Foundation of Novell Netware (50-677)

Seema Kannan ()
Author, Whizlabs CNE/CNA Certification Exam (50-677) Simulator
August 22, 2003

The Foundation of Novell Netware (50-677) exam is a prerequisite for NetWare 6 Certified NetWare Engineer (CNE), Certified Netware Administrator (CNA), as well as Certified NetWare Instructor (CNI).

Thus far the Netware exams have always been administration centric, that is, they have concentrated a lot on the day-to-day tasks of an administrator, such as user creation, resource allocation, security, printing environment, etc. The courses of Netware have religiously covered all these in their objectives and stuck to it over a period of time.

With Netware 6, Novell has turned a new leaf in its education pattern. The topic under discussion, i.e., the Foundation of Novell Networking, will bring to you a refreshing change from the old nagging pattern. Here you do not get to drag yourself through the evolution pattern of Networking since Old Stone Age. You do not have to tweak cables, identify data transfer patterns of NICs (Network Interface Cards), or try hard to remember the encoding pattern of data on a cable. This course purely lays the foundation for the rest of the course, as the name itself suggests. You will be getting a brief summary of the entire course to come, and will begin to feel your way about Netware 6, and start getting comfortable with it.

By now you must have an idea of whom the course is meant for? If you are a fresh graduate deciding on a career, it is definitely not for you. Since this course doesn't even scrape the basics of networking, you will be lost.

As of Oct 31, 2003, the exams are scheduled for retirement. The ones who are holding the previous certification and are planning to upgrade will have to do so as quickly as possible. For those with average capabilities it should take at least 4 months to complete the workshop training, go through the entire courseware, and prepare and practice enough as much as possible to take up the exam and complete it.

For those with high capabilities, go ahead and Install Netware 6, grab an administrators' hand book from the stall, practice enough, go through every option and screen that is there to see in the NOS (Network Operating System), cite as many differences as you can from Netware 5 to Netware 6, and you are ready for the exam in 2 months.

For those who are busy and may not be able to upgrade themselves and are worried about their current validity status, here's a breather. Novell does not threaten to revoke your status if you fail to upgrade and thus belittle or undermine your previous efforts and the time spent on the certification. When your certification ID will be checked or verified with Novell, it may state that you are still certified but not with the latest upgrade version, or something close.

Well, this is as of now and it would be advisable for you to check up on this status on the Novell site, when you are actually ready for the exam. The site is constantly updated on product's technical documentation and training information.

You will not have the luxury of check-marking a question that irritates you so that you can go back to it later on. The exam pattern is not flexible. Every question you face will have to be dealt with and put out of the way for good, before proceeding to the next. There will be 68 of them, a good and healthy combination of visual items (drag-n-drop), multiple-choice multiple-answers, multiple-choice single-answer, situation related testing, etc.

If you are upgrading to CNE 6, be sure to score at least 610 (the actual passing score was 608, the last I know), if it is the CNI Certification you are pursuing, make sure you score 670 (actual score is 668).

Again the testing patterns and the passing scores could have changed after this or just before you take up yours. The patterns and scores have a way of changing once in a while to keep the aspirants on their toes. So there is no definite rule to this. The key to pass this exam is to KNOW Novell Netware 6 to your best ability.

The best hand holding you can expect for an exam of this caliber comes with its price, the Instructor-led training. You get the maximum possible help for an exam when you take up the course, the best training aids for making the training interesting and understandable, the best lab practices and the setup at your disposal, with least worry about the reading material.

It is obvious that there is no comparison to the courseware released by Novell as far as reading and reference material goes. Lots of product information can be obtained from Novell's site itself and all the white papers put together will give a very good and detailed picture of the product you are trying to master.

Even for aspirants who believe in self-help, Novell does release this courseware for purchase if you'd rather study by yourself at your own convenient pace and time. The details for Exam codes and course codes are given below:

Novell ® Training Services
CNE ® Progress Chart
(CNE Certification Requirements and Test Numbers)

Prerequisite for all certifications
Novell requires all certification candidates to agree to the terms and conditions and sign the Novell Training Services Certification Agreement as part of becoming certified.
The agreement must be agreed upon prior to the certification being granted.

NetWare 6
TEST COURSE NAME
- 50-677 Foundations of Novell Networking (Course 3001)
- 50-681 Novell Network Management: NetWare 6 (Course 3004)
- 50-682 Advanced Novell Network Management: NetWare 6 (Course 3005)
- 50-664 Novell eDirectory Design & Implementation (Course 575)
- 50-683 Desktop Management with ZENworks for Desktops 3 (Course 781)
  OR
- Desktop Management with ZENworks for Desktops 4 (Course 3006)

Novell ® Training Services
CNA ® Progress Chart
(CNA Certification Requirements and Test Numbers)

NetWare 6
TEST COURSE NAME
- 50-677 Foundations of Novell Networking (Course 3001)

This information is always available on the Novell site, in the certification section.

Also, it is advisable to constantly check the same site mentioned above for the table that displays the retiring dates of exams.

Coming back to preparations, self-study would be ideal, especially if you are comfortable with Novell products and have prior experience with them. Instructor-led training is more from the book and limits the scope to that. With self-study, if you decide to concentrate on something the course does not, there is no stopping you. The best way to learn is to make mistakes; you always learn better with mistakes. Unfortunately, there is very little scope for mistakes in Instructor-led training, as most of it is spoon-feeding.

	www.builder.com
	Novell's NetWare 6 Administrator's Handbook by Jeffrey Harris & Kelley J.P. Lindberg
	Novell Netware 5.x to 6 Upgrade Exam Cram 2 by David Johnson, James E. Gaskin, Daniel Cheung
	www.fetchbook.info

If you went in to a search engine and gave a search for demo versions or free downloads for 050-677 you will find many websites. Though I must warn you that the free downloads are nearly useless, as they are limited to one question per objective.

1. Installing and Using NetWare 6
2. Managing Novell eDirectory
3. Managing Printing
4. Managing Storage Space
5. Managing E-mail and Instant Messaging Services
6. Implementing Internet Services
7. Managing Security

As the list of objectives must have told you by now, 56 chapters that would be covered under these 7 objectives may not be very comfortable to handle in 5-day course or in an exam of 68 questions in 90 minutes. This definitely is not an exam for an aspirant looking at it from the angle of career change or a beginner. You must have been around the networking scene for sometime and worked with Novell and a few other good GUI (Graphical User Interface) NOS (Network Operating System). Though the prospect seems daunting, for aspirants who are beginners but determined to make it, there is a way out.

As an Administrator and Instructor for about 10 years, having managed networks of MS Microsoft Win NT 4/Win 2k and Netware 2.x to 4.x, Cisco devices, a few e-mail servers and clients, and having trained a host of Multi National Companies on these topics, I must say that CNE 6 exam may be a cake walk, but it may not be so if you haven't tried your hands on as many aspects of Netware 6 and preferably in comparison with Netware 5 and a mixed set of clients connecting to the Netware Server.

There is no short cut to success, you may try as many practical experiments and make as many mistakes as possible and perfect yourself. After this stage comes the Cramming. Some of these books online are so accurate in their testing methods that you would have to try hard to fail in your exam after trying these products.

Seema Kannan is a certified professional having 9 years of experience in the IT industry, currently running her independent IT Consultancy Company in India.