6/26/2002 -- On June 15, Oracle instituted a policy requiring those seeking its Oracle Certified Professional Database Administrator 9i certification to take a related training course.

Effective immediately, candidates new to the 9i OCP DBA track must take one of the following classes from Oracle University:

• Oracle9i Introduction to SQL
• Oracle9i Database Fundamentals I.
• Oracle9i Database Fundamentals II
• Oracle9i Database Performance Tuning
• Oracle9i Database New Features (available to those with Oracle DBA experience on previous releases)
• Introduction to Oracle: SQL and PL/SQL

To fulfill the requirement, candidates can attend classroom training (starting at $2,000 U.S.) or use one of Oracle University's e-learning products (starting at $399 US).

Those who have passed at least one Oracle 9i exam before June 15 are exempted from the requirement, as are those upgrading their OCP from the 8i version.

"We are moving to the class requirement in order to protect the value and integrity of the Oracle Certification Program and ensure that the value of the accreditation remains high for the people who attain all levels of OCP," Oracle said of the new policy.

Michael Ritacco, a Senior DBA in Houston, Texas and the founder of OracleNotes.com, a Web site for OCP candidates, said he likes the idea of mandatory training. "At least the training requirement will ensure that a candidate was presented a minimum amount of information along with some hands-on experiences in the labs," he said. "If the certification program produces too many paper DBAs, you lower the quality of the certification, and that hurts everyone."

As for the additional cost, Ritacco suspects that many DBAs will shrug it off. "If you're working as a DBA, even if you're not certified, employers will usually at least pay for the upgrade class, which qualifies under these requirements," he continued.

Other DBAs aren't quite as enthusiastic. "I think it's a horrible idea," said one poster in CertCities.com's forums. "The idea of a certification is to show that you've developed skills in an area. This smacks of Oracle simply trying to help pad their bottom line at the expense of professionals who are, in the end, only serving as a positive source of advertising for the company in the first place."

Damir Bersinic, DBA, trainer and author of CertCities.com's Oracle column, says he's also suspicious of Oracle's financial motives: "They don't make money from tests...they make money from training. Who gets the money here? Oracle."

""It's not going to do anything to improve the quality of the program," he continued. "It would be different if they had said everyone must take Performance Tuning or Backup and Recovery...The way it is now, anyone can walk into Introduction to 9i and come out not knowing much about Oracle, just about SQL syntax. "

According to Oracle, there are more than 115,000 Oracle Certified Professionals worldwide.

To find out more about Oracle's certification program, click here. To view the training policy in its entirety, click here. - B.N.