Hi,
this time I passed
Thanks to this forum in general, especially to Bruce Yu and Jochen van Waasen.
I got 73%. It could be more.
As we use to say in Germany: 1-0 is enough.
I felt a really great relief when I saw that passing notice on the screen in the
test center.
Here's the score by sections.
name: % correct answered (% of test)
1. enterprise components: 75% (15%)
2.
Servlets JSP: 60% (19%)
3. Clients: 50% (8%)
4. database connectivity 100% (4%)
5.
EJB transactions: 83% (11%)
6. WSAD: 71% (15%)
7. Assemble & Deploy 85% (13%)
8. WS tools to validate aspects 75% (15%)
Well the problem with this exam is that it really contains lots of stuff. The material is quite scattered around in books & internet. Now there is a book about Websphere. Don't know that yet.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0072223944/electricporkchop/103-0118917-1959854 . Its quite expensive, but I think I will buy soon.
Bruce Yu has assembled a good material page:
http://www.bm-one.com/Se/it488.html The Whizlab product could have more questions. Anyway some of the explanations were really a good help.
The exam is about Advanced Single Server edition. Use this product for the preparation, because it differs slightly with the advanced edition. At work we have advanced server. So I installed single server at home.
Here are some remarks about the sections:
1. Enterprise Components
I used the Monson Haenffel 3rd edition. Its a good book. It covers ejb 1.1 and ejb 2.0. For this exam we need only 1.1, but its good to have 2.0 for the future. I read it in a rush. Then I programmed some little beans, which really depened my understanding. I had to read a lot of sections a second time.
2. servlets & jsp
Last time I made 80%, this time much less. I found the questions tricky during the exam. So it was not lack of concentration. I didn't prepare especifically for this section, because I have some experience in that field. The Marty Hall text from the IBM recommended reading and JavaRanch SCWCD-forum should be a good preparation.
3. Clients
There seems to be allways a
Soap question. I haven't understood that yet. You need also understanding of the implementation of JNDI in Websphere. You get that information from Kyle Browns books or from IBM redbooks.
4. database connectivity
Its a lot about the settings you can make in the admin client. The admin handbook (the redbook) gives good information. And the connection pooling white paper you can access from Bruces page.
5. transactions
Deep understanding of the chapter in Monson Haenfels book. The different effect of checked and unchecked exceptions is very important. If you understood this and the transaction isolation levels its easy.
6. WSAD
Last time I made 13% here! Trick is: IBM gives support for building associations relationships between beans in their tools. For WSAD the documentation for these features are very sparce (I found just one page!!!). But its very similar in VAJ. And there, you have good documentation.
EJB dev with VAJ. The support for inheritance hierarchies is important, too, but to a lesser extent.
7. Assemble & Deploy 85% (13%)
There are lots of tutorials (on webspherepro or on IBM sites). Check the material from this one:
http://www7b.boulder.ibm.com/wsdd/library/presents/AE_SkillTrans.html 8. WS tools
The help center you can download from IBM and from this one: Especially the material from this one:
http://www7b.boulder.ibm.com/wsdd/library/presents/AE_SkillTrans.html. Good luck in your exams.
Axel
