Oracle APPS 11i Technology Administrator OCP beta program extended

Oracle has “recently” launched the Oracle Applications Technology Certified Professional Administrator (OCP) certification.

First, Oracle launched a beta program for this certification, to end on October 31st of this year. However, Oracle now has decided to extend the beta program to the end of January, 2007. This was officially told by Oracle to a colleague of mine. It may not yet be on their web-site, but they promised to announce it soon.

This is good news for all of you Oracle E-Business Suite DBAs, wanting to become certified, and not pay too much money for it, or wanting a kind of “preparation” exam. The exams only cost US$50,- (€39,- in the Netherlands), and they are valid for certification.

In order to become OCP certified for Applications Technology, you must pass three exams:

• Implementing Workflow
• 11i System Administration
• Install, Patch and Maintain 11i

and attend an additional hands-on course at Oracle University.

Today, I took the Install, Patch and Maintain 11i exam. Though I cannot quote anything about the questions of the exam, I can tell you that it is a good exam. It is not extremely difficult, but you have to have a good deal of experience with Installation, patching, and maintenance on Oracle E-Business Suite 11i (OK, that sounds pretty obvious, huh?). I would say that at least 1-2 years of intensive experience will be the minimum.

One of the questions most frequently asked that I found on the Internet considering these three exams is: How do I prepare for this exam?
And it is a valid question. There is virtually no information on how to prepare for these exams. How could there be, because everything is still in beta?

Without going into detail about the contents of the exam (I will focus on the Install, Patch and Maintain), I would suggest the following materials:

The Documentation Library that comes with Oracle E-Business Suite 11i. Especially the Administration guide, and all the reference guides (administration procedures and administration utilities) that are in the technology section are most valuable. Anyone who has additions to this list, feel free to react!
The emphasis is on ad utilities, shared APPL_TOP, RapidInstall, patching, schemas, etc.

I would really recommend this exam to anyone who wants to test his knowledge around the subject.

By the way, You will not receive the result of your exam immediately. Oracle will decide later which questions will go into “production”, and your score will be established based upon those questions. So you have to be patient for a couple of weeks.

But go ahead, join while the prices are still low. A real exam will cost you about US$195,-

PS: I didn’t receive my result either, so I don’t know whether I passed yet. I was told to expect the results in about 10 weeks…