As part of our series of interviews with Oracle employees, partners, and customers who have successfully passed the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure 2018 Architect Associate exam, we recently interviewed Anuj Gulati of IBM.

Anuj works as a Technical Lead at IBM India. He has over nine years of experience managing database systems (RDBMS and non-RDBMS), ERPs, job schedulers, and web servers, and he has sound knowledge of Oracle Cloud Infrastructure concepts, including Ravello. He is certified as both an Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) Architect Associate and an OCI Classic Architect Associate.

Greg: Anuj, how did you prepare for the certification?

Anuj: I already had a fair understanding of Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) as I was already certified in OCI Classic. To prepare for the OCI Architect Associate Exam, the first step I took was to focus on understanding the business drivers that led to the new OCI offering. This helped me understand the cloud in more detail. Understanding the technical aspects is one thing, but understanding the reasoning for developing Oracle’s next generation cloud was very beneficial.

I also signed up for the 30-day trial which I found to be most beneficial. Getting my hands on OCI services greatly helped me understand the concepts. I reviewed all the use cases I could find and set these up on the trial account. And the documents found on docs.oracle.com contained almost everything that I needed to work with the Oracle Cloud.

In addition, I’ve been following a lot of Oracle management on LinkedIn and whenever they posted any update, I tested out the update to familiarize myself with it. I also compared Oracle Cloud to the clouds offered by other vendors. I reviewed the technical aspects, which helped me better appreciate the offerings in Oracle Cloud that are unavailable in the other vendors’ clouds.

I would say that preparing this way did take longer, but I still feel it was the best way for me to not only pass the exam but to truly understand the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure offering.

Greg: Did being part of the reference program help you prepare for the exam?

Anuj: Yes. We received some customized videos specifically for the OCI exam. I found these to be very helpful and assisted my overall understanding of OCI.

Greg:  How long did it take you to prepare for the exam?

Anuj: It took me about three months to prepare for the exam. It took longer than I had hoped to prepare due to my job responsibilities. For someone who has experience with other clouds, I think it would only take about one month to prepare for the exam.

Greg:  How is life after getting certified?

Anuj: I shared the digital badge for my OCI certification on LinkedIn and this received many views, which I was very pleased about.

Passing this exam has given me a sense of confidence, a sense of pride. I feel like I am part of an elite group that has earned this certification. Many colleagues have reached out to me for advice on how to prepare for the exam and about the exam structure.

From a technical perspective, it has helped me understand a lot of cloud concepts in general and some of the Oracle concepts in particular.

Greg: Any other advice you’d like to share?

Anuj: If you have the right skills and understanding, then this exam should not be too difficult for you. Go through the videos and documents that are available for free. You definitely need to create a trial account and work your way through it.

 

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Greg Hyman
Principal Program Manager, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Certification
greg.hyman@oracle.com
Twitter: @GregoryHyman
LinkedIn: GregoryRHyman

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Other blogs in the How to Successfully Prepare for the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure 2018 Architect Exam series are listed under Greg’s blog page.