4/23/2001 -- Microsoft recently published information about two new exams that will serve as electives for the MCSE certification.

Designing and Implementing Solutions with BizTalk Server 2000, Enterprise Edition, exam 70-230, is expected in beta release in July. It will server as an elective for both the MCSE and MCSD titles. Candidates are expected to have a year's experience designing and developing distributed applications using Microsoft technologies as well as expertise with XML and Extensible Stylesheet Language Transformations (XSLT). If you're going to tackle this one, make sure you know COM+, Visual Basic and Microsoft Visual C++, IIS, ASP, and SQL Server Enterprise Edition.

Exam 70-232, Implementing and Maintaining Highly Available Web Solutions with Windows 2000 Server Technologies and Application Center 2000, is expected to beta in September. Application Center 2000 is Microsoft's new deployment and management tool for Web applications built on the Win2K. The test checks experience with environments that have two or more Web servers, n-tier application architecture, Internet security, and server technologies such as network load balancing.

For more on Microsoft's professional certification program, click here. -MCPMag.com