Exam 70-88
Implementing and Supporting Proxy Server 2.0

by Dave Lilligren from Dave's Help Page for Win2k Certification! for Networkdesigner.net

Exam Facts
Questions: 68
Passing Score: 735
Time Allowed: 105 minutes (an additional 15 minutes should be budgeted for the demographic survey that must be filled out prior to the exam).

General Observations
Passed 3/2/98 with an 808. Test was sufficiently difficult. Many questions were straightforward. A few were rather bizarre, involving non-real-world situations (but that is standard fare for Microsoft testing). I had only one scenario-type question (with required results and optional results). There were questions that did not appear to be in the documentation (e.g., number of hops from a web browser to the Internet). There were a few questions that displayed actual screens from Proxy Server.

Also, you should view the rather lengthy Release Notes contained in the Readme.txt that accompanies Proxy Server 2.0.  Pay particular close attention to the section entitled "Server Proxy Issues for Using Exchange and DNS."  The part about where to place the Wspcfg.ini files is very important.  Note:  This also applies to other Back Office products (e.g., SQL Server).

Planning
Not as many questions on the LAT as I had anticipated (about 3-4). One subnetting question.
Several Security questions.
Several questions on arrays.
One question on licensing. Proxy Server does not use client licenses, but requires a server license

Installation and Configuration
At least two questions on auto-dial.
At least three questions related to IPX/SPX clients:
- At least one dealt with Windows 3.x, which CANNOT be configured to use IPX/SPX.
- Another question dealt with 16-bit and 32-bit IPX/SPX clients.
One question about multiple locations, and how you would configure routing between them.
NO registry questions!
At least three questions on packet filtering. One was rather bizarre related to SQL server, in that IP Forwarding was enabled. Asked how you would make access to the SQL server secure.

Setting Up and Managing Resource Access
Question about cache filtering. Remember that you can deny caching for a domain, but still enable caching for a path within that domain.
At least two questions about restricting access to certain sites. Can a user still access a site that is restricted by domain name if they use the IP address?
Question about backup and restoring, dealing with replacing a Proxy Server with a newer machine that had greater resources. How would you be able to save your rather involved configuration changes from the original server?

Integration and Interoperability
At least two Unix questions! Can Unix clients use Winsock Proxy and Socks Proxy?
At least two questions related to IPX/SPX clients.
At least two questions on automatically configuring Web Browsers.
At least two questions on Mspclint.ini settings.

Monitoring and Optimization
Lots and lots of Performance Monitor questions. Definitely got one wrong on which counter is used to find how many times URLs have been refreshed. Correct answer was Totally Actively Refreshed URLs.
One question on bottlenecks was related to network utilization (bandwith) and queue. Bandwith was not the problem, but the queue was. So, I chose the network interface was the bottleneck.

Troubleshooting
Question about Permissions. If a person is a member of two groups, and one group has access to WWW and the other doesnt, what is the individuals effective permission?
One question on RRAS (Routing and Remote Access Service).
Question about disk counters not showing up on Performance Monitor. Asked for two answers I checked diskperf and restart the computer.
WINS question related to the external adapter connected to the Internet. Of course, you dont want it enabled!
Question about client successfully changing configuration (Mspclnt.ini), but not having it work the next day. Answer: Server refreshes the clients file and overwrote it.

by Dave Lilligren from Dave's Help Page for Win2k Certification! for Networkdesigner.net