Re: Is Sr. DBAs afraid of not be able to pass cert exam ??

Keith Boulton doodled thusly:

>
>> The solution is to make those certificates true tests of DB knowledge
>> and reasoning. But that requires a somewhat more sophisticated
>> "evaluation facility" than a template for filtering multiple choices!
>
>I wonder where one would start?
>
>

well, many moons ago when IT was an industry where people aimed for careers as opposed to software versions, there was a thing called Education Services.

Provided in the most part by the s/w or h/w makers. Usually of very high quality and highly respected in the industry.

Back in those days these services were recognized of tertiary level by the industry and treated as such by its users and managers. Ie, you wouldn't get to be a teacher in one of these services unless you were very, very experienced or you had tremendous research and tertiary education qualifications.

In some advanced cases, entire OS and DBMS source codes were analyzed in these courses, as well as the principles of database design. Minor things such as lock detection algorithms, cache algorithms, data access path lengths (logical and physical), optimization techniques to minimize various aspects of the prior, etcetc, were analyzed IN DEPTH.

Enormous $$$$ were made by the Education Services, but they were considered worth spending on by the clients: usually they ended up with near-zero staff rotation and people who really could handle just about any problem.

There are plenty of more recent examples. Notably, Cisco and Netware certified network engineers are among the most respected in the industry.

Then M$ started the MCSE crud.
Then someone from M$ left and joined Oracle... Now everybody with half a brain just laughs at OCPs, MCSEs, and their ilk.

Cheers
Nuno Souto
nsouto_at_optushome.com.au.nospam Received on Thu Jan 31 2002 - 05:43:08 CST