Hey folks, today I wanted to share my thoughts on my recent Oracle exam. It was delightful way of testing your overall OCI knowledge and as well as Database Cloud Service (DBCS) knowledge. I had worked as a DBA before and exam sounded familiar to me, which was obviously initial driving force to take this exam.
Who should take this exam?
This exam is designed for professionals who have demonstrated skills required to implement Oracle Database Cloud Service on OCI platform. It covered topics such as: Autonomous Database Solution, OCI Services, Bare Metal and Virtual Machine DB Systems.
Your knowledge and understanding of Oracle Database Cloud Service and capacity to configure DB systems on OCI, Patching DB System, Configuring & Monitoring a Database on OCI, Backing Up and Recovering a Database on OCI will be validated by this exam.
Generally, anybody who wishes to be a cloud DBA, however suited for an experienced DBA who are aspiring to become cloud DBA, precisely.
Usually an on-premise DBAs who is seeking to add cloud expertise to their certification titles, and for operators that use DBCS to provision Oracle Database services should take this exam. Great way to go ahead.
Topics you should care
- OCI - What is OCI? How does DBCS works with Identity and Access Management? What are the service limitations? Why does Availability domain and region matter to DBCS? Should you take DBCS backup in Object storage? I think you need to know OCI and must have OCI associate level knowledge to deep dive in this exam. OCI core fundamental related questions were at least 5-7. It is very important to know.
- Different database offering in OCI - VM, BM, Exadata, and little bit of Autonomous database. You should be able to explain differences between VM and BM, or BM and Exadata. Each of them have their own advantages and limitations.
- Managing DBCS - everything from creating to terminating database cloud service is very essential. You should also know how to patch DB system and methods.
- Backup and Restore methods - Tough part begins here. What tools are offered to take backups? When do you need to restore and how? RTO and RPO is something you should be aware of. It is important to know right orders of a certain task.
- OCI CLI for Oracle Database Cloud Service - You should have some hands-on CLI experience, there were at least 4-5 questions from this service. How to install and configure CLI, how to manage DBCS, how to backup and restore using CLI and so on. Also such less important bits like how to format output of CLI could be a question.
- Migration methods to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure - it is very huge topic, I think there are or will be different specialization for this topic only. It is sufficient to understand general concepts.
- Monitoring database - you should be aware of different ways for monitoring DBCS.
Where to begin?
Oracle University tailored two learning paths in cloud learning subscription, these are great to start your learning.
Above two learning paths will teach the key functionality of Oracle Database Cloud implementation: how to use Oracle Cloud Infrastructure as they develop, deploy, and administer DBCS.
There are even practice example is in one of the learning path, which is a fun way to test your knowledge and build a confidence to take this exam.
Final thoughts
As usual as other Oracle exams, you should carefully read question and understand before you choose an answer. Understanding English is equally important, right, you heard it right. For example:
" all VM shapes can scale-up CPU" or " all VM shapes cannot scale-up"
In general yes you can scale-up by choosing different shape and re-create it by terminating existing DBCS in VM, however it is not as same as scaling up CPU in BM. BM and Exadata you can just click and add more CPU power for chosen instance. I hope you got the idea from this example and it's not exam question.
Is it tricky? Yes as usual, Oracle will test your knowledge at best they can. So be prepared and take this exam.
I thought I was ready for this but I really underestimated this exam and failed and re-took it after sometime and passed.
My final advice is prepare, and prepare again, then take this exam.
Good luck guys and join our discord community https://discord.gg/nrF3HuF