My ITM 6.1 Certification experience

When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. '?Sherlock Holmes in 'Sign of Four???????????????

As long as you remember Sherlock Holmes'?advice, you should not have any problem in clearing the certification exam. There are 4-6 choices for every question, apply this rule to each choice just like Holmes would do, you will be fine. However, don't take this exam so lightly. This article points to some of the resources, pitfalls and strategies for taking certification exam.

Should you get certified?

It is up to you to decide whether you want to get certified. I am no masochist but I enjoy taking at least one certification per year. The certification itself may or may not be a great deal, but the preparation for the certification helps you to understand most of the capabilities of the product/language even if you rarely use them. Moreover, it gives you some satisfaction of achieving something tangible. I acknowledge though that having a certification does not make one an expert, in fact most of the experts do not have certification in their specialization. Again read the first line of the paragraph.

Easy part of ITM 6.1 certification

Well, the product itself is new, so the questions are not that tough yet; if you have spent a month or so with the product and have a basic understanding of the architecture, you should not have any difficulty in answering 30-35% of questions. Contrast with ITCM 4.2.2 certification which asks so many questions about the products that you or your descendents would never use in lifetime. Second, the amount of reading that you have to go through is very small compared to certifications in other technologies. Read the resources specified at the end of the article, you will perform decently in the exam.

IBM did a great job in coming up with an assessment exam that enables you to see where you are before taking the plunge. It costs only $10 and I highly recommend taking the assessment first before taking the real exam.

Here comes the curveball.

Well, if you think you're ready for the certification, wait until you read this paragraph. The pass mark for a successful certification is very high (72%) as against 60 or 61% for other exams. So, there is not much of room for errors. Even if you have performed decently, there is a good chance that you might miss out the certification by 1 or 2 questions.

'OMEGAMON???????????????,'?XE/DE???????????????,'?350/360'?These were the few words in the product that sent shivers down my spine. Even though, I have some working experience with the Omegamon product, I don't remember much about it. The good thing is you don't need much working expertise in Omegamon, but you need to understand how to migrate from older version. It is simple, just pay some extra attention to OMEGAMON in the resources, you will be fine. Similarly pay extra attention to migration from DM 3.7 and ITM 5.x integration piece.

Resources:

1) Dr.Frank Tate's blog entry
2) Core manuals
    a. Installation and Setup guide
    b. Administrator guide
    c. User guide
    d. UA User guide.
    e. Certification guide. (Specified in Dr.Frank's blog entry).
3) Assessment & Sample exam

That is all. Good luck!