Diamond Notes

One of the benefits of going to the conference is that you can take various certification tests (CMA, CMDBA, CMDEV and the CMCDBA) for a very low price ($25.00 a test).

I planned on taking the  first CMDBA (the cert requires two test) and I was able to take the first test this morning.  I work daily in an environment where all I do is “DBA” functions (I don’t do any coding).  Plus, I have been studied the certification book for a while.  I was fairly confident that I could pass the first test.  Even so, I was nervous going in to take the test.  Not enough sleep this week, overloaded with session information.  Not really ideal.  However, I really breezed through it.

Then I started thinking I should take the second test.  I didn’t study for it and while we run 5.0 in production we don’t currently use any stored procedures/triggers/etc.  So, I don’t have a great deal of experience on something that was probably a third of the test.  Well, I did take it.  And while many people would probably think it was actually easier than the first test I was a little worried I might not pass.  However, about an hour ago, I did find out that I passed the second test so I am “unofficially” a CMDBA.  Yeah!!

Should you do it?  Well, for conference attendees I am afraid it is too late.  Testing stopped at 3:00 pm today or something like that.  However, MySQL offers the tests through Pearson/vue (sp?) testing centers.  It is worth it, and does show you know a great deal about the MySQL server.  I wouldn’t recommend you try and take this test without production experience.  The certification guide says that you need six months of production experience if I am not mistaken.  I agree, although you better study well also!