Visual Studio 2010 and .NET 4.0 have been around for a while now. With them, the .NET 4.0 certifications have appeared replacing the previous Visual Studio 2008 ones. There have been several changes in the way of getting certified with this last version. Therefore, we’ll try to explain them the best way we can so nobody gets lost along the way.
Before, if you wanted to get certified in any developer field you needed first to get certified in the framework’s fundamentals. Then you could progress in the specific matter in which you wanted to get certified. These were the steps we had to take:
This way, you had to pass at least 2 exams to become a Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist (MCTS), and a third exam to become a Microsoft Certified Professional Developer (MCPD). You could get specialized in 6 different certifications:
This strategy had an advantage, you could stick to the technology you were most interested in leaving aside others to get certified. Nevertheless, you always had to take the 70-536 fundamentals exam. As a consequence, this system provided good fundamentally skilled developers in .Net base technology (which is very important).
However, developers lacked an overall view of the framework and focused merely on the technology of interest. This way, a MCPD in web development, for instance, would master web development but didn’t have to know much on accessing data or building distributed systems.
With the current certifications things have changed greatly. Now we have fewer specializations. You can become a Technology Specialist in these five areas:
This exam can be considered a mix between the old Windows Forms and WPF exams, except that they have granted much more weight to WPF. We think that since actually nobody wants to use WPF in their applications, with this exam they are trying to force developers to use this technology (even when it’s obvious that Silverlight is bound to substitute WPF in the future (wait and see when Silverlight 5 is launched)
This is the equivalent to the previous Windows Communication Foundation exam, upgraded to the 4.0 version of the framework. It includes several new features and also incorporates OData and other communication technologies as well as application architecture items.
This exam certifies you as web developer. Now it’s a much harder exam since besides covering ASP.NET Web Forms and ASP.NET AJAX, it also includes ASP.NET MVC and jQuery.
This exam certifies you as an accessing data specialist with the .NET framework. In order to pass it, it’s very important to master all the accessing data techniques available in the platform: from the oldest ones such as ADO.NET up to Entity Framework 4.0 or Sync Framework. The exam is very extensive and hard to prepare for. In addition, in the upcoming months Microsoft is going to open two new Technology Specialist certifications: Silverlight and Azure. We’ll see how they go when they come out and we’ll explain it here by updating this page.
This exam focuses on web developers that build RIA (Rich Internet Applications) or that want to get certified as Windows Phone developers. It covers Silverlight 4 as well as the Silverlight fundamentals.
Now in the top part of the certification, in the MCPD (Microsoft Certified Professional Developer), there are 4 specialties:
Even though these last two of Windows Phone are considered a different specialization, not directly included inside the Visual Studio certifications. The same happens with other certifications such as SQL Server or Sharepoint 2010. The requirements to get certified as MCPD have increased
strongly: now, in most exams, you need to get certified in three different MCTS and also do a specific specialization exam. In other words, before you only needed 3 exams and now you need to pass 4. However, there are some exceptions as we’ll see below. Microsoft reasonably alleges that today in order to become a professional developer you have to master at
least accessing data and application architecture, besides of course your specialization.
That’s why you have to pass the Accessing Data and Service Communication exams -besides your specific exam (Web, Windows, Azure…)- in order to become an MCPD. On top of this, you need to pass a special “experience” exam (for instance the 70-518 for Windows or the 70-519 to get certified as a Web MCPD). These exams are oriented for developers to prove they have experience working with that technology in real work situations, and they don’t focus on specific knowledge
that much. The following graph displays the certification path you have to follow in order to get certified as MCPD in .Net 4.0 for desktop applications as well as Web applications:
As we can see, first we have to do three exams (two common ones: data and architecture) and then a specific specialization one. In case you want to get certified as a Windows Azure professional developer, you also have to pass two “basic” exams and a specific Azure one:
In these two cases, we would only need to pass three exams instead of four. To get certified as
MCPD in Windows Azure, you need Accessing Data TS (70-516), Services Developer (70-513) an the special 70-583 exam.
To get certified in Windows Phone the only option available is to pass Accessing Data TS (70-516), Silverlight 4 (70-506) and then the 70-599 Windows Phone specialization. Now, getting certified as a MCPD in Silverlight 4 is quite tricky. Let’s see its certification path:
In this case we need to pass 4 exams. But, unlike all the other cases, the speciality exam is not on the technology you are getting your certification in (Silverlight), its on Web development. This specialization is very similar to the one in Web development.
Therefore, getting the MCPD in Web development is a more interesting option. Then by simply passing 70-506 Silverlight exam you have both specialities.
The good news is that passing this exam now is not needed to get certified. But this is also bad news. Let us explain: the 70-536 exam is harsh and it’s probably the most difficult certification to prepare for. Nevertheless, preparing for it seriously and passing it was a full guarantee of mastering .NET framework fundamentals.
When working on a project and problems arise, mastering the basics makes it easier to find solutions.This is not something to overlook. When working on a project and problems arise, mastering the basics makes it easier to find solutions since you are able to make out how things work underneath the hood. This makes a real difference when facing difficult situations. Facing and solving complicated work scenarios is what really counts. Even though it’s not mandatory to get certified in.NET 4.0, we think this exam will still be very demanded in the years to come because there are no plans of removing this exam. In many companies where technical managers know their business and need a cast of skilled professionals on their teams, they will take greatly into account developers who have passed this exam even if it’s not mandatory.
There are two certification exams that enable going from MCPD in VS2008 to MCPD in VS2010, the 70-521 (Windows) and the 70-523 (Web). By passing them, you automatically have the corresponding three MCTS and the MCPD. Nevertheless, whoever thinks this is easy since it’s just one exam is dead wrong. Our experience at campusMVP.Net from people who have signed up for that exam tells us that it’s like doing four exams in one (the four you need to get certified). It’s very long, divided in four parts (one per technology) and it covers almost the same amount of subjects as when these exams are prepared separately.
In conclusion: if you want to update your certification take one of these two exams (you save money this way). But remember, you have to prepare them as if you were to sign up for them separately.
The real goal is for you to master the technology you decide to study.At campusMVP.Net we have created online courses to prepare some of these Microsoft certification exams. Even if you don’t want to or don’t need to sign up for the exam, these courses are designed to go way beyond simply passing an exam. The real goal is for you to master the technology you decide to study. For those of you that are a bit skeptical with online training, let us tell you that in most cases,
the best way to learn how to program is by programming. We have thousands of students who can stand up for this 
Currently these courses are available:
