The Developing Microsoft SQL Server Databases (70-464) certification exam is one of the elective exams that counts towards the MCSE: Data Management and Analytics certifications. This exam centers around objectives that cover the areas of developing Microsoft SQL Server databases.

Certification Target Audience

The focus of the 70-464 Developing Microsoft SQL Server Database certification exam is centered around SQL Server technologies. This exam was first published in 2012, with more recent updates done in 2016, so it doesn’t seem to contain the Azure SQL Database topics that other exams cover.

This exam targets those database professionals who build and implement databases across organizations and who ensure high levels of data availability. The database professionals roles would include creating database files, data types, and tables; planning, creating, and optimizing indexes; ensuring data integrity; implementing views, stored procedures, and functions; and managing transactions and locks.

Skills Measured

Here’s a high level outline of the skill objectives measured on the Developing Microsoft SQL Server Databases (70-464) certification exam. The percentages next to each of the exam objectives represents the percentage of exam questions in that particular exam objective area.

• Implement database objects (30-35%)
  • Create and alter tables
  • Design, implement, and troubleshoot security
  • Design the locking granularity level
  • Implement indexes
  • Implement data types
  • Create and modify constraints
• Implement programming objects (15-20%)
  • Design and implement stored procedures
  • Design T-SQL table-valued and scalar functions
  • Create, use, and alter user-defined functions (UDFs)
  • Create and alter views
• Design database objects (25-30%)
  • Design tables
  • Design for concurrency
  • Design indexes
  • Design data integrity
  • Design for implicit and explicit transactions
• Optimize and troubleshoot queries (25-30%)
  • Optimize and tune queries
  • Troubleshoot and resolve performance problems
  • Optimize indexes
  • Capture and analyze execution plans
  • Collect performance and system information

When studying for this exam, you’ll definitely want to look at the official exam page from Microsoft for the complete list of objectives covered. You’ll need to study each and every one of the objectives measured on the exam before attempting the exam successfully.

Training Materials

At the time of writing this summary, the 70-464 Developing Microsoft SQL Databases exam has a limited amount of Exam preparation material available. As a result, you may need to focus primarily on Microsoft documentation surrounding the technologies and skills measured on this exam.

However, there is a bit of overlap between this exam and the 70-762 Developing SQL Databases exam. It’s unclear at this time if this new exam is meant to replace this one, but there seems to be overlap either way. As a result, you may be able to use the study materials for 70-762 when studying for the 70-464 exam. You’ll at least want to check it out.

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