Phew - SCEA !!

[Ajith Kallambella]

I got my results today and I cleared Part II and III with 98% . For some reason I lost 2 points for the component diagram, but hey, I'm just as happy as I can be. Right now I'm and I'll spend the evening
Boy, that signature looks good
PS : I will write about my experience in a short while.
[ August 18, 2003: Message edited by: Ajith Kallambella ]

[Dave Cronin]

Congratulations Ajith. I hope to follow you later with parts II and III.

[Narayanan Jayaraman]

Hi Ajith,
Congrats !!. How long it took to finish Part II and III ?. Could you share your experience ?. Thanks

[Padam Krishna]

Congratulations Ajith that's excellent score.

[Billy Tsai]

congratulations
how long did you wait after u sat the essay exam?

[Robert Mao]

Congratulations !

[gagaghost]

Congratulations!
[ August 18, 2003: Message edited by: gagaghost ]

[Weerawit Maneepongsawat]

Congratulations....
U r the best
Weerawit
SJCP, SCWCD

[Ajith Kallambella]

Thank you all. Here are some details -
I took the Part I in January but did not register for Part II until last week of March. Honestly, I felt I was not prepared, especially after reading several posts from those who were working on the assignment. Although I have been working as an architect for more than three years now, I knew getting certified is whole another ball game. Therefore I spent time just honing my UML skills. I downloaded the assignment in March and took about 8 weeks to complete it, mainly because I was busy with my regular job that left me with very little time to do the assignment. IMO the assignment is not very tough and someone with good knowledge of J2EE can easily complete it with in about 40 hours.
Without delving too much into the details of the assignment, let me just say a few things. There are parts of the assignment that are vague, and it is intentional. You are free to assume certain things while designing a solution as long as you don't forget to document them. The assignment it is to design a flight reservation system. You will be given requirements in various formats, and a rudimentary domain object model. Your task is to realize the requirements and document your design in the form of sequence diagrams, component diagrams and a class diagram. The emphasis will be on "extending" the business object model( not deviating from it! ) and being 100% UML compliant. You are encouraged, but not required to submit additional documentation.

Use standar UML constructs.

Use documented J2EE design patterns and know why you are using them!

You are free to use EJB2.0 features, again, as long as you can justify.

Keep the class diagram free of clutter - use stereotypes.

I lost two points for the component diagram, not sure why. There are very few examples of J2EE component diagrams and among themselves, they are very inconsistent.

When you think you are done, have your assignment peer reviewed. Show it to your coworker or a friend( who knows J2EE and UML! ) and ask them if the details are sufficient to understand the complete solution.

Do not over engineer your solution. There are few performance requirements, but don't get hung up on designing a perfect solution. Focus on the requirements.

I used both SCEA guides for preparation, and all the notes we have linked from our SCEA links page. I also used Martin Fowler's UML distilled, Core J2EE patterns and GOF Design Patterns as a reference guides. The PetStore example was helpful in understanding the "accepted approach" for design and architecture however my solution was not similar. I used CRC method for identifying the classes. If there is one thing I want to emphasize here, it is how helpful my real-life experience was. I was able to relate to, and draw from my own on the job experience and naturally, my solution reflected several strategies that I have actually implemented in the past while solving real problems.
After submitting the assignment, I waited for about two weeks before appearing for Part III test. In Part III, you will be asked about various non-functional aspects of your architecture and you are expected to defend/explain the design strategies adopted in arriving at the solution. Questions are very straightforward and are not directly related to the business requirements. If you took time and effort to solve the assignment, the Part III test should be a breeze.
I will be more than happy to answer any questions, but I cannot talk about the assignment itself.... you know why!
Cheers,
[ August 19, 2003: Message edited by: Ajith Kallambella ]

[Jason Dobies]

Congrats!

[Billy Tsai]

did you declear the attributes and operations of all the classes or is it possible to pass without declaring them on the class?
do we have to specifically mention what version of EJB and J2EE we r using even if we use ejb1.1 and is it necessary to show the home and remote class of ejb?
thanks

[Ajith Kallambella]

did you declear the attributes and operations of all the classes or is it possible to pass without declaring them on the class?

I only showed business methods and excluded getters and setters from the class diagram. I did show the arguments and argument types for all business methods and used the elipses ie., (...) to indicate additional arguments not captured in diagram.

do we have to specifically mention what version of EJB and J2EE we r using even if we use ejb1.1 and is it necessary to show the home and remote class of ejb?
thanks

It is a good idea to include version information in a supplementary document. I did not show remote and home classes for EJBs but used stereotypes such as <<entitybean>> and <<sessionbean>> instead. This greatly reduced the number of classes in the class diagram.
Hope that helps,

[Juan Rolando Prieur-Reza]

Originally posted by Ajith Kallambella:

I will be more than happy to answer any questions

Ajith,
Congrats. Can you tell me about the physical size of your diagrams (GIFs I assume). I am wondering if you have to fit everything so that they can
print on an 8.5 x 11 inch paper. Or, is it acceptable to have a really
wide GIF for things like Sequence diagrams - so wide that you have to
scroll left and right (maybe even up and down) in order to see it all.
Thank you in advance for your thoughts on this.

[James Ward]

Congratulations Ajith...
Excellent Score ... Enjoy Man.
Are you based in Bangalore ?

[Billy Tsai]

did anyone show JSP as classes or we can just omit that because its presentation tier, I personally think we dont need to show that except all the classes related to application, services,domain and persistence with the appropriate J2EE patterns, please confirm with me
thanks

[Ajith Kallambella]

Originally posted by john prieur:

Congrats. Can you tell me about the physical size of your diagrams (GIFs I assume). I am wondering if you have to fit everything so that they can
print on an 8.5 x 11 inch paper. Or, is it acceptable to have a really
wide GIF for things like Sequence diagrams - so wide that you have to
scroll left and right (maybe even up and down) in order to see it all.
Thank you in advance for your thoughts on this.

My diagrams were pretty big and the GIF files were about 130K each. Many of them were wide and I think it is acceptable.

[Ajith Kallambella]

Originally posted by Billy Tsai:
did anyone show JSP as classes or we can just omit that because its presentation tier, I personally think we dont need to show that except all the classes related to application, services,domain and persistence with the appropriate J2EE patterns, please confirm with me
thanks

I showed JSPs as a single UI component, but represented other front end classes such as MVC implementation in the component diagram.

[Pradeep bhatt]

Are you based in Bangalore ?

Ajith is not based in Banglore.
Ajith, question for you.
How many years of experience do you have and how did your experience help in clearing SCEA. I am sorry if you dont like my questions.
Thanks

[dbala subramaniam]

Hi Ajith Amazing,
Congratulations
I am also in the thrill since I am also waiting for my results
with regards
bala

[dbala subramaniam]

Mr.Ajith
could you tell us what CRC method means
please give more detail
Next I submitted my Assignment about 3 weeks back
Still I didn't any reply ,
How to check the result in Cert Manager
Every time it is expanding there only progress, how we know the Assignment results
with regards
bala

[Billy Tsai]

hi
did you people draw EJB tier service locator in addition to webtier service locator?
displaying the session facade uses the EJB tier service locator to find other EJBs?