Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Oracle Database Certifications Are No Longer Permanent

Posted by Soulskill on from the you're-now-allowed-to-forget-things dept.

jfruh writes: It used to be that you could get an Oracle database certification and declare yourself Oracle-certified for the rest of your career. That time is now over, causing a certain amount of consternation among DBAs. On the one hand, it makes sense that someone who's only been certified on a decade-old version of the product should need to prove they've updated their skills. On the other, Oracle charges for certification and will definitely profit from this shift."

22 of 108 comments (clear)

  1. Key question by abhisri · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Will the DBAs actually need to take the test again and again, each time to keep their certification?
    Else all this is going to prove is whether you paid the tithe to oracle or not.

    1. Re:Key question by gl4ss · · Score: 2

      presumably.

      or else you could maybe sue them for changing the contract retroeffectively? get your money back?

      --
      world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
    2. Re:Key question by Z00L00K · · Score: 3, Insightful

      A certification doesn't make you a good DBA. It only tells the employer that you have understood some basics.

      A good DBA is able to see what the best solution is for the company and the product it delivers. It's way more important to understand the demands the product have on the database than anything else.

      --
      If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
    3. Re:Key question by Virtucon · · Score: 3, Funny

      So that means you're not certified then?

      --
      Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
    4. Re:Key question by IndustrialComplex · · Score: 3, Insightful

      It doesn't work like that. You would still have your certification. But it would be the old certification. What Oracle will do is issue their new improved updated latest whizbang certification 2.0.

      So you would have your DBA certification, and it would still be exactly what it always was, but you would not have the DBA 2.0 certification.

      --
      Out of modpoints but really liked a post? 1BDkF6TtmmeZ3yqXbz9yhdYVqRYnwFoXDj
  2. Give me $5.000 by Ivan+Stepaniuk · · Score: 4, Funny

    And I will certify your competence in anything. (Signed piece of paper included)

    --
    My other signature is a car
    1. Re:Give me $5.000 by AchilleTalon · · Score: 2

      Exactly! Most certifications are just scam and pieces of paper to cover the ass of HR guys hiring without having a clue about the skills they are looking for. A convenient way to tell the boss they picked someone with the right technical skills, in theory. Taxes on revenues from governments are not enough, some companies managed to make their own.

      --
      Achille Talon
      Hop!
    2. Re:Give me $5.000 by Richard_at_work · · Score: 2

      I agree with you when it comes to third party certification courses, but not when its the company certifying you in its own products - they have a vested PR interest to not endorse people who can't do the job.

    3. Re:Give me $5.000 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Yeah, but to be fair experience on a CV usually equates to number of years a person has been able to bullshit through their previous job.

      Frankly almost everyone is fairly dull - if you think you're the exception, you're probably even less talented than those around you - and the majority misrepresent themselves, whether because they're outright liars or because they have an inflated sense of their ability and/or contribution to previous projects.

      And, yeah, I'm in HR. I value long probationary periods - paid, of course, but at a lower rate while training is provided: IOW I care more about your reasoning skills than buzzwords on your resume. This also means that I do respect a background which implies eclectic skillset, though don't expect me to look for what you think fits best: if you're a self-taught programmer who demonstrates an understanding of the fundamentals of computer science, but your academic background is in World History, my interest will be very clearly piqued. If you're a seasoned systems software engineer whose background is entirely in software engineering, my first question will be: what that is new can you bring to us?

      I especially value good ethics - this one's underrated by many companies, and sometimes one has to be careful not to be seen by some convoluted reasoning as discriminatory, but in brief: if you're here to make a quick buck and leave, or to use your colleagues as stepping stones, I'll try damn hard to make sure you're never hired, or quickly removed. (OTOH, if you're willing to work your ass off, expect to be rewarded not just in cash but in job security: employees gradually gain a share of the business with years worked, and are sufficiently involved in various policies that laying off for short-term profiteering would never happen unless the employees suddenly decide to majority vote against their own interest.)

    4. Re:Give me $5.000 by Charliemopps · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I agree with you when it comes to third party certification courses, but not when its the company certifying you in its own products - they have a vested PR interest to not endorse people who can't do the job.

      You don't work with Oracle do you?
      Their primary marketing slogan is: "Shut the fuck up and give us your money"

    5. Re:Give me $5.000 by Hognoxious · · Score: 2

      I don't even like the term "HR" - "personnel" was much better

      Another one. You must be due to retire soon.

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    6. Re:Give me $5.000 by pla · · Score: 2

      If you're a seasoned systems software engineer whose background is entirely in software engineering, my first question will be: what that is new can you bring to us?

      How about, Able to do the fucking job without a "long probationary period ... while training is provided"? That do it for ya, hmm? No, no, you'd rather have your interest "piqued" than get a qualified boring individual to do the job your employer wants done.

      I realize what we do can often look like magic to those with no math or computer skills, but really, don't insult me by explaining how your AP reconciliation process differs from every other special unique snowflake of an accounting department.


      I especially value good ethics - this one's underrated by many companies

      No, you don't. You value someone who looks ethical, but when the CFO tells him to "interpret" the numbers more favorable, he shuts up and does as directed. You value someone who, when your DB breaks, he puts you at the head of the queue instead of following standard prioritization rules for the company. In short, just like all the other HR folks who tout "diversity" and "ethics" - You want a shiny facade, but couldn't care less about the reality.


      if you're here to make a quick buck and leave, or to use your colleagues as stepping stones, I'll try damn hard to make sure you're never hired, or quickly removed.

      Although they exist, I find it somewhat funny you would mention that in the context of engineers. Unlike in the HR and corporate food chains, engineers have a problem in exactly the opposite direction - When management (almost without exception) proves itself as incompetent asshats, we get the job done despite (sometimes in direct contradiction to) what management thinks it wants. On the whole, engineers have a massively overdeveloped sense of meritocracy, unfortunately an ideal largely incompatible with "obey the most expensive suit".

      Yeah, we probably wouldn't get along well.

  3. Not a great loss... by Jorgensen · · Score: 5, Informative

    I am an Oracle Certified DBA, and I do not consider this a great loss.

    For several reasons:

    • My (then) employer paid for the certification
    • I considered the certification test EASY. I had already been an Oracle DBA for about a year at the time (worked with Oracle products for about 5), and the test covered the stuff the manuals documented anyway. Anybody capable of digesting the Administrator's Manual should have no trouble on the test. The manuals were actually pretty good.
    • The certification is tied to the Oracle RDBMS version number. So being certified on an older version is of limited value anyway. (I know: The base RDBMS doesn't really change that much, but they wrap all sorts of nonsense around it)
    • Oracle is becoming increasingly irrelevant: MySQL (although now owned by Oracle too) takes the bottom end of the market share with ease, PostgreSQL the middle bit, and there are a lot fewer sales to be made at the high end.
    1. Re:Not a great loss... by will_die · · Score: 3, Informative

      Oracle already has the version in the name of the certificaton.
      That certification is good for the lifeof the product what is changed with the time limit is that with an active Oracle certification you get access to software and some other services. If you don't keep the certification active you lose that access.
      So my old Oracle DBA certification of Oracle 7 (15+ years old???) will no longer give me access to the web site and software unless I upgrade the cert however I am still certificated as an Oracle 7 DBA for as long as I want to claim it.

    2. Re:Not a great loss... by StormReaver · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Oracle is becoming increasingly irrelevant....

      I snuck PostgreSQL into the organization in 2005 to handle certain Web activity. It worked great for years, and my boss later decided to use it for other projects that were slated to use Oracle. All of those projects were so maintenance free at the database end that we later decided to replace Oracle with PostgreSQL for all of our database needs.

      We found that the Oracle "features" we paid for failed when they were needed most, and therefore didn't work as advertised. PostgreSQL's replication and standby features would have been good enough.

      I use PostgreSQL for all of my low end needs, too. I tried MySQL off and on for years, and it is still a terrible database (alter the data to fit the contraints!) when data are important. Even more exciting, though, is that PostgreSQL is slowly adding high-end features into its core infrastructure. And those features adhere to the PostgreSQL ACID philosophy.

    3. Re:Not a great loss... by tomhath · · Score: 2

      Postgresql will soon own the low and middle end RDBMS market. Oracle and DB2 fight for the high end, but Postgresql and NoSQL databases are rapidly encroaching on that market too.

  4. Certifications are a joke by jellomizer · · Score: 2

    Certification are just an excuse to get more money from people who have already paid for your product. It is an excuse to not offer proper training and documentation for your product in the first place.

    --
    If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
  5. So Oracle certifications just lost the 'D' in ACID by tlambert · · Score: 4, Funny

    So Oracle certifications just lost the 'D' in ACID ... that's just LOL!

  6. Re:Your firstborn by NoNonAlphaCharsHere · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Clearly you don't know Oracle. The cost has always been your soul.

  7. Freudian slip by RDW · · Score: 3, Insightful

    On the other, Oracle charges for certification and will definitely profit from this shift.

    I had to re-read that sentence - the first time I didn't notice the 'f' in 'shift' and thought the summary was unusually direct.

  8. I'm an Oracle DBA by dheltzel · · Score: 2

    . . . with 17 years of experience with Oracle, and I refuse to ever get certified. It's how I weed out the stupid companies. If a job description even mentions that they prefer an OCP, I skip it. Very few senior roles mention it at all and it has never come up in an interview.

    I suppose that for someone starting out with almost no Oracle experience it might be worth doing, but it's like your high school GPA, mentioning it a few years out makes you seem desperate and needy.

    The only OCP's I know work for Oracle, I think they make you get it if you work for them. I know they don't require it to get a job at Oracle. It really is a worthless cert if you know what you are doing. Experience and good references/referrals will trump a piece of paper every single time, except for companies a true hacker would not want to work for anyway.

  9. Certifications... by Narot23 · · Score: 2

    Every place I've been around doesn't care if they're super current. Now that all the vendors are doing expiring certs, expired certs are still certs in the eyes of most hiring managers. "Oh yeah you know Jimmy is Cisco certified but I think it expired last year or something. We'll get him into update it eventually" is the general tone you hear from the managers. If the cert even matters, if you passed a test 2 years ago and it's $5,000 to stay "current" I don't think many managers care, if they care about certs at all. That's just one of those "oh, you have them, OK" items on a resume, like a bachelor's.