‘Acquire a certification in technology X‘ | ‘Earn a Domain Y certification‘
Do one of those statements list in your yearly goals ? It is almost certainly a bad idea. Let me explain why. I knew a company that required its employees to be acquire at least one certification on a technology per year. Its employees would work hard throughout the year and during appraisal time it is not uncommon to hear this converation
Foo: ‘Dude did you take that certification you were supposed to ?’
Bar: ‘Rats ! I didnt realize it was a part of our goals’
Foo: ‘hmm… what do we do ? John has already passed it and that puts him ahead of us’
Foo and Bar will probably end up reading real exam questions (also referred to as brain dumps) and passing the exam with only a day’s worth of preparation. That another way of saying ‘They cheated’. This hurts everyone.
Oracle has decided to re-brand Sun certification under its own brand name. First the sun website redirected to Oracle.com, then the javadoc links began to look more different than ever before. Now the red tinge we are all becoming familiar with has found its way into the certification domain.
So what does it mean for those that are already certified ? The gist of the changes which are effective from Sep 1 2010 are summarized below
- The change is only to the title of the certification and not its contents / syllabus.
- Old Sun exam numbers are now mapped to new ones.
- Anyone taking say a java programmer certification after Sep 1 will earn the title ‘Oracle Certified Professional, Java SE 6 Programmer’ instead of ‘Sun Certified Java Programmer (SCJP) SE 6′.
- You cannot request a certificate re-branded under Oracle if you already own a Sun certificate. You need to take the exam again or upgrade.
Once again Sun has managed to miss the dead line for the SCJP Pus Beta certification. Last year Sun made an attempt to launch SCJP Plus but decided to delay it until JDK7 was launched. The SCJP plus BETA page has hence been changed to reflect the new BETA dates.
The new certification was supposed to change the way candidates took the exam by allowing them to code their way into earning their certificate. No more would the exam be served as one that has 100% multiple choice questions. Had the launch been a success candidates would have been confronted with coding problems, drag and drop questions and a reduced number of multiple choice questions.
The dead line to pick the candidates was February the 15th. That has been missed since none of the candidates were sent an email telling them about the status of their BETA exam. The exam was supposed to be launched by March 1st. This date has also been missed.
Oracle is now slowly beginning to re-brand Sun certifications. The certification hierarchy for EE 6 now aligns more with Oracle’s vision of certifications by introducing sub categories and clubbed certification packages ( you become a master when you complete all the certifications in a package ).
A detailed FAQ is now available on the Oracle blog about what changes are taking place and why. The things to look out for are
- The Sun brand of certification
- Procedure to buy exam vouchers
- Changes to certification objectives
- Changes to the procedure used to certify
The FAQ covers some of the points mentioned above. If you are preparing for an existing certification, there is no point waiting for changes. Like the fate of all Sun related projects, certifications will also evolve and time will tell what it looks like a few months from now.
Sun has a wide range of certifications to offer. Ever since java EE6 was released, changes have been made to the certification hierarchy and content to reflect the new specifications. Sun is also offering a discount of 10% to those that register for training / certification updates by Jan 31st 2010. Here is a comparison of the certification hierarchies
Old hierarchy:
New hierarchy:
The new hierarchy provides paths that are more specialized than the ones before. For example you can be a JSF expert. Web service + security is another specialization. Combining these certifications together can also earn you the title of a “Master“.