Vendors' certifications

[Vitaliy Geraymovych]

Hi guys,

I wanted to get your opinion on a subject of vendors' certifications. I am planning to take SCEA but I am also looking on Weblogic 8.1 architect certification. In my opinion certifications that cover industry standards are better (SCEA, SCBCD, SCJP, etc) but after doing some job search I see that people are looking for mostly weblogic or websphere experience.

Wouldn't pursuing vendor specific certifications make more sense? Or is it better to take both of them? What is your take on it?

Thanks in advance for all great opinions.
Vitaliy

[Ajith Kallambella]

Here is my two cents worth...

It all depends on what *your* career aspirations are. If you want to be an expert in WebLogic product suite, you must plan to take product certifications offered by BEA. However, if you want to tout yourself as an Enterprise Java Arcitect, SCEA should be your goal.

Although as you have noted WebSphere and WebLogic dominate today's J2EE implementations, I have seen plenty of job openings calling for skills in a third-party app server( Sun, Pramati, JBoss, OracleAS etc). IMO vendor certifications (obviously) focus more on product specifics whereas SCEA tends to be product agnostic. Specs, best practices, patterns, UML, SDLC process - all these constitute the repertoire of a seasoned architect and *none* of these are specific to product implementations. I am not trying to undercut the importance of "knowing your app server", but as a hiring manager, if I know that you( as a candidate) know core J2EE and all of these things, I will be willing to accept your limited(or lack of) knowledge of a particular app server. After all, how long does it take for one to read a product manual and learn the basics? Therefore, I personally value SCEA more than vendor certifications. Ofcourse, I will certainly prefer somone having both

[Kay Badri]

Most of the people in the industry have some feel for the certifications! It is always nice to have in the job market.

Kay

[Vitaliy Geraymovych]

Originally posted by Ajith Kallambella:
Here is my two cents worth...

It all depends on what *your* career aspirations are. If you want to be an expert in WebLogic product suite, you must plan to take product certifications offered by BEA. However, if you want to tout yourself as an Enterprise Java Arcitect, SCEA should be your goal.

Although as you have noted WebSphere and WebLogic dominate today's J2EE implementations, I have seen plenty of job openings calling for skills in a third-party app server( Sun, Pramati, JBoss, OracleAS etc). IMO vendor certifications (obviously) focus more on product specifics whereas SCEA tends to be product agnostic. Specs, best practices, patterns, UML, SDLC process - all these constitute the repertoire of a seasoned architect and *none* of these are specific to product implementations. I am not trying to undercut the importance of "knowing your app server", but as a hiring manager, if I know that you( as a candidate) know core J2EE and all of these things, I will be willing to accept your limited(or lack of) knowledge of a particular app server. After all, how long does it take for one to read a product manual and learn the basics? Therefore, I personally value SCEA more than vendor certifications. Ofcourse, I will certainly prefer somone having both

I absolutely agree and I too prefer certifications that are based on standards. It is just after some conversations with recruiters (i.e. Do you have 5 years of Weblogic/Websphere?) I started thinking may be vendors' certifications are "better" in some sense. But I guess the correct answer would be to do both if time allows and if Weblogic (or whatever is your preference at the moment) is your career choice.

Thanks for responses.
Vitaliy