Ceritifcations - no exam without attending course first.

[psychocandy]

Never bothered in the past but now I think its getting more popular.

Red Hat one - no probem. Bit pricy for the exam - £300.
Vmware do the basic one for £80 so decent enough.

But, Oracle I see and Vmware for their proper certifications wont let you do the exam until you've actually attended a course. Nice little money spinner.

As a contractor Im fine paying for exams myself but £2500+ and a week off billing. Hmmm not so cool. Certainly out of my budget.

[tractor]

...

Never bothered in the past but now I think its getting more popular.

Red Hat one - no probem. Bit pricy for the exam - £300.
Vmware do the basic one for £80 so decent enough.

But, Oracle I see and Vmware for their proper certifications wont let you do the exam until you've actually attended a course. Nice little money spinner.

As a contractor Im fine paying for exams myself but £2500+ and a week off billing. Hmmm not so cool. Certainly out of my budget.

None of them give a monkey's about how many people take the exam, they are only interested in course fees.

It's even quite difficult to find an exam only cost on most of the exam centre'e web sites. For this reason, I don't even bother looking anymore.

[TheFaQQer]

Not all Oracle certifications require a course - for example Oracle Certified Associate doesn't, whereas Oracle Certified Master and Oracle Certified Professional do. Oracle Certified Expert doesn't have a course requirement, either.

The courses only have to be run by an approved training centre, so they don't have to be run by Oracle themselves, which will always be more expensive than other offerings.

That may have changed over recent years, but of the three levels of Oracle certification that I have, I only needed to have taken a course to get the OCP qualification.

[psychocandy]

Not all Oracle certifications require a course - for example Oracle Certified Associate doesn't, whereas Oracle Certified Master and Oracle Certified Professional do. Oracle Certified Expert doesn't have a course requirement, either.

The courses only have to be run by an approved training centre, so they don't have to be run by Oracle themselves, which will always be more expensive than other offerings.

That may have changed over recent years, but of the three levels of Oracle certification that I have, I only needed to have taken a course to get the OCP qualification.

OK. Was that the Oracle DB stuff? Im on about the old Sun Solaris stuff?

Yep know its authorised training as well so possibly bit cheaper but still a bit out of reach. Still a money maker - makes you wonder how much these 3rd parties pay to be on the authorised list

[TheFaQQer]

OK. Was that the Oracle DB stuff? Im on about the old Sun Solaris stuff?

Yep know its authorised training as well so possibly bit cheaper but still a bit out of reach. Still a money maker - makes you wonder how much these 3rd parties pay to be on the authorised list

You can become a Solaris Oracle Certified Associate without needing to go on a course, but would need to have been on the course if you wanted to get the Oracle Certified Professional qualification.

If you really wanted the qualification, then you'd be best off heading to India, getting the training there, and making a holiday of it - you can do the course and exam in five days if you are up to it

[Brenning]

You can become a Solaris Oracle Certified Associate without needing to go on a course, but would need to have been on the course if you wanted to get the Oracle Certified Professional qualification.

If you really wanted the qualification, then you'd be best off heading to India, getting the training there, and making a holiday of it - you can do the course and exam in five days if you are up to it

Are courses / certs cheaper in India?

[TheFaQQer]

Are courses / certs cheaper in India?

The exam fees are set in dollars, so they won't be any cheaper anywhere in the world. However, it is cheaper to pay for a local to run the training in India than it is in the UK, almost certainly.

On a five day course, you're looking to save about 17% over the UK prices on the courses that I looked at.

It's not as cheap these days as it used to be - some years back I did a series of courses for £2500 (plus flight) which would have cost about £9000 (plus accommodation costs) to do in the UK. I spent each night on the beach in Goa, and stayed in a luxury five star hotel for two and a half weeks, rather than staying in Bracknell or Reading. My wife flew out and we had an extra week together as well.

Bear in mind that some companies will no longer offer the tests in India - IIRC, Microsoft won't do it.

[psychocandy]

Sounds better than Bracknell at least!

Thats just it. Looked at cost of Solaris 11 course to enable me to do the Oracle Professional one. £3000.
I dont think so.

[b0redom]

Solaris is on the way out anyway for all but the uber niche use cases. I was recently at an all Solaris shop and they were trying to justify a web tech refresh. The cheapest SPARC server they could get was well into 4 figures. Just not worth it when commodity hardware and Linux is so much cheaper (comparatively).

[NotAllThere]

...
But, Oracle I see and Vmware for their proper certifications wont let you do the exam until you've actually attended a course. Nice little money spinner...

SAP do this. But only in India.