I want to congratulate all of the competitors who completed at least 1 of the Round 1 quizzes with a score of 15 or above and are advancing to the Second Round of the IT Challenge! For those who advance in the competition to Round 2, you will be notified what's next and how to compete in the 2nd round.
For those who want to get a bit of a head start on Round 2, what you will expect (and as noted in the IT Challenge competition Rules) is that you will be given a case study to review, and you will be asked to write an essay.
The technologies you'll need to understand will be around the same technologies that you received questions on in Round 1, which includes Windows 2008 R2, Exchange 2010, SharePoint 2010, Lync 2010, System Center Configuration Manager 2007, Operations Manager 2007, Data Protection Manager 2010, Service Manager 2010, Opalis, SQL 2008 R2, Windows 7, Office 2010, Office 365, and the like.
And because the cloud is SO important to organizations these days, there will be a VERY heavy component in the Round 2 competition for you to understand Microsoft's cloud technologies like Office 365 and Azure.
You don't need to be an expert on the technologies nor have you had to install or implementation the technologies to be successful in Round 2. Since it is merely a written essay, you won't be required to prove your hands on expertise in the technologies (just yet!), you'll just need to know what the technology does, how it solves the case study challenge, and understand the basics of the technology.
Start in on understanding the technologies so that when the Round 2 case study is made available, you will have already had a chance to better understand the technology offerings, what they do, how they work, etc.
Good luck on your Round 2 efforts, and continue to post your questions or any information about the IT Challenge into this forum, and one of the Co-Captains (Rand Morimoto, Chris Amaris, Valy Greveau) will promptly reply with a response.
Good luck everyone!!!
Rand Morimoto
Captain, Imagine Cup IT Challenge 2010
