More Certification Review

I took a peek at the different kinds of certification offered by Oracle. There is an advanced PL/SQL certification that might be in my future. However I might also want to get some database administration in there. And I am curious about APEX certification.

The beginner database administration certification seems easy. You just pass a test. But to get to the next level, you need to jump through some hoops. One such hoop is that you need to take a class from Oracle. All formats of training cost the same amount. So if I go this route, I will probably attend a class in person. The problem is that cool classes like hard core performance tuning last five days. And that means they cost $3500. I guess I could get my company to pay. However the price seems a bit high.

Anyway, I am reading up my study guide to pass the SQL Expert certification exam. I learned some details about certain types that cannot be UNIQUE, PRIMARY KEY, or FOREIGN KEY. They are:
  • TIMESTAMP WITH TIME ZONE
  • BLOB
  • CLOB
Those don't make sense to be a primary key. Not sure why they could not be unique, unless their size makes checking for uniqueness prohibitive. Oh well. That's the rule.

Next up I learned that there are six types of SQL statements:
  1. DDL
  2. DML
  3. TCL
  4. Session control
  5. System Control
  6. Embedded
That last one does not feel like a separate type. You can embed DDL or DML in another language. But I digress. I know DDL - things like CREATE TABLE. However I was not as familiar with FLASHBACK and PURGE. That's why I need to study up. FLASHBACK apparently reverts the table or DB to a prior version. And PURGE gets rid of items from the recycle bin. What? Is this Microsoft Windows?

DML is the old INSERT/UPDATE/DELETE. It also encompasses MERGE. I don't use MERGE. It is some kind of combination of the other types of DML, all in one statement. I guess I will be studying that too. TCL is things like COMMIT. I know about ALTER SESSION and ALTER SYSTEM. And I got plenty of experience with embeded SQL by using Pro*C.

Okay. I am up to Chapter 4 in my study guide. 14 more chapters to go and I shall be ready to take the certification test by the end of the month. I will let you know how I fare.