Getting Oracle Certified Master

The Oracle Certification program offers three distinct certification levels for Oracle Database 10g— Associate, Professional, and Master —shown in Figure 1. The three levels are organized to suit the needs of entry-level, professional, and senior-level IT professionals, respectively. The highest level of certification an Oracle Certified Professional (OCP) can achieve is Oracle Database 10g Administrator Certified Master (Oracle Certified Master).

About the Master Exam

The Oracle Certified Master exam tests candidates on their ability to perform in a real-world, live database environment, and it is a test of both knowledge and experience. In addition to having practical experience, a candidate taking the exam is required to have expertise in complex DBA tasks. The prerequisites for this rigorous performance-based certification are that candidates must first earn an Oracle Database 10g OCP credential and complete two advanced-level courses through Oracle University.

The Oracle Certified Master certification consists of a two-day onsite practical exam that is conducted in an Oracle University classroom. The test is available at more than 150 locations worldwide. Also, Oracle Certified Master upgrade certification will be available soon for Oracle9i Oracle Certified Masters, who will be able to take a one-day practical exam to upgrade their credentials to Oracle Database 10g.

Practicum Content

The Oracle Certified Master practicum content focuses on eight primary areas:

1. Server configuration
2. Oracle Enterprise Manager 10g Grid Control
3. Managing database availability
4. Data management
5. Data warehouse management
6. Performance management
7. Oracle Real Application Clusters
8. Oracle Data Guard

Each Oracle Certified Master candidate is provided with a dedicated server that has both Oracle Database 10g and Red Hat Linux installed. A complete Oracle 10g documentation set is available on the server. Over the course of two days, candidates are given scenarios in which they are asked to perform complex technical tasks that require setup, diagnostics, troubleshooting, and problem resolution. There are no multiple-choice or fill-in-the-blank questions on the exam.

Strategies for Achieving a High Score

The following are recommended strategies for meeting the exam objectives and achieving a high score on the Oracle Certified Master practicum:

* While preparing for the exam, you must perform tasks associated with each of the exam objectives. Limiting preparation only to book study will not adequately prepare you for two days of rigorous hands-on testing.

* Basic understanding of operating system commands is necessary. A candidate must know how to copy, move, and delete a file; navigate between directories; and execute programs from the command-line prompt.
Next Steps

LEARN more about the Oracle Certification Program, and download a free exam guide

READ Inside OCP columns

* Although Oracle documentation is available for reference during the exam, looking up simple commands in the documentation will cost time. Therefore, candidates should not rely too much on the availability of reference documentation during the exam.

* Scenarios in the exam must be completed within a specific time. Therefore, time management is critical. Moreover, some scenarios are built on each other; failure to meet a set of objectives in one scenario may have a negative impact on later scenario objectives.

* Be prepared to restore and recover your data. Candidates must back up their data during the exam and restore and recover the data if necessary.

Conclusion

With Oracle Certified Master, Oracle provides the only hands-on certification and the first master-level database certification in the industry. Achieving this rigorous certification puts an Oracle technologist in the most elite group of database professionals in the world.

This article is adapted from www.oracle.com

Oracle Database Certification

Database Management System (DBMS) mostly used by big enterprise company is Oracle. The very clear indicator is Database Administrator (DBA) vacancy. Let's try to search vacancy in jobsdb.com with "database" or "DBA" keyword, the most frequent vacancy is Oracle DBA.

Based on the fact that there are so many Oracle DBA vacancies, of course there are also big chances for job seeker to seek favorite job as DBA. Following abilities are required to apply DBA vacancy:
- Understanding on Oracle database concept
- Having Experience as Oracle DBA (usually mandatory, but not for entry level)
- Having Training of Oracle database (good point)
- Having Oracle Certification (good point)

Having Oracle Certification is good point, especially to work in vendor (consultant) company. Certification indicates that the holder has deep knowledge of Oracle database. With the same level of knowledge and experience, certification holder has greater chance to get better job and salary.

Oracle releases some certification for DBA:
- Oracle Certified Associate (OCA)
- Oracle Certified Professional (OCP)
- Oracle Certified Master (OCM)

Today, the released certifications are for version: 9i, 10g, dan 11g. Certifications for 8i (and below) are not valid again.

Oracle Database Architecture

Generally, Oracle RDBMS (Relation Database Management System) architecture consist of following components: Memory, processes, and files. The components are grouped into following:

1. Instance
   - Instance memory or System Global Area (SGA): Shared Pool (Libary Cache and Data Dictionary Cache), Database Buffer Cache, Redolog Buffer Cache, Java Pool, Large Pool.
   - Back ground process: PMON, SMON, DBWR, LGWR, CKPT, Others
   


2. Database
   - Datafiles
   - Control files
   - Redo log files
   


3. Other components
   - Other process: Server Process, user process
   - Other memory: Program Global Area (PGA)
   - Other files: Archived logs, parameter, and password files
   

How to self-learn Oracle Database

Oracle is too kind to share knowledge. We can read Oracle documentation (contain unlimited knowledge) online in the web. We also can download Oracle DBMS (Database Management System) software and documentations freely.

Oracle really want to educate its user and everyone who eager to learn Oracle products. Of course, the goal is to make everyone use Oracle products, and then everyone pay Oracle license.

Through this article I share tips & tricks self learning of Oracle Database. I take Oracle Database 10g as example.

I. Read Oracle documentation.

You can read Oracle documentation online in internet. By download the source first, you can also read the documentation off line in your PC.

Here is the list of Oracle Documentation
1. Index of all documentation (8, 8i, 9i, 10g, dan 11g)
http://www.oracle.com/technology/documentation/index.html
2. Documentation source of 10g version, ready to be downloaded.
http://download.oracle.com/docs/cds/B19306_01.zip
3. Documentation source of 10g version, ready to be read online.
http://www.oracle.com/pls/db102/homepage

There are so many-many documentation and knowledge. How to start? I recommend to read following documentation one by one (please read in order manner).

1. Oracle® Database Concepts
2. Oracle® Database 2 Day DBA
3. Oracle® Database Administrator’s Guide
4. Oracle® Database 2 Day + Performance Tuning Guide
5. Oracle® Database Performance Tuning Guide
6. Oracle® Database Backup and Recovery Basics
7. Oracle® Database Backup and Recovery Quick Start Guide
8. Oracle® Database Backup and Recovery Advanced User’s Guide

II. Install Software, and Create Oracle Database in your PC

Get the database source (software) here http://www.oracle.com/technology/software/products/database/index.html Follow the instruction to download the source.

Then, create a database in your PC. Practice your knowledge here. It is very easy to self-learn Oracle Database, isn't it?

Kill hung Session

Sometimes we need to kill hung session. After being killed, usually the session will be disappeared as soon as possible. But we are confused, why the killed session still appear in v$session with status "KILLED" ?

If killing via SQLPLUS do not release the session, then we can kill the hung session via operating system.

Get the operating system ID (SPID).

For example, we will kill the SPID of SID=37

SELECT s.sid,s.serial#,p.spid,s.osuser,s.status
FROM   v$process p, v$session s
WHERE  p.addr = s.paddr and SID=37;

Kill the related SPID.

For example, above query get SPID=5768
In Unix

     $ kill -9 5768

In windows, mention the intance_name. For example intance_name=DWHPROD

     C:> orakill DWHPROD 5768

The Biggest Database

Oracle is the biggest database in the world. Many big enterprises use Oracle database as backbone data storage.