Setting the aim for Exam 70-503, MCTS: Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 – Windows Communication Foundation Application Development

As i revealed in Considering becomming a Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist - first up 70-536 and further inspired by WS-federation is enabled with 'Geneva' and obviously also SAML V2.0 support i've ecided to go for "MCTS: Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 – Windows Communication Foundation Application Development (Exam 70-503)".

I know that I'll have To pass 70-536 also but I hope that 70-503 will pull the train for me since It's close to area of interest and work. To help me get there I've ordered a couple of books from Amazon among them: MCTS Self-Paced Training Kit (Exam 70-503): Microsoft® .NET Framework 3.5 Windows® Communication Foundation (PRO-Certification) (Hardcover) that I'll be receiving within the next week.
Other resources should be the documentation from MSDN on Windows Communication Foundation and an elaborate guide patterns & practices Improving Web Services Security Guide.

Contents of "Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 – Windows Communication Foundation Application Development" (Exam 70-503)

In the Preparation Guide for Exam 70-503 the Audience profile as:

Candidates for Exam 70-503 TS: Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 – Windows Communication Foundation Application Development work on a team in a development environment that uses Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 and Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 to build distributed applications. Candidates should have at least one year of experience developing distributed applications by using technologies such as XML Web services, .NET Remoting, and Windows enterprise services. Additionally, candidates should be able to demonstrate the following by using Windows Communication Foundation (WCF).

• A solid understanding of WCF in the context of the Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 solution stack
• Experience creating service model elements
• Experience using WCF to support Web services specifications standards
• Experience integrating WCF services with Windows enterprise services such as Message Queuing (MSMQ) and COM+
• Experience configuring and deploying WCF applications

Apart from the fact that I've done zip on ".NET Remoting, and Windows enterprise services" I'm still optimistic but haven't set a time plan for myself yet. The more detailed description is (with Id's for my own reference):

1. Creating Services (19 percent)
   1. Define Service contracts.
   2. Define Data contracts.
   3. Define Operation contracts.
   4. Define Message contracts.
   5. Process generic messages.
2. Exposing and Deploying Services (23 percent)
   1. Create and configure service endpoints.
   2. Manage consistency between life cycle, sessions, concurrency, and bindings.
   3. Host a service in a managed application.
   4. Host a service on a Web server.
   5. Create custom behaviors.
3. Instrumenting and Administering Services (11 percent)
   1. Implement end-to-end service tracing.
   2. Monitor service health.
   3. Log messages.
   4. Dynamically configure the service by using the service model.
   5. Implement inspectors.
4. Consuming Services (16 percent)
   1. Create a service proxy.
   2. Configure the client endpoint.
   3. Call a service by using a service proxy.
   4. Handle exceptions on clients.
   5. Consume non-WCF services.
5. Securing Services (16 percent)
   1. Implement transport-level security.
   2. Implement message-level security.
   3. Authenticate clients.
   4. Authorize clients.
   5. Impersonate clients.
6. Managing the Service Life Cycle (15 percent)
   1. Manage instances.
   2. Manage sessions.
   3. Manage transactions.
   4. Manage concurrency.
   5. Manage consistency between instances, sessions, transactions, and concurrency.

There's certainly a good deal of Identity Management and federation standards involved, but the Exam does not cover Geneva. The other way round a solid understanding of WCF should come in handy if using Geneva.