Skillsmatter - Oct 16th presentation on SCEA

Sun UK have kindly invited me to speak as part of the Skills Matter program in London on October 16th. I'm looking forward to it and I'll be covering the topic of the Sun Certified Architect Exam (SCEA) for JEE 5 at this topic. A great way to learn about the exam if you're in London and are interested in pursuing this certification.

More details on the talk here.

Slides from BOF 5205 at JavaOne 2008 now available

Following a number of requests, I've put the slides from BOF 5205 (All About the Sun Certified Enterprise Architect (SCEA) Exam) online here. The BOF was designed to give attendees an end to end overview on the exam as described below.

The Sun Certified Enterprise Architect (SCEA) exam represents the
culmination of Sun's certification program for the Java™ community. This
session covers the newly revised SCEA certification that is due to be
released in the first quarter of calendar year 2008. In this BOF, attendees will learn about the three parts of the exam and what they test. They will also learn the following:

• Who is the target audience for the exam

• Which exam rumors are true and which are false

• Tips for exam preparation, including preparation materials

• Tips for taking each part of the exam

We'll cover how the exam has been completely rewritten to cover the Java EE 5 platform, the design decisions that went into the new exam and the rationale and motivation behind them (and how this affects candidates).

Perennial exam rumors will be detailed and addressed, we'll dig through the mountain of potential revision material to single out the most relevant books, specifications and articles to focus on and we'll provide practical tips on how best to approach parts one, two and three of the exam.

If you are interested in becoming a Sun certified enterprise architect, this BOF is definitely for you. If you haven't considered architect certification before, stop by anyway - you'll learn what becoming a Sun Java EE 5 architect can bring you and how effective the exam preparation is in rounding you out as a Java EE 5 architect.

JavaOne 2008 BOF proposal accepted

See you at JavaOne this year if you're going! I'll be co-presenting a BOF with Mark Cade on the new revised JEE 5 Architect exam from Sun Microsystems. Mark and I participated in the workshop to create the multiple choice questions and we designed and implemented parts two and three, plus right now we're heads down writing the book to go with it (phew!).

We feel that there is a lot of latent interest in the exam and we wanted to give a clear presentation on what taking the exam / certification entails and give guidance on some common gotchas that we see all the time in submissions. Finally we wanted to dispel common misconceptions that circulate perennially (my written english won't be good enough etc.). Check out the BOF description here.