Re: Certification
- From: Mindaugas Navickas <mnavickas@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: niall.litchfield@xxxxxxxxx, stephenbooth.uk@xxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 30 May 2007 10:48:16 -0700 (PDT)
Niall,
When discussing OU courses, IMO, experience can be different based on where
that course is taken as well. In my career (it 15 years time span) I attended
Oracle DBA(performance tuning, new features, RAC) courses in US, Canada, UK,
Lithuania. My subjective opinion is that best OU training class I had was in
UK, Bracknel (based on new information that I got in 1 week). Worst was at
Oracle Canada (most of the time teacher, who used to work in marketing, was
showing how nice EM interface became in Oracle9).
Regarding certification, I would concur with opinion that the only purpose of
certificate itself can be when you are looking for a new job to impress
non-technical HR person. However, preparation for the certification, IMO, is
most efficient structured way to gain broad Oracle knowledge. Most DBAs in
everyday work probably have hands-on only on 20% of functionality that is
covered in certification exam.
I have recently passed IBM DB2 UDB DBA certification. IMO, that DB2 exam was
much easier that any of Oracle 8i,9i or 10g OCP exams. And to become DB2
certified DBA one needs to pass only 2 exams versus 5(+class) with Oracle.
Regards
Mindaugas Navickas
Oracle & DB2 certified DBA
----- Original Message ----
From: Niall Litchfield <niall.litchfield@xxxxxxxxx>
To: stephenbooth.uk@xxxxxxxxx
Cc: dlordster@xxxxxxxxx; Yavor_Ivanov@xxxxxxxx; oracle-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Wednesday, May 30, 2007 11:38:17 AM
Subject: Re: Certification
I disagree at least in principle Stephen - if not in practice - It seems to me
that, yes the value of education is in the effort which is put in along the
way, and not in the end piece of paper. It also has something to do with the
credentials and rigour of the institution that does the educating, which is why
I still value an Oxbridge (or equivalent in other countries) degree above one
from the University of the West of England - and I value the UWE credential
above 'A' levels or equivalent.
There are 2 factors at work here, one the quality of the instruction I have to
say Oracle University seem to have pretty much covered, I've not had bad
experiences at all there. The second is the quality of the exam - her I think
OU (and the other vendors) falls down badly since their exams can essentially
be passed without study, but purely by memorising exam cram books. The remedy
for this IMO isn't to require an attendance certificate, but to ensure that the
exam requires thought and understanding to pass - old style written questions
seem to work well in this regard but I'm not holding my breath on that one.
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