DB2 9 Fundamentals Certification

DB2 9 Fundamentals Certification is completed.After a few years of avoidance , I decided  to attain some DB2 certifications. I’d always placed greater emphasis on self study and  experience. But having completed the first certification, I was pleasantly surprised about the level of detail required to do well.

 After some initial research – I decided upon the relevant path for certification as DBA for LUW. This involved :

IBM Certified Database Associate (DB2 Fundamentals) (Exam 730)

IBM Certified Database Administrator (Exam 731)

IBM Certified Advanced Database Administrator (Exam 734)

 I purchased a book – DB2 9 Fundamentals by Roger E. Sanders – which is a very well written book – with test questions per subject and a longer exam at the end. This gives you a good flavour of the type of questions asked. I did supplement these questions with other downloadable test questions.

 As I’ve worked with DB2 – I didn’t take any courses specific for this test , and in my opinion I did get more out of the process – as I’d had experience.

 The areas required for study – and related % of test are:

1)Planning (14%)

2)Security (11%)

3)Working with Databases and Database Objects (17%)

4)Working with DB2 data using SQL and XQuery (23%)

5)Working with DB2 Tables,Views and Indexes (23%)

6)Data Concurrency (11%)

 The questions are multiple choice – but this does not necessarily make it easier. If you don’t know the material – the subtle differences between the answers could potentially be difficult.

 Overall the main benefit  –  is the requirement to revise some area that you may not use regularly, therefore forcing you to refresh (or learn ) your knowledge.

 DB2 9 Fundamentals Certification is over and I’ve just started studying for the second exam - IBM Certified Database Administrator.