MySQL Certification Update

From: Carsten Pedersen <carstenp(at)mysql.com>
Date: Mon Apr 16 2007 - 11:30:08 EDT

Hi,

Approximately one year ago, I wrote to this mailing list saying

"You may not remember this, but at some point in the distant past you signed up for this mailing list -- although we have always promised it to be low-volume, once-per-year was not quite the plan at the time the list was created :-) Starting with this mail, we will make news of the MySQL certification program flow just a bit faster."

Promises made are, unfortunately, not always promises kept. And I'm very sorry for that. I hope that you find the news in this email interesting enough to forgive me the lapse.

(if you're no longer interested in being on this list, instructions on how to unsubscribe are at the bottom of this mail)

Contents:

* Get Certified at the MySQL Conference
* Certified MySQL Cluster DBA Certification Now Available
* Upcoming Certification: Certified MySQL Associate

The MySQL certification program keeps growing, and we are delivering DBA and DEV exams every single workday. As you will see below, we have some rather interesting additions to the program.

Get Certified at the MySQL Conference

---

In case you didn't know, the MySQL Conference & Expo starts in Santa Clara, California just a few days from now. The schedule is loaded with great stuff and loads of interesting talks that should be of huge interest to anyone interested in MySQL. This includes three tutorial sessions with MySQL certification exam primers delivered by our best teachers!

If that's not enough of an excuse to go, then we probably have just what you need: MySQL certification exams at just $25 USD each! Yes, that's a $175 discount from our normal exam price, made possible because we have a lot of staff on-site already and can deliver many exams all at once.

These exams are available to all conference attendees, and must be taken on-site. You can sign up for the exams either when you register for the conference on http://www.mysqlconf.com, or you can buy an exam voucher once you get there.

And if you need even more certification-excuses: At the conference, attendees can take the Beta version of the upcoming Associate exam at no cost at all! See below for more information.

Certified MySQL Cluster DBA Certification Now Available

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The MySQL 5.1 Cluster DBA Certification (CMCDBA) is a specialization exam for those that design, deploy and administer MySQL Cluster setups. Cluster certification is part of the DBA track, As such, CMCDBA can be attained only by Certified MySQL DBAs.

The Cluster certification exam consists of a single exam, You can find more information on the contents of the exam in our Candidate Guide (http://www.mysql.com/certification/candguide#t35).

As always, best preparation for any MySQL certification exam comes courtesy of our excellent training program, which also offers cluster-specific training. For those wishing to do self-study for the exams, we expect to have a Cluster Certification Study Guide available in a month, perhaps two.

Roland Bouman, who is the main developer of the CMCDBA certification, has written fairly extensively about the Cluster exam on his blog: http://tinyurl.com/2oepvc

Upcoming Certification: Certified MySQL Associate

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Roland is also the main force behind our new Certified MySQL Associate (CMA) certification.

The CMA certification represents a bit of a "side step" in the development of the MySQL certification program thus far. Until this point, we have concentrated on making certifications that bring candidates to a higher and higher level. While doing this, we received many requests from customers, candidates and also internally to develop a more basic certification, a certification to validate that the candidate has a good foundation in basic MySQL skills and concepts without all the nitty-gritty details we expect you to know as a CMDEV or CMDBA.

And thus, this new entry-level certification comes to light. Although holding CMA certification is not a formal prerequisite to attaining other certifications, you should consider starting your MySQL certification path with the CMA certification. We recommend the CMA certification for MySQL users that know the basics, but have not yet attained the experience gained by professional MySQL DBAs or Developers.

The exam contents reflect the basics needed to get started using MySQL for application development and ad-hoc database administration:

• Theory, Terminology and Concepts
• Data Definition using SQL
• Basic Data Manipulation using SQL
• Advanced Data Manipulation using SQL
• Transactions
• Import/Export

More details about this exam will be available when the certification exams are released.

The initial work on this exam has just been completed: The questions have been authored and gone through initial battle-testing by MySQL employees, and what we need now is some community feedback for the exams. And so, on Wednesday afternoon, 200 attendees of the Conference & Expo will get to sit the Beta-version of Associate exam for no cost at all. Passing the Beta exam is just as valid as passing the "release" version of the exam; the difference is that you're expected to answer more questions and provide some additional feedback to us. This is explained in more detail in the following blog posting: http://bitbybit.dk/carsten/blog/?p=93

We expect the "release" version of the certification exams to be available world-wide in early June.

Best regards,

Carsten Pedersen
Certification Manager, MySQL AB

-- 
Warning: Certification can seriously increase your wealth!
http://www.mysql.com/certification

Carsten Pedersen, Certification Manager
MySQL AB, 
http://www.mysql.com

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Received on Mon Apr 16 11:34:36 2007