Data … as usual

In this post, I will describe how I prepared my 11g Oracle Certified Master Exam. According to the Non Disclosure Agreement I have signed with Oracle, you will not find any detail of the exam content.

Another precision, I have taken the 11g OCM exam, not the upgrade (If you want information about the upgrade exam, you can visit Laurent Schneider’s page about this exam: http://laurentschneider.com/wordpress/2012/09/ocm-11g-upgrade.html).

Of course, information above are not based on the exam and its details but are ONLY based on my preparation.

The first step you have to do is to visit this page and note carefully:
– the “exam environment” to build practice environments as close as you will work on during exam sessions.
– the “exam content” to know exactly which subjects you will practice.

Next, I created many virtual machines under Oracle Enterprise Linux 5.4 64bits to build servers. As I remember I have built this set of servers:

• An Oracle Server with 5 ASM Disks where was installed Oracle Database server and Grid infrastructure.
• A NFS Server which was used as a staging area for all Oracle products and as a NFS server to practice on direct NFS. A mount point of the staging area was configured on all servers.
• A Grid Control Server with a 11.1.0.6 database repository
• 2 dataguards servers which have been used for streams configuration too
• 3 RAC Servers with ASM shared disks (As I remember, there were 10 ASM disks configured)

I was ready to start working of every point of the exam content. For each point, try to configure and manage it with command line and with the graphical environment.

For each point, try to explore it in details, be imaginative, it will help you to avoid the traps. If you can, ask a colleague to work with you. That’s what I did by choosing the most crafty colleague. He asked me to make some operations on the database, build disaster recovery scenarios, and I had to do or repair it in a specific time.
After this details, a good rule can be: “practice, practice, practice … and more practice”

The exam day, be ready, be fast, be quiet 😉 If you are ready and a little bit organized, no problem 😉
I forgot, during the exam, you are allowed to use a non searchable copy of the official oracle doc. You must know where to find information concerning the main exam topics.

After taken the exam, the results are sent by email 2/3 weeks after. If you pass it, you will be allowed to submit your profile on the OTN website to have your name in the “hall of fame”