Re: Learn Cloud or Do Oracle OCM ..confused

I am a bitter opponent of the certifications. I was Oracle OCA for Oracle 8i and 9i. I felt sick in my stomach when doing those certification exams. Those certifications require essentially the same skill as was required to learn poems in school: listen my children and you shall hear about the midnight ride of Paul Revere....A beautiful poem, though.

What certification process does not teach is the understanding of the different components. I have interviewed certified DBA people who haven't understood the tuning process. In particular, I asked the following question: users of a particular application start complaining that the application response is slow. What do you do? The most frequent and completely inaccurate answer was "i run AWR report". Some of the interviewed folks didn't know what gc 2-way waits are and how to avoid them. And if you go a bit out of the Oracle universe and ask for the difference between a PC and a mini computer or why would you need an HBA with iSCSI, there is a fair amount of blank stares or tries to rephrase the question and offer it as an answer. Such blatantly rude tactics immediately get under my skin. There are cases of OCP who know only Oracle SQL and only on Windows. Until approximately 5 years ago, one of my regular questions was the one about the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow. However, recent candidates have not watched mandatory classics like MP & Holly Grail, Life of Brian, Dr. Strangelove or Apocalypse Now. Strange as it may sound, some of them haven't even seen The Animal House. My questions are out of date and can only be answered by the people 45 or older. I've said to a new DBA that she's now under double secret probation and she asked me what is that? Until very recently, the understanding of the references like that revealed certain psychology type and belonging to certain group of people, usually known as "computer geeks" of which I am a proud member.  No certification guarantees of overall good understanding of IT technology.  One of my newer questions is: how will you find out who is doing the most of IO on your DB server? The first answer is usually a query to V$SESSTAT, which will not catch a botched Perl script or a security product which continually checks file flags. ClamAV anyone? What a reply like this tells me is that the user doesn't understand the overall IT technology and is problematic, despite a certification. I prefer good references and experiences on the resume to certification.

On 10/27/19 9:48 PM, Vishnu Potukanuma wrote:
> A certification will definitely help and will elevate your carrier as
> well... especially OCM.. and the employment prospects are high
> provided that your resume makes it till the technical panel ..
> The irony is in reality most recruiters/managers who filter the
> resumes doesn't care or know about what is OCM.. in few cases they
> thought OCP is higher....
>
> I see that you are an Oracle performance DBA in your current role..
> explore this area to the fullest means possible... Oracle DBAs
> specialising in performance tuning are a rare breed and you wont find
> many in the market and the actual filtering ratio will be 200/300:1 to
> find a good performance tuning DBA who knows stuff apart from the
> fundamentals and we had to struggle a lot each time a DBA would go out
> of the team and it took us approximately 3 months to find the right
> resource. I would recommend you to focus all your attention in Cloud /
> Performance tuning for now and prepare for OCM in your part time.
>
> it hardly takes 2 months to finish preparing and practicing for OCM
> especially if you follow the schedule properly take a topic a day
> (probably an hour or two) and try to finish it and practice it the
> alternate day... Its a tough exam but it is real easy! but earning the
> certification is different from living up to the expectations.
>
> Thanks,
> Vishnusivathej
> Oracle 11g/12c OCM
>
> On Sun, Oct 27, 2019 at 2:36 AM Mladen Gogala <gogala.mladen_at_gmail.com
> <mailto:gogala.mladen_at_gmail.com>> wrote:
>
> On 10/26/19 9:51 AM, kunwar singh wrote
>
>> Hi all,
>>
>> What would be more beneficial in the long term in your opinion?
>>
>>
>> Oracle OCM certification (and things learned during its time
>> preparation ) or learning cloud .
>>
>> I don’t want to do both as don’t get much free time and want to
>> gain expert level knowledge so that I am gainfully employed for
>> next 5 years or so .
>>
>> I am oracle performance dba in my current role .
>>
>> So looking for insights on what community members here think .
>>
>>
>> I am interested in both , but thinking what value OCM will hold
>> with all the cloud focus these days . In my job I am getting
>> chance to play with python , so atleast I am learning a new skill
>> currently too.
>>
>>
>> Rgds,
>>
>> Kunwar
>>
>> --
>> Cheers,
>> Kunwar
>
>
> Hi Kunwar!
>
> Why not both? You can become an Oracle Cloud Master, OCM for
> short. In other words, you could become a genuine Oracle rain man.
>
> Regards
>
>
>
> --
> Mladen Gogala
> Database Consultant
> Tel: (347) 321-1217
>

-- 
Mladen Gogala
Database Consultant
Tel: (347) 321-1217


--
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