I wrote three certification tests:
- Test 253, IBM WebSphere Application Server, Network Deployment
- Test 142, XML 1.1 and Related Technologies
- Test 664, SOA Fundamentals
Test 253, IBM WebSphere Application Server, Network Deployment
As I had mentioned before, I attended a WAS 6.1 Administration business partner course run out of the IBM Toronto Lab. I have a printed copy of the course and have spent the last month reading it off and on. I decided to attempt to write the certification. I thought that the test was pretty fair and I don’t remember anything note worthy about weird/unfair questions. The course was a very good match for the test.
Passing Score: 53%
Your Score: Pass – 61.11% (33 earned out of 54 possible)
Test 142, XML 1.1 and Related Technologies
Given that I’ve been working with XML for a long time, I figured I should be able to pass this one pretty easily. The test is focused on DTD & XSD definitions of XML. There are also questions along the lines of “Why is this XML bad” or “When to choose SAX over DOM for parsing”. There were some low-level technology questions too. Things like “How do you create an XML Reader” or “What jar do you need to put on the classpath to use XSLTC in Java 5?” (??). There were also some hardcore XSLT iterative data manipulation calls where you had to describe the output or error. I’d say you’ll have a better time with this certification if you are currently using SAX/DOM API to parse trees. I haven’t done that in a very long time.
Passing Score: 61%
Your Score: Pass – 61.22% (30 earned out of 49 possible)
Yes, I passed by %0.22.
Test 664, SOA Fundamentals
I wasn’t in the mood to write another difficult test (say WPS Admin). I noticed that 664 is a required test to obtain IBM Certified WebSphere Administrator status (I’m not sure about the exact term, but it’s the combination of 664 + 235 + WPS 094). This test was pretty easy if you have been working in the SOA space in any capacity. The key terms to remember is that SOA is all about business value and rapid responses to change. That theme was hammered in about 50% of the test. If you use common sense and understand things like Web Services and WSDL you should be fine.
Passing Score: 66%
Your Score: Pass – 77.78% (42 earned out of 54 possible)
So far so good. I will likely write Process Server certification today.
