Please help us by posting your experience with SCEA 5.0

[Chaminda Amarasinghe]

Please write both passed and failed ppl

Thanks

Chamida (for all SCEA 5.0 preparing guys)

[Adam Czysciak]

Hi!

What others can help is to prepare to SCEA part 1. And this was really covered a few months ago, when people took part 1. Browse this forum and you'll find the answers. Shortly - you need to know mostly about EJB3, including JPA, WebServices and JSF.

If you're asking about my preparation - I only read core j2ee design patterns, to systematize my knowledge.

For part II/III - this is something you can't prepare for. You need to have experience in this field. Of course when talking about the subject itself, not the way you present it (because you can learn UML, if you don't know it yet).

[Chaminda Amarasinghe]

Hi Adam

Thanks for the reply..

[Theodore Casser]

I think anything meaningful I'd have to say that would be of some kind of assistance will have to wait until after I get the actual Part II/III score report. Otherwise, it's just kind of in-the-air as to general impressions of how I did.

My most general impression of Part II/III? I think that I found it a far better test of what I actually know as an architect than I found the original SCEA when I took it in 2005. The project I was assigned was certainly more 'involved' than the original project, and the questions that were asked during the part III exam required more thought and significantly more recall of the design created during the process. (As I recall, my answers on the original Part III were fairly general, while the ones for the current exam were a lot more specific to what I had actually created, because the new questions were significantly more targeted.)

But, as I said, I think more useful responses will come after folks know how they actually did, beyond pass/fail.

[Cameron Wallace McKenzie]

Part II was quite a bit of work.

It says you'll spend 40-50 hours working on it, and I was like "Yeah, but I'm Cameron McKenzie, Java Guru, JEE Master, incredibly handsome, and a super-genious. I'll do this in an afternoon." In reality, it took me a good 60 hours, even more if you include the time I spent thinking about my design while I was working out, or driving to Tim Hortons.

I even did a few re-takes of my design, realizing a couple of strategies could be improved.

Furthermore, I found the deployment diagrams to be a bit of a challenge, as my UML tools weren't all that great for those, and to be honest, there's not too much reference documentation. Google for deployment diagrams, and you'll get all sorts of real garbage. Figuring out exactly what a good, proper deployment diagram looked like wasn't easy, especially when you wanted to document workload managed servers, various protocols (do you include TCP/IP? What about SMTP? POP3? Is JDBC a protocol you document on a deployment diagram?)

I talked to a few people about the experience, people on this board who I respect immensely, and I don't know anyone that found part II easy, nor do I know anyone that felt supremely confident that they got the 'right answer.' As I always say, there really are no 'right answers' for this, only 'wrong answers,' and the best you can do is not get a wrong answer. Wrong answers get you a failure. Other answers get you a pass.

Good luck to all!

-Cameron McKenzie

[Daniel Amadei]

Hi!

I can advice you what not to do as I've failed.

I dont know if we still can't talk specifically about the assignment, so I wont talk about it.

I don't know which parts I did wrong as we did not receive the score, but revisiting my project I only can figure out that Sun may have disagreed the changes I did to make the domain model more flexible, changing some core parts of the domain, but still maintaining the same functionality and making the domain model more flexible to accomodate future changes, which as I believe is one of the key jobs of an architect. I even put this justification in my assumptions and in the risks list with an appropriate mitigation, so I don't know if this is really the cause of my failure.

I also modeled the Entities as being pure object oriented, trying to avoid the Anemic DM ( http://martinfowler.com/bliki/AnemicDomainModel.html ) as much as possible.

I passed the older version of the exam, so I believe Sun is much more restrictive as I believe this project I did much better than the older one.

As you can see, I really can't figure out where I did wrong but these are the tips I can offer.

[]s
Daniel
[ February 20, 2008: Message edited by: Daniel Amadei ]

[Hong Anderson]

Originally posted by Cameron Wallace McKenzie:

It says you'll spend 40-50 hours working on it, and I was like "Yeah, but I'm Cameron McKenzie, Java Guru, JEE Master, incredibly handsome, and a super-genious. I'll do this in an afternoon."

ํYour employer is very lucky .

[Chaminda Amarasinghe]

Thank you very much to all replys,

I got a reply from a guy failed the exam.. Very very special thanks to him. Also I wish him to get 100 % in next try.

Most of the replys focus on whole exam. Can somebody share the exp of preparing for part one.?

Thanks

[Chee Seng Chua]

Hi,

As we are not allowed to disclose information about the exam, I will just share about my personal experience taking the exam.

I didn't prepare for part I (mainly because of my bad habit of thinking it is just a free take), it wouldn't be hard if you have been working in JEE as daily work. In addition to technologies like EJB3, JPA, WebServices and JSF as mentioned earlier by Adam, I think you should study on the design patterns as well.

For part II, I started designing with sequence diagram and then class diagram (which I was taught in school) but regretted it. I read later somewhere in JavaRanch (sorry I can't remember it is from which thread) that suggest to start with class diagram first and I agreed with this now, as I had been changing my sequence diagrams numerous time to adapt to changes in my class diagrams. Anyway, it is just my opinion. IMHO, when you designing your class diagram, you have much detail idea of how the system is going to work and therefore, the sequence diagrams will draw themselves. I used StarUML and NetBeans to draw my UML diagrams.

Always remember to backup your work. I did the assignment using my company laptop and due to the tight timeline and thinking myself a lucky guy, the result is that my laptop showed me a blue screen saying 'invalid read of address', rebooting Windows and booting with boot CD didn't bring my assignment back. And it happened at the night before the due date when I was running through the assignment checking for spelling errors for the last time. It did happened! And I am great that booting with Linux finally helped me to save out my assignment. After all, I had sent the assignment 3 times before getting a confirmation about the assignment was received.

For part III, it should not be a problem if you did the part II yourselves.

Good luck for all.

Best Regards,
Chee Seng
----------------------------------
SCEA 5, SCWCD 1.4, SCBCD 1.3, SCMAD, SCJP 5

[Angela Ali]

Dear All,

I have submitted my assignment on 22 feb 2008. And after that i have named the file "IINDEX.HTM" instead of "INDEX.HTML". But i build the jar file OK. And i did not receive any failure message or any kind of message that say me to resubmit the assignment. I have only one file which is "IINDEX.HTM" with all the links to same file.

It is a big mistake. this happens because i doing hurry to submit the assignment and buy the voucher for part iii as sun will not sell voucher iii after 29 of feb 2008.

Can any one say what should i do???

Plsss.

[jeremias lacanienta]

Originally posted by angelina joli:
Dear All,

I have submitted my assignment on 22 feb 2008. And after that i have named the file "IINDEX.HTM" instead of "INDEX.HTML". But i build the jar file OK. And i did not receive any failure message or any kind of message that say me to resubmit the assignment. I have only one file which is "IINDEX.HTM" with all the links to same file.

It is a big mistake. this happens because i doing hurry to submit the assignment and buy the voucher for part iii as sun will not sell voucher iii after 29 of feb 2008.

Can any one say what should i do???

Plsss.

no one in this forum can help you and the only thing you can do is wait for the decision of the evaluator.

[Angela Ali]

Thanks for reply

So far i know that if the part iii is not done, the assignment will not be forwarded to examiner for grading. Then i think i should proceed with the part III without waiting.

Please correct me if my assumption is wrong.

thanks

[jeremias lacanienta]

Originally posted by angelina joli:
Thanks for reply

So far i know that if the part iii is not done, the assignment will not be forwarded to examiner for grading. Then i think i should proceed with the part III without waiting.

Please correct me if my assumption is wrong.

thanks

i think you're right. also i remember a clause in the assignment of an automatic failure if the naming convention is not followed for filenames. you better call the customer service i'm sure they can help. not that you did not followed instructions, yours is an honest mistake. perhaps they will give special consideration.

[Raghu Sapre]

Hi,
About Part II:
I like to think from database design first. I designed the tables and normalized them in a day or 2. Then I mapped them to generate POJO classes and then improvised on the design. The I added some GUI screen prototypes to visualize what is required as an application. Then many thing become clear. That is you take it up as an application which must work and then fill in the details. Some of it you may not have to make it work. But brings into picture most of what is required to make it run. Then you need to reverse into Model and revise Model. This approach helps to write better comments in any diagram and state assumptions. Also Justify what requirements are met when you mention assumptions. this will help in Part III.
-SCEA 5

[ February 24, 2008: Message edited by: Raghu Sapre ]

[ February 24, 2008: Message edited by: Raghu Sapre ]
[ February 24, 2008: Message edited by: Raghu Sapre ]

[Andrew Monkhouse]

Angelina Joli

Please check your private messages.

Thanks, Andrew

[Hafizur Rahman]

Well, I started with use cases, identified the functionalities, grouped them in terms of relevance. Refined the BOM and created the class diagram with relationship and cardinality. Then I focused on sequence diagram and refined the class diagram several times. Then for component diagram, I focused on implementation related issues like JSP, session beans, entities etc. Once these 3 are in concrete shape, I rechecked for accuracy and consistency.

Like others, I was also confused about deployment diagram and I created most basic and simple diagram with high level protocols shown (HTTP, JDBC etc.).

At first it was hard for me to find out top 3 technical risk, but finally I could come up to some reasonable ones.

[robbie keane]

A daft question - do we have to submit a working application (someone spoke about jars here) or just the diagrams as mentioned on Sun site (http://www.sun.com/training/catalog/courses/CX-310-301A.xml) i.e.

Your project will be evaluated on a large number of objective criteria that fall into five sections:

1) Class Diagram: This section covers how well your class diagram(s) address the object model needed to satisfy the requirements.

2) Component Diagram: This section covers how well your component diagram(s) convey the structure of the architecture in satisfying the requirements.

3) Deployment Diagram: This section covers how well your deployment diagram conveys the production environment in satisfying the requirements.

4) Sequence/Collaboration Diagrams: This section covers how well your sequence or collaboration diagrams satisfy the requirements of the assignment.

5) Risk and Mitigation List: This section covers how well you have identified and mitigated risks that are involved in architecting the solution.

Additionally, categories 1-4 are evaluated on UML compliance.

Thanks

[ankur rathi]

Originally posted by robbie keane:
A daft question - do we have to submit a working application (someone spoke about jars here) or just the diagrams as mentioned on Sun site (http://www.sun.com/training/catalog/courses/CX-310-301A.xml) i.e.

Nope. Just the diagrams. JAR contains those diagrams embedded in HTMLs.

[ankur rathi]

What did I do for Part 2:

I gave 4-5 readings to the assignment then read use cases one by one and prepared raw sequence diagrams for them. In this process I identified classes as well. When I was sure I didn't miss any requirement of use cases, I proceeded to class diagram. I looked at given Business Domain Model and classes identified by me and created a class diagram which covers all Business Domains (intentionally), also identified relationships b/w classes. At last, I prepared component diagram which was easy once I got class diagram in hand.

Case study given in Mark Cade's book helped a lot.

HTH.
[ March 19, 2008: Message edited by: ankur rathi ]

[Chaminda Amarasinghe]

Thank you again to all

[Juan Pablo Crossley]

take a look of this, http://javaxcross.blogspot.com/2008/03/how-to-pass-scea-5.html I wrote it down.

[Chaminda Amarasinghe]

Juan Pablo Crossley,

Thanks for the post.. that is very very helpful..

Thanks again