My Learning Curve

Taming Sakila
Just under two months ago I decided to embark on a journey through the Certification roadmap of the Worlds most Popular Open Source Database. They say, Certification isn't a substitute for real world experience. Who says it is? But it certainly has the element to motivate someone to go after a new technology, just the way it occurred to me. This morning, the journey that I've mentioned above completed rather satisfactorily, leaving me in possession all possible titles from the MySQL Certification roadmap viz CMDEV, CMDBA and CMCDBA. I'm happy is an understatement.


My entry into the world of database has nothing to do with any recent announcement from Sun, but does have a connection with an announcement from our CEO, published well over a year ago. Since then, MySQL came up in all serious conversations at Sun and that perhaps is one main factor that encouraged me to go after a technology with such a massive installation base. I regret to have taken some time before finally going for it, but the learning curve was extremely smooth and exciting.

In general, I spend a lot of time reading books (not necessarily technical) and there are some books (read technical) that I value more than others which includes Practical Unix and Internet Security, Learning Perl, Mastering Regular Expressions, Perl Cookbook to name a few. The book MySQL 5.0 Certification Study Guide easily falls into the aforesaid category for its simplicity, clarity and richness in content. Thanks to Safari Books Online, I could thoroughly utilize an online copy of MySQL 5.0 Certification Study Guide to prepare for MySQL 5.0 DBA and Developer Exams. To make it curt, this one is strongly recommended.

A similar material is available for candidates preparing for the Certified MySQL 5.1 Cluster DBA exam and its details are available here.

So if any of you feel it's time for you to tame Sakila and then show up for a test to prove you have done so, please make use of the resources as mentioned above, or find a training program at a suitable time and location, read the faqs, create a VUE ID* , register for an exam and GO FOR IT with no second thoughts. Oh yeah...don't forget to check out these sample Questions before the test. Good luck!

*Beginning on July 31st, 2009 MySQL Exams will no longer be delivered by Pearson VUE. For more details click here.