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 2nd 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 3rd 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.
