All,
Passed Part 1 yesterday. My summary:
Concepts cover the role of an architect, non-functional reqyuirements (performance, scalability, reliability, availability, extensibility, manageability, maintainability and security) and UML.
Common Architectures will cover 1-tier (monolithic), 2-tier and n-tier. Useful to know how the non-functional requirements tie in with the architecture.
Legacy Connectivity will have scenario questions on how to connect to a certain kind of legacy system. Best way to do this is break the question down, draw a picture (it helps) and then try to answer the question.
EJB and container model - If you've read the first 8 chapters in the older edition of Monson-Haefel (don't know in terms of the new book), that will more than cover what you need. Make sure you understand the benefits and pitfalls of each type of bean.
Applicability of J2EE (more scenario questions) Guess you know this after studying everything for the exam.
Patterns, Messaging, Internationalization and Security are pretty easy. Please read some introductory material on JMS. I found the JMS part of the J2EE tutorial very helpful.
For Patterns, I used GoF primarily and also referred to Non-Software Examples (initially), and Applied
Java Patterns (occasionally). If you understand the intent, motivation, structure (UML) and collaborations, that will more than be sufficient. Though the exam does dot go into them in any depth your knowledge of patterns will be invaluable in the assignment. Many J2EE patterns are based on existing GoF patterns.
For I18N, I read the Mark Cade book and the tutorial on SUN.
Messaging - Read the first couple of chapters in the JMS book by Monson Haefel. The J2EE tutorial is good.
Security - I read the 2 netscape papers (Public Key Cryptography, SSL), the 3COM paper (firewalls), Java 2 Security enhancements from SUN - modified sandbox model...all code local (can) and remote (will) be subjected to a policy file.
Protocols - Primarily followed Mark Cade, and the PDF file.
Chris Broeker's notes, the PDF files -anonymous are invaluable. If you have access to Jamie Javorski's old
SCJA book read that for Legacy connectivity. If you don't have it, read Balaji's notes.
All in all, the exam was quite easy. Many questions were atleast 4-5 lines of description, even if it was a radio button chioce type. A few questions had exhibits too. My strong advice is that for all the lengthy scenarios, first read the question and answers...will give you an idea of what they want. Then you can read the scenario. Also start drawing pictures representing the scenario. That makes things very easy. So you know there's a browser, firewall, web-server, app-server cluster, db (for example.)
Also do not be in a hurry. After finishing my first pass, I had close to 20 minutes remaining. I had marked off 7 questions, lengthy types, that I wanted to revisit and make sure I'd got them right. I spent about 15 minutes on those later. I did not revisit the other answers. It turns out that I made two careless errors in those...one in concepts (for crying out aloud.) If I'd read them properly, I could have landed a nice 93.
My break up is as follows:
Total /48 (89%)
Concepts 83%
Common Arch 66%
Legacy Conn 100%
EJB 100%
EJB Container 100%
Protocols 100%
Appl. of J2EE 66%
Patterns 100%
Messaging 100%
I18N 100%
Security 50%
Hope this helps. If there are other questions, please let me know. Off to part 2!
