Oracle Autonomous Database Cloud 2019 Specialist : My Thoughts

You’ve probably heard that Oracle have made some training and certifications free in recent times (here). We are approaching the end of that period now. Only about 15 more days to go.

Initially I thought I might try and do all the certifications, but other factors got in the way, so I just decided to do one. You can probably guess which one by the title of this post. πŸ™‚

I had seen a few people speaking about their experiences of the training videos, so I thought I would give my opinions. Remember, this is my opinion of the training materials and exam, not my opinion of the cloud services themselves. I am also aware that this was free, so my judgement is going to be different than if I had to pay for it.

The Voices in the Videos

A number of people have been critical about the voices on the training videos. I really didn’t see a problem with them.

When you record videos and do presentations you have to decide who your target audience is. A large number of people that use Oracle have English as a second language. Having spent years presenting around the world I’ve learned you have to slow down a bit, or you lose some of the audience. I do this on my YouTube videos, and it can make them sound a bit monotone at times. When I’ve recorded my videos at my normal talking speed, people have responded to say they were brutally fast. You can’t please everyone. You have to make a choice, and for some professional training materials that probably means speaking slower.

I listened to most of these training videos at 1.5 speed and it was fine. The fact I wanted to listen to it this way is not a criticism of the training. I’ve listened to a number of Pluralsite courses at 1.7 speed, and I tend to listen to non-fiction Audible books on a higher speed. You just have to find what works for you.

It’s just my opinion, but I thought the voice was fine.

Content Inconsistencies

There are inconsistencies between the training materials and the documentation. I originally listed some, but I don’t think it’s really helpful. As with any training material, I think it’s worth going through the training material and documentation at the same time and cross referencing them, as well as trying stuff out if you can. It helps you to learn and it makes sure you really know what you are talking about.

Why are there inconsistencies? I suspect it’s because the cloud services have changed since the training materials were recorded. Remember, there is a quarterly push to the cloud, so every three months things might look or act a little different.

What should you do? I would suggest you learn both the training material, and the reality where the two diverge, but assume the training material is correct for the purpose of the exam, even if you know it to be wrong in reality. This is what I’ve done for all previous certifications, so this is nothing new to me.

How did I prepare?

As mentioned above, I watched the videos at 1.5 speed. For any points that were new to me, or I had suspicions about the accuracy, I checked the docs and my own articles on the subject. I also logged into the ADW and ATP services I’m running on the Free Tier to check some things out.

I did the whole of this preparation on Sunday, but remember I’ve been using ADW and ATP on and off since they were released. If these are new to you, you may want to take a little longer. I attempted to book the exam for Monday morning, but the first date I could get was late Wednesday.

Content

The training content is OK, but it contains things that are not specific to Autonomous Database. Sure, they are features that can be used inside, or alongside ADB, but I would suggest they are not really relevant to this training.

Why? I think it’s padding. Cloud services should be easy to use and intuitive, so in many cases I don’t think they should need training and certification. They should lead you down the right path and warn of impending doom. If the docs are clear and accurate, you can always dig a little deeper there.

This certification is not about being a DBA or developer. It’s about using the ADB services. I don’t think there is that much to know about most cloud services, and what really matters goes far beyond the scope of online training and certifications IMHO. πŸ™‚

Free

The training and certifications are free until the middle of May 2020, which is when the new 2020 syllabus and certifications for some of the content comes out. By passing this free certification you are passing the 2019 certification, and they will stay valid for 18 months, then you will have to re-certify or stop using the title. I guess it’s up to you whether you feel a pressing need to re-certify or not.

Update: Some of the other training and exams are already based on the 2020 syllabus. Thanks for Adrian Png for pointing this out. πŸ™‚

I’m sure this would not be popular at Oracle, but I would suggest they keep the cloud training and certifications free forever. Let’s be honest. Oracle are a bit-player in the cloud market. They need all the help they can get to win hearts and minds. Making the cloud training and certification free forever may help to draw people in. I don’t see this type of material as a revenue stream, but I’m sure some folks at Oracle do.

From what I’ve seen, the training materials are entry level, and something I would encourage people to watch before using the services, so why not make them free? That’s rhetorical. I know the answer. πŸ™‚

Would I pay for it?

No. I watched the material to get a feel for what they included. I’m not saying I already knew everything, because I didn’t, but I knew most of what I wanted to know before using this stuff. Of course, if I had come in clean, this would have been pretty helpful I guess, but I think it would have been just as easy for me to use some of the online docs, blog posts and tutorials to get to grips with things. That’s just my opinion though. Other people may feel differently.

Would I have sat the exam if I had to pay for it? No. I don’t think there is anything here that I wouldn’t expect someone to pick up during their first few hours of working with the service. It’s nice that it’s free, but I’m not sure it makes sense to pay for it.

What about the exam?

The exam just proves you have watched the videos and have paid attention. If someone came into my office and said, “Don’t worry, I’m an Oracle Autonomous Database Cloud 2019 Specialist. Everything is going to be OK!”, I would probably lead them to the door…

I don’t think the exam was so much hard, as confusing at times. There were some questions I think need revision, but maybe I’m wrong. πŸ™‚

What about doing the exam online?

This freaked me out a bit. You have to take photos of yourself at your desk, and photos of the room. Somewhere at Pearson Vue they have photos of my washing hanging up. πŸ™‚ You are told not to touch your face, so as soon as I heard that my whole head started to itch. I started to read the first question out loud, and was told I had to sit in silence. I understand all the precautions, and they are fine. It just felt a bit odd. πŸ™‚

So there you have it. Having promised myself I would never certify again, it turns out I’m a liar… πŸ™‚ If you get a chance, give one of the training courses and exams a go. You’ve got nothing to lose. You can read more here.

Cheers

Tim…

Video : View Expansion : DBMS_UTILITY.EXPAND_SQL_TEXT

Today’s video demonstrates how to expand SQL references to views using the DBMS_UTILITY.EXPAND_SQL_TEXT procedure. This functionality was introduced in Oracle 12.1.

The video was based on this article.

The stars of today’s video are Sanjay Kumar, Baljeet Bhasin and Jagjeet Singh, who I met and chatted to at a previous OpenWorld. πŸ™‚

Cheers

Tim…

APEX 20.1 : Vagrant and Docker Builds (and Some Comments)

About 2 days ago we saw the announcement of the release of APEX 20.1.

I normally set myself quite an aggressive timetable to get new APEX releases to production. So much of what we do lags behind the curve, to the point where I just want to see it burn, so when I get the opportunity to force the issue, like I do with APEX, I do.

In my typical fashion I move all my builds to the latest release and kind-of forget any prior release ever existed. As result, you will see all my Vagrant and Docker builds have been updated to use APEX 20.1, along with updates of OpenJDK and Tomcat.

The basic installation is the same as always (here), so there is no drama there.

Next week I’ll start upgrading a few of our development environments, and check everything looks OK. Assuming I hit no problems, it will be full steam ahead. Fingers crossed.

The new features are always a big draw for most people, but I tend to start by looking at the deprecated features and desupported features.

  • When I saw APEX_UTIL.STRING_TO_TABLE and APEX_UTIL.TABLE_TO_STRING had been deprecated I was about to lose my shit, then I saw they have just been relocated to the APEX_STRING package. Composure regained. πŸ™‚
  • The desupport of some of the productivity apps is a good thing. Some of them were not so good and having a long list of Meh, is not as good as a smaller list that offer something better. Just my opinion.

As far as the new features in the announcement, here are my initial (and uneducated) thoughts.

  • Redwood. I feel a little “Meh” about this. I don’t love it. I don’t hate it. I guess it makes sense to bring it in line with the current Oracle thang! πŸ™‚ I would have had a little more contrast on the icons. They look quite washed out, but I am not renowned for my design aesthetic. πŸ™‚
  • Faceted Search Enhancements. Love this! When I saw Mike Hichwa demonstrate the first iteration of this I had a When Harry Met Sally – Restaurant Scene moment in my head. All additional functionality is welcome. I think Faceted Search is a great and some might say killer feature.
  • Friendly URLs. My first reaction was, “Oh thank God!”. This was quickly followed by, “Oh my God!”. The thought of what some people will name their page aliases fills me with dread, but it is a welcome addition.
  • Native PDF Printing. Nice.
  • Mega Menus. Love it. The traditional side-bar menu is fine for little apps, but it’s a bit dated, takes up a lot of room and is nowhere near as flexible as this looks. I think I would have made it the default choice, but I can see why sticking with the old style is probably the safer option. πŸ™‚

There are a bunch of other things in the release notes that sound interesting, including remote application deployments using REST Enabled SQL, but I’ll leave you to discover those for yourself.

It’s early days, but this looks like a really nice release… Again…

Cheers

Tim…

Video : Online Conversion of a Non-Partitioned Table to a Partitioned Table in Oracle 12.2 Onward

Today’s video demonstrates the online conversion of a non-partitioned table to a partitioned table. This functionality was introduced in Oracle 12.2.

The examples in the video are taken from this article.

I actually did some rewrites of the article in the process. I noticed a couple of things in it were “less than ideal”. πŸ™‚

The star of today’s video is Roland Smart, who was formerly the VP of Social and Community Marketing at Oracle, which meant he was the boss of the ACE program at the time. He’s since moved on to other marketing-related stuff…

Cheers

Tim…

VirtualBox 6.1.6

Along with all the other Oracle quarterly patches comes VirtualBox 6.1.6.

The downloads and changelog are in the usual places.

I’ve done the installation on Windows 10, macOS Catalina, and Oracle Linux 7 hosts. All worked fine.

I’ve done some Vagrant builds with it and they worked too.

We are probably due a bunch of new Oracle updates (APEX, ORDS, SQLcl) and it wouldn’t surprise me if we get Oracle 20c on-prem in the next few days, so I’m sure I’ll be doing loads of fresh builds in the coming days. πŸ™‚

Cheers

Tim…

Video : Invisible Columns in Oracle 12.1 Onward

In today’s video we demonstrate the invisible columns feature introduced in Oracle 12.1.

The video is run through of the examples in this article.

The star of today’s video is John O’Keeffe from More4apps. I first bumped into John many years ago at a conference in Australia, and since then I’ve seen him at a number of events around the world. πŸ™‚

Cheers

Tim…

Video : Online Table Move Operations in Oracle 12.2 Onward

In today’s video we demonstrate how to move, or rebuild, a table as an online operation.

This video was done as a response to some questions about the previous video on shrink operations. As usual, the video is based on some stuff I’ve written previously.

The star of today’s video is John Kelly.

Cheers

Tim…

The Oracle ACE Program : My 14 Year Anniversary

I was checking my calendar, thinking I was about to jack it in for the day, and I noticed it’s April 1st, which means it’s my 14th year anniversary of being an Oracle ACE. Can’t believe I nearly missed that!

As usual I’ll mention some of the other anniversaries that will happen throughout this year.

  • 25 years working with Oracle technology in August. (August 1995)
  • 20 years doingΒ my websiteΒ in July. (Original name: 03Β JulyΒ 2000 or current name: 31Β AugustΒ 2001)
  • 15 years blogging in June. (15 June 2005)
  • 14 years on theΒ Oracle ACE Program. (01 April 2006)
  • A combined 3 years as an Oracle Developer Champion, now renamed to Oracle Groundbreaker Ambassador. (21 June 2017)

The 20 years of doing the website in July will be a pretty big one. I might have to do something for that. πŸ™‚

I hope everyone is safe out there. Have a good one!

Cheers

Tim…