Microsoft unboxes Exchange Online certification in bid to push customers off-prem

Microsoft has added a certification to augment the tired eyes and haunted expressions of Exchange support engineers. The "Microsoft 365 Certified: Exchange Online Support Engineer Specialty certification" was unveiled yesterday and requires you to pass the "MS-220: Troubleshooting Microsoft Exchange Online" exam. Broken cloud …

[Franco]

Given how much of the internet and infrastructure is now in the hands of so few big players, it won't be long before it comes crashing down again. Greybeards like me were always told never put all your eggs in one basket, never mind a basket you don't even own.

Cloudflare might be the one that tips it over the edge, another big outage last week.

[terry 1]

I have been working round Exchange even before Exchange was Exchange and was a fancy email server built into Outlook 97. However I have resisted O365 and rue the day that onprem is no longer available. My clients don't want ongoing cost of subscription but find Exchange features very useful. I would have no issue with moving my clients to imap or a linux based mail server long before MS see's a single subscription penny.

[GDM]

Outlook 97? Pah! We could gateway between MS Mail, WfWg Mail, cc:Mail, Fax, Telex and that weird RFC822-based stuff hardly anybody used then. All written in Visual Basic. I probably still have the code somewhere. I should find a big bonfire / volcano to cast it in to...

[Anonymous Coward]

When…

When your product requires armies of techies to support it, you know its not built on solid foundations

[Ken Moorhouse]

Re: When your product requires armies of techies to support it...

...not forgetting techies whose job it will be to deal with administrative problems, password resets, &c.

[Ken Moorhouse]

"MS-220: Troubleshooting Microsoft Exchange Online" exam

TL;DR

Does it specify the expiry date of these qualifications, because I can see this turning into a rolling requirement due to the constant flux of development of the underlying product? Yes, they may give away the next iteration free if you've got x months left on your existing cert, but how often are they going to expect you to go through the hoops, and how many times are you going to decide to play along with that? You will know when this change arrives, the qualification will have version numbers on it.

[Joe W]

Re: "MS-220: Troubleshooting Microsoft Exchange Online" exam

Version numbers like ITIL? Where we got told that it would be a rolling update henceforth, only to be told that there was a new version, but fortunately there was the possibility to recertify...

[vogon00]

Skills Shortage?

All I heard was "Oh Shit, we've forgotten how it works ....let's Crowdsource the skills needed to keep the poxy thing alive!.