Mithun Ms

Dear Ranchers,
Today I passed the SOA exam ‘S90.03 – Design & Architecture’ from SOA School - Arcitura with 94% marks.
This completes my SOACP certification!

My preparation:
I studied the chapter 5 in part-1 and all the chapters in part-2 of the book ‘SOA Principles of service design’ by Thomas Erl.
Study the chapters thoroughly. Take your time to properly understand all the concepts. Then the exam is easy.

About the exam:
50 multiple choice questions. All equal marks.
Passing percentage: 80%
Time: 60 mins.

All the questions are concept based and straight forward. No trick questions.
Given time is sufficient to complete the exam.

I would like to thank K. Tsang and all other ranchers who shared their preparation efforts, for guidance and help!

Hi Vibhas,
1st step:
Go through OCMJEA web page to understand its details, exams involved and conditions. It answers your another question on trainings. The official OCMJEA website is at:
https://education.oracle.com/pls/web_prod-plq-dad/db_pages.getpage?page_id=654&get_params=p_id:212

2nd step:
(As mentioned by K. Tsang) Please list down the topics in JavaEE 6 that you need to learn in detail.

3rd step:
Start the preparation.
For OCMJEA certification, I have studied the following books. I recommend all of these below. Go through the below step by step, one by one according to your skillset.
1. Oracle/Sun Official online tutorial for Java EE 6 (Remarks: should be the first step).
2. Sun Certified Enterprise Architect for Java EE Study Guide -by Mark Cade and Humphrey Sheil (Remarks: a must)
3. SCEA study Guide – by Allen, Bambara (Remarks: This book is an old version, but it was very helpful; this book covered GoF patterns also – so I did not buy a separate book for GoF patterns)
4. UML distilled – by Martin Fowler (Remarks: provides basic understanding; enough for the part-2 exam)
5. Java Web Services up and running – by Martin Kalin (Remarks: optional for this certification; I read it out of self-interest; extremely helpful regarding web services)
6. EJB 3 in action – by Panda, Rahman, Lane (Remarks: a must; EJB version in it is a bit old; the EJB version covered in exam syllabus is 3.1 which this book does not cover, but the latest book was not available for me. Still, it is very helpful. The language is easy to read and understand)
7. Core J2EE Patterns – by Alur, Crupi, Malks (Remarks: a must; excellent book on J2EE patterns)
8. Core JavaServer Faces 3rd edition – by Geary, Horstman (Remarks: good reference on JSF; easy to read)
9. Real world Java EE patterns – by Adam Bien (Remarks: a must)

Post here if you have any questions.

Dear Code Ranchers,
Today I passed the SOA exam ‘S90.01 – Fundamental SOA & Service Oriented Computing’ from SOA School - Arcitura.

My preparation:
I studied the chapters 3,4,16 and Appendix B of the book ‘SOA Principles of service design’ by Thomas Erl.
You don’t need to memorize anything. Take your time to properly understand all the concepts. If you study these chapters thoroughly, then the exam is easy.

Exam format:
50 multiple choice questions. All equal weightage.
Passing percentage: 80%
Time: 60 mins.
The word play of the answers can be confusing. Be cautious.
Given time is more than sufficient to complete the exam.

I would like to thank K. Tsang for all guidance and help!

Hi Pradeep,
No. I think the electronic version of the study material is available only in PDF format from the official sources.

Hi Raq,
I hope the following points help you understand this better. You will anyway discover the answer yourself when you study the ADM phases in detail.
1. As you might know, TOGAF is a process methodology framework. It is not concerned about the solutions - either proprietary or open. It means, TOGAF mentions the mechanism in which you identify a solution, such as what steps to follow, what points to ponder about when finalizing a solution. The solution could be anything.
2. I believe the 'open method' mentioned in your question is the TOGAF ADM methodology itself. It is a standard and open method created by the Open Group.
3. The ADM procedure needs to be customized at the beginning. While customizing, the EA team can include any organization specific procedures to identify and develop the solutions. EA team can also add any new procedures to ADM. These would be called as 'extensions/ plug-ins'.
4. You can plugin any third party process framework as well if it suits the needs.
5. In every ADM cycle or iteration, there will be a phase-E where the corresponding team will decide which solution building blocks to use. This happens every time. So this provides an opportunity to re-evaluate the existing solutions and find out something new. That way, any lock-in is avoided.

Congratulations Manoj! Welcome to the club  

Thanks for the cow, Tsang! I hope this write-up helps those who want to take up TOGAF certification.

Sathees, I attended the course 'Java EE 7 New Features'. The course contents were very useful, and I am happy that I attended this course.
Also, this course met my certification requirement.

Hi All,
Today I cleared TOGAF part-2 exam. Around 5 weeks back I had cleared part-1 exam. Here is the write-up on my preparation and experience:

I decided to take parts 1 & 2 separately so that I can focus on each of these in depth. You can decide this based on your situation.
Before I started study, I went through Jeanne's blog about TOGAF preparation. The blog is at: https://www.selikoff.net/2013/04/09/jeannes-togaf-foundation-cert-in-3-weeks-experiences/
Jeanne's blog gave me an idea on how to approach this certification.
I prepared through the self-study materials. I did not attend any workshops or trainings. In my opinion, self-study path is sufficient to clear the exams.
I purchased the self-study material on TOGAF website for $60. I did not purchase any other study materials.

Part-1 experience:
Preparation:
I spent 2 weeks to study for part-1.
I went through the study material in detail two times.
Then I did all the mock tests provided in the study material 2-3 times.
You can also go through the exam Simulator (link provided below).
I did not study the free online TOGAF manual at all for part-1 exam.
I had to memorize a lot of definitions, lists, terminologies. The content is not something that you can learn by analytical method.
Exam:
Then I took the exam. The complexity level of questions in the actual exam was slightly tougher than what I had seen in the study material mock tests.
I scored 85% in the first attempt.

Part-2 experience:
Preparation:
The amount of material to be studied for part-2 is more than that of part-1, at least according to the official study guide materials.
I went through the study guide 2 times.
Then I went through the free online TOGAF manual. Even though it takes good amount of time, it is easy to understand in the first go. This is very helpful, and strongly recommended - if you want to understand the topics in detail.
After that, I went through the 'pocket guide' that TOGAF provides along with the study guide. This covers all important points, and serves as an overall revision package. This is very helpful and a must.
Then I went through the mock tests provided in the study guide. These are available for sale on TOGAF site separately in case you dont want to purchase the study guide.
Next, I went through the questions on 'Simulator' (from OpenArch website - link: http://theopenarch.com/81-tests/72-togaf-9-exam-tests.html )
My next step was to go through some video tutorials on Udemy. There are many tutorials on Udemy regarding TOGAF. They are costing around $20. I took one. These video tutorials cover only important points at a high level. They serve the purpose of your final revision. You cannot start your preparation with them. The advantage of these tutorials is that, they help you revise the contents in 3 hours instead of 2 days.
Overall, I spent 4 weeks to prepare for part-2. The time and effort I spent for this was definitely worth it.
Exam:
Then I took the part-2 exam. The complexity level of questions in the actual exam was same as what I had seen in the study material mock tests.
I scored 90% in the first attempt.
The part-2 exam is an Open book exam. The TOGAF manual would be available as a PDF file for reference during the exam. For me, it was opening fine and I referred to it for few questions. In the past, some people had reported that it did not open for them. So you should check this and report to the Prometric personnel.

I thank all forum members who had shared their TOGAF experiences, and especially Jeanne.

Hi Renato,
1. Create the UML diagrams as images.
2. Optional step: Embed these images in individual html files - one image per html file.
3. There would be other html files as well, such as index, risks, assumptions, etc.
4. From the index html file, link all these individual html files or images such that the evaluating person would be able to open these by clicking on links in index page.
5. Using any jar creation tool, create a jar file containing all these files. There is a specified way to name this jar file. Jar file is similar to a zip file.
6. I think the Oracle JDK provides a command line utility to create a jar file. There are many other alternatives as well.

Congratulations Tsang! Thanks for the details.

Raghu,
The procedure is as below:
1. Open a new/existing class diagram.
2. Add a class to it the usual way.
3. Click on the class in the diagram to select it; then to the right-bottom of the screen, you will see a menu called 'Properties'. Expand it. Inside that, there is a checkbox called 'isAbstract'. Click on that to Check it. Now, your class becomes abstract. You can see that the class name font style changes to italics.
4. You can explore all other class properties this way.

Congratulations Girish! Welcome to the club

I believe JavaEE will continue to be developed and maintained in future, because:
1. JCP Executive Committee has many companies on board that are ready to take over this work. The list of companies on JCP EC is impressive (https://jcp.org/en/participation/committee).
2. There is a huge financial market for JavaEE application servers, middleware servers, their commercial support and related components. This specific business is an important one, and one of the significant sources of revenue for the companies such as Oracle, IBM, SAP, Red Hat etc. These companies wont let go of a significant source of revenue that easily.
3. Considerable percentage of software applications being developed/enhanced today are built using JavaEE. This work is a big line of revenue for consulting firms like Accenture, IBM, HP, CSC, Indian software giants, etc.
4. Stopping the JavaEE development and not handing it over to any other company would impact Oracle as well. That would be a lose-lose situation.

If Oracle hands over the JavaEE development to some other entity, then I assume and believe that, that entity will continue these certifications just like how Oracle continued these after acquiring Sun. There might be a change in name, such as from SCEA to OCMJEA. But format would probably remain same. Even these certification and training activities will fetch a revenue to the company.

Hi Abdhul,
It is very unfortunate to hear about your 3 attempts. I have cleared this exam, and I have the following advice for you. I am sure this will help you clear the exam:

You mentioned that you have gone through the following study materials:
1. Allen/Bambara book
2. Java EE 6 official tutorial
3. Cade/Sheil book
4. GoF and JavaEE Patterns related materials.

After going through the above study materials, please go through the following mock exam packages in full detail:

1. OCMJEA Practice Guide book by Amritendu De. This is available on Amazon.com (Remarks: recommended. Helpful. But the breadth of the topics covered is not extensive)
2. Whizlabs online full package (Remarks: Extremely helpful; best among the lot; questions were truly in same standard as that of the real exam. Questions were difficult, and covered all required topics. This package showed me what all I did not know. I had to put in good amount of effort to learn all those things that I had missed out. But overall number of questions was moderate. Could have been more.)

The above mentioned two mock exam packages are not that costly. Fairly cheaper than the cost of each attempt of the real exam. I am suggesting these 2 mock exams, because you have not mentioned about them.
I have no link or affiliation to any of them.