Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer

(or
MCSE) is the best-known and premiere Microsoft certification. It
qualifies an individual as being able to analyze the business requirements for

information systems solutions, and design and implement the infrastructure
required.

As of 2007, the MCSE is available for two different product lines;

Windows 2000 and

Windows Server 2003, each of which requires a different set of exams.

For the MCSE 2003, candidates must pass six core
design exams (Four networking exams, one client operating system and one design
exam) and one elective exam, for a total of seven exams. For the MCSE 2000, a
candidate needs to pass five Core Exams (Four operating system exams, one design
exam) and two electives. For the MCSE NT 4.0 (which is no longer available to
earn, though it is still recognized as a valid certification), a candidate
needed to pass four Core Exams (Networking Essentials, Windows NT Workstation,
Windows NT Server and Windows NT Server in the Enterprise) and two electives.

The topic of these exams include

network security,

computer networking

infrastructure,

Active Directory,

Microsoft Exchange Server,

Microsoft SQL Server, and other topics of both general

networking interest as well as specific Microsoft products.