OCMJEA - Oracle's Architect Certification

Hi friends,

 

It’s been a while since I blogged lately…. I have been occupied with a lot of errands, one of which was to prepare & take the OCMJEA exams. The preparation of this exams provides you with an all-round knowledge on architecture & design and of course, you need to have some solid background on systems architecture. I am thrilled to pronounce that I have passed the exam and got an email from Oracle recently:

 

“Congratulations! You have passed the Oracle Certified Master, Java EE 5 Enterprise Architect certification. You are among the elite 1% of certified Java professionals who have gone on to achieve the Java Enterprise Architect certification.”

 

Through this blog, I will take aspirants through the hows and whys of the certificate. Let’s get going…

 

What is OCMJEA?

The acronym stands for Oracle Certified Master Java Enterprise Architect. It is one of the premier java certificates for folks aspiring to be architects or have been playing the architect role and would like to get formally recognized. Everyone do not get a chance to work on the wide-spectrum of java technologies available today and it is almost impossible to do so considering the amount of java knowledge living today. Its immense! However, there are a few fundamental topics that should be well understood by any architect guiding a team, thereby helping take a rounded & well thought of decision. OCMJEA prepares you in these wide spectrum of topics, not just through theoretical knowledge tests but also through practical implementations. The exam covers 3 papers:

·         Paper 1 – Closed book multiple choice questions based exam (64 questions, 120 minutes with a pass score of 57%)

·         Paper 2 – Open book exam where you are given an assignment and you need to provide an architecture & design solution against the requirements (you have 6 months of timeframe to submit the assignment, each section has a pass score threshold, so if you have a pass score overall, however, your status may be a fail due to minimum marks not being met at a particular section. Pass is 114 out of 160)

·         Paper 3 – You need to take a closed book justification exam. This is essay based and you need to write why you chose particular patterns, frameworks, design etc while at the same time justifying how you addressed key Quality of Service requirements of the assignment.

Each paper would set you back by $195 but most employers would reimburse these fees.

 

How to progress with each?

Paper 1 was theory based but there were some deduction based questions as well. The quality of the exam was decent and under-preparation will not work here. I had to refer to several sources to munch on, the primary ones being:

Sun Certified Enterprise Architect for Java EE Study Guide (2nd Edition)

Sun Certified Enterprise Architect for Java EE Study Guide (Exam 310-051)

UML Distilled: A Brief Guide to the Standard Object Modeling Language (3rd Edition)

Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software

 

There are other books too which you may refer but the above four have been ordered based on importance. You may refer the last 2 for references and to clear your concepts but the first 2 are a must read. In addition to these books, I referred to several other online resources especially this basic developerWorks starter from IBM. You may read through this to get a feel of the content of the exam. Besides, these the Java Moose Code Ranch forum is a heavenly abode for this & several other certifications. Though the study guide captured UML topics, I didn’t find any question related to it in the actual exam.

 

Preparation time is relative while preparing for exams. It basically depends on how much time you can devote to studying while simultaneously working at office. It took me a while for my preparation since I did not get enough exclusive time out of my busy work schedule. However, a 3 months’ time is optimal if you can give time during weekends and have been working as an architect or pseudo-architect.

Once I took the exam, I got an email that my results will be published in a few hours and within a couple of hours I was directed to Oracle’s Certview site to check my results. I had passed with good scores and it was a huge relief !

 

Following the theoretical paper, you will need to buy the voucher for the 2^nd paper and once you log into Prometric and start the test, it will present you with a download link of your assignment. You may download this from anywhere, take a print and you’re all set to get started. This is an open book offline exam but don’t get too cheeky yet. The assignments are randomly allocated and no one talks about the solutions to them on public forums. You can rest assured that you’re not going to get a ready-made solution of your assignment anywhere J

For this part of the exam, I would suggest that you go through the assignment requirements a couple of times, identify the key non-functional requirements and carve out a high level problem statement & potential solution in your mind. Next, you need to brush up on your UML knowledge and refer to Cade’s assignment solutions which is found towards the end of the book. Various diagrams are deliverables as part of this assignment and a jar file comprising of plain html pages and diagram images are expected. Additionally, I had included some sections providing justifications for my usage around the design patterns, frameworks, architecture decisions etc. This helped me immensely during the last paper as a guide to help recapitulate. Once this assignment is complete, you need to upload the jar file for evaluation. I had used StarUML and Visio for diagramming the various diagrams. This part took me around 4 months since I was having a horrid time with multiple errands at office. However, if you can take some time out, this part can be completed within 3 weeks’ time.

 

Subsequently, you need to take the 3^rd part and I would advise that this part be taken immediately since you are fresh with your assignment. I took this exam after a couple of days and all I could do was go through the justification page that I had prepared as part of the assignment. This is a closed book and you need to remember what patterns were used, how you addressed some key nonfunctional requirements of scalability, performance, availability, manageability, extensibility etc. The paragraph data that you deliver here should be in sync with your assignment submission so effectively, you cannot propose approach A and describe approach B here. The evaluator just needs to understand that you have thought around your specific solution. You don’t need to prove your knowledge, rather your solutioning towards the specific assignment is evaluated for.

 

Next Steps…

Well, that was all there was to it. I am sure that this exam would demand time out of your life, and it’s not going to be easy since most of us are occupied with work at office. As a result, I would say, plan for a period of 4-6 months. Most importantly, you should have an interest in this subject. You do not have to be an architect for the sake of being one. People shine at various levels including at programming, database, engineering etc but if you feel you have an attitude of an architect and have the strength to bridge gaps between business and technology, able to facilitate decisions and have keenness in learning, then you should go for it!

 

All the very best to whoever wishes to crack this exam and feel free to ask any questions you may have.

 

 

 

 

 

This e-mail and any files transmitted with it are for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information. If you are not the intended recipient(s), please reply to the sender and destroy all copies of the original message. Any unauthorized review, use, disclosure, dissemination, forwarding, printing or copying of this email, and/or any action taken in reliance on the contents of this e-mail is strictly prohibited and may be unlawful.

TOGAF - Cracking It !

Hi Friends,

I passed the TOGAF certification last week and wanted to write about it. I had some challenges procuring the right study materials for it and hence wanted to capture whatever I did so that it helps others aspiring to take the certification. TOGAF is an architecture certificate offered by the Open Group and catering to interest architects who would like to learn about Architecture management and processes. Sometimes the certification and training is sponsored by one's company and after a week of 9 to 5 trainings, you take the exam the following week. These trainings are pretty expensive and take a complete week to invest. Since I did not have the luxury of both, I underwent a casual training. However, with not much time available during my training period, I could not attend much and had to rely on self study totally. The exam costs $495 for both the parts and was sponsored by my organization.

What is TOGAF?

1. This certification is primarily addressed towards enterprise/application/data/business/technology architects.
2. It is focussed towards individuals who would like to establish an Architecture process within their organizations
3. It is purely an open certificate, independent of product or vendor

What TOGAF is NOT?

• It is not a solution certificate like a J2EE or .NET solutioning certificate
• It is not for Developers and will only help individuals who are aspiring to be architects

TOGAF consists of 2 papers, you can take them together (TOGAF combined) or you can split up the tests and take them individually (Part I & II):

• Part I consists of multiple choice questions, 40 in total and the pass percentage is 55%
• Part II is scenario based and still multiple choice. However, here you are presented with a scenario and expected to chose the best possible approach or strategy. This is an open-book exam so you will get a link to the I091 PDF from within the test software.

TOGAF consists of several sections and concepts such as in random - Architecture Development Method, Enterprise Architecture, Continuum, Landscape, Architecture Partitioning, Governance, Migration Planning, Compliance, Content & Capability Frameworks among several other things. The board ensures that you get questions from every section of the TOGAF study guide in order to test you thoroughly.

The official study guide by TOGAF is called I091 and it is suggested that you read and understand the concepts from this PDF at least once. You may also buy the Study Guide & the Pocket Guide for further reading. These are compressed materials of the exam and helps to brush up things quickly.

Instead of writing about each & every material and exam strategy, I rather mention my exam planning. Here's what I did:

I gave myself a 2 months study timeline since I am busy with work at office and do not get much time at length to devote to reading.

First Week:

• Watch the youtube overview video by Craig Martin @ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3M4NKwoaLk4 . This helped me a lot in understanding the overall picture and helped me answer the whys, whats & whens of TOGAF. After watching the video, if you feel like the certification might not be for you or it might not be the right time yet, then this is the time to decide.

2nd through 4th Week:

• I scanned through and read the I091 official TOGAF PDF. It had a lot of concepts I had to get my head around it. I referred to some youtube videos when I couldn't understand much from the definitions in the book

5th through 6th week:

• I read the study guide(B112) and bought the pocket guide(G117). While the study guide is a compressed version of the TOGAF I091, the pocket guide is even a further compression of the entire syllabus and is primarily for individuals who would like to revisit TOGAF. The study guide has a section for the exact syllabus to focus on & also contains a sample test at the end for both Part I & II.

7th through 8th week:

• I started taking online tests. There are not much available so I googled through the ones which were and arranged all tests which I would take during these last 2 week
• There is a test on the study guide which you should definitely take. I registered my exam at a Prometric center once I took this test and felt comfortable.
• There are free tests available on these sites too:
• http://theopenarch.com/ - 5 tests in total at the time of my writing this blog and provides answers too
• http://setandbma.wordpress.com/2011/03/30/togaf-foundation-level-certification-aid-for-preparation/ - Single test but if you go through the comments, then this gentleman provides another set too.
• http://setandbma.wordpress.com/2011/05/16/togaf-preparation-aid-for-part-2/ - Provided by the same person

D-Day:

Keep your cool and go to the exam center early. You don't need to munch up on anything any further. Enough done. Its time to just relax and take the test. Don't get nervous about the multiple cameras focusing on you during the test. Part I for me was quite varied and I found questions from every section of the study syllabus. Some were really simple and I didn't expect those. On the other hand, some were complex so in essence you will find all kinds & strengths of questions asked. Part II for me was really tricky. I had taken some Part II free online tests and was quite comfortable, however, even then so, I found it tricky and time consuming. The open exam with references to I091 didn't help much as some questions were well projected and you wouldn't get direct answers from the PDF. Nonetheless, I finished both the papers within the time limits and scored well. A pass was a relief towards the 2 months of effort.

After the Exam:

Once you pass the exam, The Open Group takes up to 6 days to send you a confirmation on your certification. This is the time required by Prometric to send off the requisite test materials, scores, etc to The Open Group. The Open Group would then scrutinize the exam and email you with the certification status within these 6 days. Mine took 2 days so I would say that those 6 days limit is the max. The email which you get will talk about registering in their site and will also offer a free registration to the Association of Enterprise Architects (AEA)

Well, this is my plan and there could be several ways you may prepare for this exam. I would suggest anyone to build their own plan depending on availability of time and interest. Do let me know if you have any particular question and wish all who are planning to take the exam, the very best!

Symbolic Links in Unix & Linux

Symbolic links have played vital roles in many of linux development that I have been involved in. Hence, I thought it would do justice to write something on them.

Symbolic links are of 2 types - soft vs hard links.

 

·         Soft links are pointers to programs, files, or directories located elsewhere (just like Windows shortcuts)

·         Soft links don’t die if the source is deleted

 

·         Hard links are pointers to programs and files, but NOT directories

·         Hard links don’t die if the source is deleted

 

Let’s look at some commands to play with symbolic links.

 

Creating a symbolic link:

[yassar@machine data01]$ ln -s pointingToFolder linkName

This will create the linkName pointing to the folder

Displaying symbolic link(s):
[yassar@machine data01]$ ls -la
lrwxrwxrwx.  1 yassar yassar   35 Apr  2 21:35 workspace -> /data/workspaces/branches/Trunk_V3.0.1

 

This would display the folder details together with the actual link path

Updating a symbolic link:

[yassar@machine data01]$ ln -s pointingToDifferentFolder existingLinkName

 

This will use an existing link to point to a new folder

Deleting a symbolic link:
[yassar@machine data01]$ rm latest previous

 

This simply deletes the link.

 

Once you’re in the link directory, you may check the actual path:

[yassar@machine data01]$ pwd -P

 

 

 

Apple - Once you have one, you wanna have more of it!

Well Apple recently announced their mind-boggling results. Even without an iPhone 5 they were able to shake the markets and tremble competitors. At one point of time, Steve Jobs said that he wanted to emulate Sony’s model of product development and marketing. And it is 2012, when Sony posted a net loss of a $1 billion and announced that they would like to emulate Apple’s product development & marketing model. What an irony!

 

 

Anyhow, Apple announced a result which would put any global giant into envy. They went on to become the largest corporation in the world based on market capital outstripping Exxon and if I remember correctly, it was a whopping $450 billion. Apple posted revenues of $46.3 billion for the last quarter of 2011 and an astonishing $13 billion profit. Amazingly, Apple’s profit alone was more than Google’s Q4 revenues which was at $10 billion and was more than double the annual revenue of Facebook. Microsoft has done very well too but clocked $17 billion in revenues. Keep in mind that these are all giants and not to be undermined just because they were overshadowed by Apple on earnings. These are all huge corporations with great talent and ideas. They are in the same league. However, we can say that Apple is in a league of its own!

 

 

This gargantuan result could be easily attributed to the 37 million units of iPhones sold by Apple. With rumors around the Apple TV doing the rounds, who knows where Apple would land.

 

 

Perhaps, I should blog next on the success factors of Apple…

 

Facebook IPO - The Holy Grail of all IPOs !

Facebook has always been in the news but its decision to go public has made recent waves. Well, the obvious question is – why does a company like Facebook need to go public?

 

As a matter of fact, Facebook is not going totally public. An estimated 5% of the company is up for sale and it’s almost like it’s being forced to. How? Well, Facebook is unofficially worth close to a whopping $100 billion and all this money came from private stakeholders. And by worth, I mean market value – the potential of the company as considered by investors. Currently, Facebook has 500 such private shareholders and by law if the figure crosses 500, then you need to make financial disclosures. As a result, Facebook was pedantically instructed to disclose financial statements every quarter as is the case with all public companies. However, Facebook decided to go partially public and raise some funds via an Initial Public Offering(IPO) and this partial stake of the company is worth $5 billion. This is by far the biggest IPO for any technology company !

 

So what does Facebook plan to do with this big pile of cash? Facebook is already rich and popular. It has loads of money available for its expansion plans and is growing at a rapid rate. It already has 800 million users and through user focused advertisements, it is generating its revenue. Today, they reported a billion dollar worth of profit against a $3.7 billion revenue which is a remarkable figure for any company. Anyways, this huge pile of cash from the IPO will present Facebook with additional opportunities in terms of buying hot startups and generating new ideas and products. It will aid compete with rivals by quickly adopting new technologies and innovating marketing tactics.

 

 

The IPO was supposed to be announced this week, but no news yet – potential investors are keeping fingers crossed and waiting to plunge. Is it worth plunging? Not sure, since Facebook has already grown drastically. Under-writers are going to evaluate the stock and then come up with a value figure. Analysts, however, feel that Facebook has to grow at an amazing rate of 30% year on year to make this investment really worth. Is it possible? It surely is tough, but not impossible. Tough because when the company is so large, 30% growth on revenue is a mountainous task. Regardless of that, sentiments & speculations mean a lot in the stock market arena and Facebook is definitely the hottest, the fastest, the coolest company on the block. Well only time will tell if the investors get lucky!

SOPA and PIPA – What are they?

SOPA and PIPA – What are they?

 

Recently, you must have heard a lot of the buzzwords – SOPA and PIPA. But, what are they? They made a lot of headlines recently and have subsided as quickly as they gained attention. SOPA stands for Stop Online Piracy Act and PIPA is the acronym for protect IP Act. Both the bills aim at foreign websites that encroach on copyrighted materials and deliver those freely to common public. There is no law today which would stop this infringement against foreign websites like 'The Pirate Bay' or 'Mega Upload'. These are bills which the congress has been trying to pass and once approved will allow the government to take strict actions against websites which infringed copyrighted material. However, these are not something new and have been around doing the rounds for quite some time. SOPA attempts to bring to court such websites, while PIPA aims to block such sites from the internet service provider layer and even filter out such websites on search engine results. Recently, with the stimulation from music and movie industries, these bills gained attention and were to be presented to Congress for an approval. While most of the media companies are for it, all the major technology companies are in fact against the bill.

 

 

You must have heard about most websites which had de-labeled their logos on a January day to denote their non-support towards the bills. These were major companies including Google, Craigslist, Mozilla and Wikipedia, which also included on their site an explanation as to why they are not supportive. The same day, more than 10000 websites went black and more than 7 million people signed petitions on Google.com opposing the bills. Anyways, the current state of things is that decision on both the bills has been deferred until March of 2012 citing the chaos caused due to them. While the Anti-SOPA groups and campaigners celebrate for a short while, Hollywood is disappointed. We'll see what happens next when once again these bills rise from their graves!

 

 

 

Jackson as Binding Framework for JSON

 

For folks who have used JSON as the message format between different tiers of your application, identifying the best possible binding framework must have been tough. With maturity coming into play with time for JSON, there are a host of binding engines. One of the fastest and lightweight I came across is Jackson. Yes you heard it right – that’s the name of the framework!

 

JSON shows a lot of promise due to its low payload size and structure and frameworks to support it will soon pick up steam. Now let’s get down to some results.

 

Jackson is a multi-purpose Java library for processing JSON. Jackson aims to be the best possible combination of fast, correct, lightweight, and ergonomic for developers.

 

Consideration Points

·         Performance oriented framework and lightweight

·         Fastest marshaling / unmarshalling processing

·         Supports Annotations

·         Supports utilization of generated models with ease (with mix-in annotations)

·         Jackson JSON processor is by default an Open Source product, available under: Apache License (AL) 2.0 & LGPL 2.1

·         Joda date time library support

·         Hibernate data type support

·         Supports non-Java JVM languages also e.g. Groovy, Scala, Clojure

·         Relatively more active project vs other frameworks available in market

·         Clean specifications available

 

 

 

Considering the "bigger is better" aspect -- value measured, "tps", is number of documents read, written, or read-modify-written per second -- difference from slowest (google-gson) to fastest (Jackson) is a solid order of magnitude.