a server.
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Here you go." I say it doesn't go into too much detail about things.
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Even troubleshooting--they kind of focus on troubleshooting the hardware
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part of things as well, not so much the, you know, services,
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servers, and all that stuff. They do talk
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about a whole bunch of other stuff as well, but it's not too,
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like, you know, kind of hands-on in terms of services and
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the programs on the server itself. It's very hands-on
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in terms of the physical part of the server and understanding different
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components of the server and things that you need to know in that regard.
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So this is the outline for the SK004, which is the one that I took.
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And then this is the SK005. A little bit shorter, but it seems as if they're
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moving towards server hardware installation and management.
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Pretty much the same.
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They did talk about installation in the SK004.
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Management--let's see--maybe they're moving towards that, because
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that's good. So maybe this new one, the management part,
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they're moving towards, like, kind of really understanding the services.
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So maybe that's good. So they have this part here.
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The management part seems to be new, so
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maybe they're moving towards that.
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So that's good news there. Server administration--same thing there.
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Security and disaster recovery.
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I can't say that--disaster recovery. Disaster recovery and security--
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they kind of bonded that together and made that as one.
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Troubleshooting, of course, they have troubleshooting here as well.
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So pretty much some of the same concepts.
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So, like I said, for the most part, you can see that they're
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very heavily focused on understanding the physical part of the server.
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I think the certificate, as I said earlier, is much more geared towards people
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that want to work at a data center or try
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to understand what a server does in terms of different
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components of the server--so you know how to troubleshoot it and fix it if
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something goes wrong, the physical part of it. And, of course, if you want to
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be much more granular and say, "Hey, I want to understand the services,"
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you're going to have to move to, like, maybe a Microsoft-specific certificate
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to be able to get that there. But for this one, they're just kind of
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trying to get you to understand what a
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server is and what it does and how to take it apart and kind of put it back
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together--that kind of thing. So you have different components here.
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It teaches you about what a 1U, a 2U, or 4U server is. It teaches you about
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all of these things that you need to know about different server architecture.
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It teaches you about server administration. So, as I said here, it
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talks about a lot of the stuff--BIOS and UEFI configuration.
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But it doesn't go into in-depth configuration; it teaches you
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about the basics and some of the things that you need to know.
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And it touches a little bit, too, on Linux servers.
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Even here and there, you could say it touches a
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little bit on Linux servers and things like that, but it's not so much focused on Linux servers.
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It talks about it, but it doesn't really dive in-depth into
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Linux servers and all that stuff.
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So, different components here.
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Not much difference between the SK004 and the SK005.
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The management part, I think, is
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the one difference. Maybe they're kind of, as I said, moving more toward
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teaching you how to manage it.
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And, as I said, it was a struggle to find material for the SK004.
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But, as always, ITPRO.TV to the rescue--and this was helpful to me.
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I said it was a struggle to find material, but I went to ITPRO.TV and they
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were like, "We got you. We got you, man. We got it."
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If you need it, we got you. So, this video course was pretty, pretty, pretty damn helpful.
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Don Pezet--you know, for my Linux+ certificate, he was the guy
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teaching the Linux course. Amazing teacher, man.
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This guy--this guy is also a pretty amazing teacher.
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A+, Security+, he teaches a lot. It covers a lot of those things.
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Don Pezet is a great teacher, man. I'm going to enjoy his courses.
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So, when I saw this and I saw that, hey--he's the teacher now--I was like, "Let's go."
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So, yeah, it pretty much goes according to the
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exam objectives: server administration, security, networking, and all this other stuff.
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So, every component, every part of the exam objectives,
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ITPRO.TV kind of covers that step by step, which is pretty cool.
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It made my life so much easier.
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So, that's one thing to keep in mind. Definitely, if you're looking
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to get the book, ITPRO.TV did a great job in terms of covering all of the
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exam objectives--everything that you need to know.
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I support about 92% of it because, again, I work with servers
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on a day-to-day basis. I’ve played around
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with servers a lot. I have a server sitting over there that acts as my Type 1.
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I have a voice server over there. If you guys are not new to the channel, you've already seen it.
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And I’ve played around with it a lot. I take it apart. I put it back together.
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I mean, I've done a whole bunch of stuff with servers. I'm quite familiar with servers.
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So, I watched up to 92% of it. It's a 28-hour, 15-minute video. So, I pretty much watched all of it.
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Yeah. So I pretty much watched all of it.
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And then, of course, you do have the practice test,
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and you have the virtual lab.
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The virtual lab is really cool. The virtual lab really goes hands-on
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in terms of the services part of things.
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So, the concept--the services part of things--
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the concepts that you need to understand, like what DNS is, what DHCP is,
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what group policy is--that kind of thing--the virtual lab does a good job of
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covering all the concepts that you see here,
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all of the things that they talk about here.
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It does a good job at giving you that,
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you know, “Hey, let's go practice it a little bit.” So, I'm going to click on it.
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Hopefully, ITPRO.TV doesn't sue me.
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But, anyways, yeah. As you can see, it has a lot of things. When you click
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on it, it takes you to the lab. I don't want to launch the lab.
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I don't want to get into trouble there.
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But if you click on it, it takes you to the lab, and then the lab outlines
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all the things that you can do to help you better understand it.
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I pretty much did all of the labs, even though I'm quite familiar with it.
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You know, I don’t miss anything, man. I take as much as I can get.
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And then, of course, the practice test. Again, this is why I love ITPRO.TV--
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everything in one place. You have the practice test, you click
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on it, and it gives you the exam. As you can see, I took it several times.
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That was my average score when I was still taking it.
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I took it several times. So you get to practice a lot. You get to understand
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some of the questions that are going to come in. It's a really good platform.
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I know that for all of my exams, I used ITPRO.TV--but I used other places
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as well. But for this exam, I couldn't find anything else.
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I had to use ITPRO.TV. So, let's go back there.
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Anyway, ITPRO.TV--great. They have a great course for the SK004.
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I don't know if they're going to come
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out with SK005. They don't have the SK005 yet.
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But, again, you have until December to take it, so you have some time.
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So, it's a great place to look at if you want
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to take the SK004--which you have until
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December to take, so you have a pretty long time.
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I did try to find some courses on Udemy.
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I did try to see if I could go from there as well. I didn't find that much.
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I did find some courses, however, on--what is it called?--LinkedIn. Yeah.
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LinkedIn has kind of a learning platform, and they have
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a good series of courses there that you can look at
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that teach you the Server+ part of things and break it down into different components.
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So, if you're into that, you can go to LinkedIn and search
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for Server+, and they have something to cover it.
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For Udemy, it was just mostly practice exams.
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I didn’t see any course that had to do with Server+.
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This is what I was saying, man. I was so grateful that
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ITPRO.TV kind of had this whole thing in one place,
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so it was easier for me. But with Udemy,
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it was more so practice tests than anything. They didn't have any
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video course for it, which is sad.
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Hopefully, someone comes out with an
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SK005 video course because, you know, for
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those of us who decide to take the Server+,
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it's kind of sad if you don't have enough money to pay for ITPRO.TV.
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You’d have to pay for either LinkedIn
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or do something else, and you don’t have places like Udemy that have it.
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But other places have it too. So, if it's something that you plan to go for,
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check LinkedIn. ITPRO.TV is my number one recommendation.
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If you want practice tests, you can check over here. You can check Udemy over here.
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So that's pretty much it, guys. I think we've covered the book.
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We've covered the exam objectives. We've talked about the video material, the practice test, the lab that I used.
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And we've talked about some of the hard times I had trying to find
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material for it. It was hard for me to find material, but I did find some.
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ITPRO.TV helped a lot. The exam itself was pretty good. It was a good exam.
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I'm quite familiar with servers--not everything in terms of services and all that stuff.
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And that's one of the reasons why I decided to take this exam--because I
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wanted to strengthen my understanding not just of the
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services part of things, but of the components part of things as well, and
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understand it. Because when you understand something as a whole,
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it makes your life a lot easier--and then it's one day at a time. Alright?
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So, it was a good exam. It was an interesting exam. And the plus
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is, I don't have to renew it. I got it for life, so I can't complain there.
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Anyways, thank you guys for watching.
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That's pretty much it. I will see you guys in the next one.
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Thank you for watching the video, guys. If you haven't
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done so already, make sure you hit the
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thumbs up button if you enjoyed the video.
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If you want to see cool videos like this all the time, make sure you hit the
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subscribe button. I have a lot of big plans for this channel. I want to
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show you guys my struggles because it's
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not only about coming here and talking
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about, like, "Hey, I passed these exams."
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I do want to make this channel a little bit different.
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I want you guys to actually see me go through all the struggles that I have
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to go through to study for each and every one of these
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exams. I have a whole bunch of certificates that I have to take.
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Especially this year, I'm planning to take, like, three more certificates--
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maybe two--because the year is almost halfway through.
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We're almost halfway through the year.
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But I'm going to come out with a video on
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Friday--next week Friday--that talks about "The Plan."
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That’s actually what I'm going to call
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it: "The Plan," which is going to highlight the plan for the rest of the year.
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And I'm going to take you guys through every single process--the struggle,
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the not wanting to study, the not wanting to do certain things.
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All that process--I want to take you guys through it because I want
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everybody out there struggling like me to kind of
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work their way up in IT later--to know that you're not the only one struggling,
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to know that we all struggle to get to this day, but we all struggle to learn and to move forward.
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So, it's going to be an interesting channel.
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So, if you want to see all of those, make sure you hit the subscribe button
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and turn on notifications. And, as always, thank you guys for
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watching, and do not forget to stay gigging. Peace.