Defining "Database Certification"
Given that working in and around a database management system, or DBMS, encompasses so many different job roles and responsibilities, and so many technical specializations, I feel compelled to begin by describing what certifications fall within those boundaries (and by extension, what kinds of certifications either straddle those boundaries or fall immediately outside them).
Given as exhaustive a survey of this landscape as I could conduct, here are lists of job roles and responsibilities that define what lies completely within the database certification category as I see it, and what lies on its boundaries (where possible, I use actual certification titles sans platform or product names).
The following is a list of proper database job roles and titles:
Authorized (Product) Engineer
Certified (Product) Professional
(Product) Database Operator (DBO)
(Product) Database Administrator (DBA)
(Product) Database Professional
(Product) Database Designer
(Product) Database Manager
(Product) Database Specialist
(Product) Implementation Specialist
Examination of lists illustrates the things. First, those whose work means direct involvement with database operation, design, management, and pure reporting or other input/output functions fall completely within the boundaries of my database certification region.
As far as the foregoing lists are concerned, it's also interesting to note the ubiquity of product or platform affiliations with these certifications. Although some organizationsómost notably, general training and testing organizations such as Brainbench and U2testóoffer vendor-neutral database-related certifications of a sort, most serious credentials in this field can't help but revolve around specific database management systems. I believe strongly that this reflects the complexity of such platforms, their numerous rich and specialized tools, utilities, and APIs, and the inescapable allegiance to particular implementations that such platforms usually require.
In the sections that follow, I examine core or "proper" database certifications and boundary certifications that tend to require knowledge and experience from other realms of technical knowledge and expertiseóprimarily, programming skills. But because building applications around databases is such an important aspect of their use, the lines I draw between proper and boundary database certifications are necessarily fuzzy, as are the lines I draw between the boundary database certifications themselves, and those that touch on related programming disciplines, platforms, tools, and methodologies.
If you use Microsoft Access as a regular part of your job, or you hope to gain employment in the field of user-level databases, you may wish to consider the Microsoft Office Specialist (MOS) program's Access 2003 track. This program (formerly known as the Microsoft Office User Specialist or MOUS program) allows users of the popular desktop database to prove their knowledge in a structured exam environment.
The certification, while not quite as popular as the more technical MCP, MCSE and MCDBA programs, is a nice addition to the resume. Currently, Microsoft only offers one MOS examination for database users -- the Access 2003 Core exam. Unlike many other certification exams, the MOS tests are performance-based. Don't walk into your test expecting to be asked a series of multiple choice question.
Terms And Conditions >> Privacy Notice >> Contact
|