September 4, 2013 at 8:52 am
patrickmcginnis59 10839 (9/4/2013)
“We want it to be an elite community, certainly. But some of the non-technical barriers to entry run the risk of making it elitist for non-technical reasons. Having a program that costs candidates nearly $20,000 creates a non-technical barrier to entry. Having a program that is English-only and only offered in the USA creates a non-technical barrier to entry.”
Well this is a pretty compelling snippet. At the same time, Gail offers that some of these barriers are falling, but I'm not able to find any details on that, anybody know what the actual details are? I am concerned that the chief task in attaining the MCM is costs, and I'm not a fan of people buying certs. Whats the bottom line, if Microsoft continued the MCM for current versions, or the MCSM, besides the knowledge, what does the average Joe have to do, including travel? Whats the bottom line here?
Bottom line is $500 for the knowledge exam, $2000 for the lab exam, and travel costs. For the SQL MCM, I had to travel to Colorado to take the knowledge exam. For the lab exam, they opened it up and allowed for one to take it remotely (from the normal test centers) at an additional fee of $500. Based on whether you would have traveled or not and the length of travel involved, your prices may vary.
Jason...AKA CirqueDeSQLeil
_______________________________________________
I have given a name to my pain...MCM SQL Server, MVP
SQL RNNR
Posting Performance Based Questions - Gail Shaw[/url]
Learn Extended Events
September 4, 2013 at 8:53 am
jasona.work (9/4/2013)
Abu Dina (9/4/2013)
They can take away the title but they can't take away your knowledge.You'll still be earning plenty of $$$$$ 😉
Abu, I don't think it's really about the money, so much as the utter lack of respect MS is showing people who put forth immense amounts of time, effort, and money to pursue and acheive the MCM. ...
Precisely. The real issue is the utter lack of respect in how the announcement was made.
Jason...AKA CirqueDeSQLeil
_______________________________________________
I have given a name to my pain...MCM SQL Server, MVP
SQL RNNR
Posting Performance Based Questions - Gail Shaw[/url]
Learn Extended Events
September 4, 2013 at 8:53 am
patrickmcginnis59 10839 (9/4/2013)
At the same time, Gail offers that some of these barriers are falling, but I'm not able to find any details on that, anybody know what the actual details are?
There's a link in the article (right around the point you quoted) to a page on an official MSL blog explaining the changes. It was an ongoing process, started in June for the products other than SQL.
For SQL, those barriers had been gone for a couple of years. I wrote the exams at a Prometric exam centre 15 minutes drive from my house. No US-visit, no 3-week training, no $20 000 fee.
Gail Shaw
Microsoft Certified Master: SQL Server, MVP, M.Sc (Comp Sci)
SQL In The Wild: Discussions on DB performance with occasional diversions into recoverability
September 4, 2013 at 8:57 am
Abu Dina (9/4/2013)
You'll still be earning plenty of $$$$$ 😉
Really? Why didn't anyone tell me that?
Gail Shaw
Microsoft Certified Master: SQL Server, MVP, M.Sc (Comp Sci)
SQL In The Wild: Discussions on DB performance with occasional diversions into recoverability
September 4, 2013 at 9:01 am
My sympathies to all. That was the first certification I ever took seriously from Microsoft. Could PASS or some other independent professional group have their own complementary certification? Assuming MS would go along with it. After this they may have no choice.
September 4, 2013 at 9:09 am
As a jack-of-all trades where SQL Server is only 15% of my job, I think this is just another f*** you stupid move from the out-of-touch management in Redmond.
September 4, 2013 at 9:24 am
jfogel (9/4/2013)
I don’t think MS thought this over well enough and since MS has indicated that this program was not a money maker and that is a factor in the cancellation perhaps they are looking more toward dumbing down the certification process across the board and will turn in to a cert mill. For all the dedication in every form an MCM holder has shown MS turned around and said they no longer care. One good turn deserves another and I don’t see why any current or studying to me MCM would give the learning arm the time of day in the future.
Bingo! now everyone should understand what is really behind their mindset on this.:-D
"Technology is a weird thing. It brings you great gifts with one hand, and it stabs you in the back with the other. ...:-D"
September 4, 2013 at 9:47 am
GilaMonster (9/4/2013)
Abu Dina (9/4/2013)
You'll still be earning plenty of $$$$$ 😉Really? Why didn't anyone tell me that?
I profusely apologise your almightiness!
No seriously, I empathise but don't let the prawn sandwich eating dweebs at MS get to you. You're a SQL Server master, you're well respected the world over and you earn big bucks lol.
Life's surely too good.
Respect!:-D
---------------------------------------------------------
It takes a minimal capacity for rational thought to see that the corporate 'free press' is a structurally irrational and biased, and extremely violent, system of elite propaganda.
David Edwards - Media lens[/url]
Society has varying and conflicting interests; what is called objectivity is the disguise of one of these interests - that of neutrality. But neutrality is a fiction in an unneutral world. There are victims, there are executioners, and there are bystanders... and the 'objectivity' of the bystander calls for inaction while other heads fall.
Howard Zinn
September 4, 2013 at 9:53 am
Dave62 (9/4/2013)
I'm sure having certifications must be better than not having them but I'm also sure that, in my case at least, certifications are not necessary to succeed.Are there more success stories out there for people with certifications or people without certifications?
Enjoy!
Absolutely. Myself. Years ago I got the A+/Network+ as my "foot in the door" certs, but that's it. I did purchase a book on one of the MCSE/MCSA exams but never got around to taking it. Oh, I was required by an employer to be certified as an HP repair tech. Woo-hoo.
Not having the IT equivalent of a bowl of Alpha-Bits after my name hasn't precluded me one bit from working in IT for going on two decades now and being lauded by various employers. I just received a quarterly award (with a nice monetary bonus attached) for some not-terribly-difficult scripting work I did and it's also made me eligible for an annual recognition (with a monetary bonus three times larger than the one I received).
Not to discourage anyone from seeking any of the alphabet soup of certifications out there, but by and large these things seem mainly to serve the role of a)giving the HR department an easy way to screen and b)putting money in the pockets of a lot of people - and not necessarily the people who pass the exams. There are exceptions (notably the ill-fated MCM, etc. among others) but most are really more commodity than anything else these days. I don't know if it's possible given where things are, but in my mind certifications should be markers of accomplishment, not tickets for job interviews.
____________
Just my $0.02 from over here in the cheap seats of the peanut gallery - please adjust for inflation and/or your local currency.
September 4, 2013 at 10:11 am
Certifications are meaningless.
I know lots of people who have passed exams from Microsoft and other companies, and who had no experience in the technology whatsoever. At most, they spent about a day studying.
Now there are people who spend the time to learn, work with the product, and actually know what they are doing. I am in NO WAY demeaning their efforts nor their knowledge.
There is no way to separate those groups - they both have the same certs.
Also, I have worked with plenty of people who had certifications. "Bob" is the best example. Hired with pretty much every Cisco certification needed to run a network, yet within about 12 hours he exploded, called off the next couple of days, and then quit. Bob obviously knew enough to pass the tests. He took classes, he did what he was supposed to do, yet he couldn't do the job.
I worked with another individual, "Debbie", that had every Oracle certification possible. Completely incompetent, this person is still employed as a DBA in Chicago, makes lots of money, yet can't do anything but add disk space to Oracle table spaces.
I on the other hand, stopped taking tests back when SQL 6.5 was out. I am good at what I do. I know I will never be able to compete with Paul Randall, Kimberly Tripp, and many, many other professional DBAs. My recognition of my weaknesses is one of my best qualities. Try to put that on a resume! I am able to do WHATEVER is needed to manage my systems, automate as much as possible, keep dozens of systems running well, all while managing a bunch of applications! There are no certifications for that.
Now if they ever come out with a Google Search certification...
Dave
September 4, 2013 at 10:15 am
djackson 22568 (9/4/2013)
Now if they ever come out with a Google Search certification...
....so true, I'd be shovelling poop for a living if it wasn't for Google :hehe:
p.s.
No disrespect to those who do shovel poop for a living 😛
---------------------------------------------------------
It takes a minimal capacity for rational thought to see that the corporate 'free press' is a structurally irrational and biased, and extremely violent, system of elite propaganda.
David Edwards - Media lens[/url]
Society has varying and conflicting interests; what is called objectivity is the disguise of one of these interests - that of neutrality. But neutrality is a fiction in an unneutral world. There are victims, there are executioners, and there are bystanders... and the 'objectivity' of the bystander calls for inaction while other heads fall.
Howard Zinn
September 4, 2013 at 10:33 am
Certifications are meaningless.
In this case the Master is meaningful since it actually required a practical lab test that according to the people who have taken it, couldn't be gamed or brain-dumped.
I've yet to met someone that has a MCM that didn't have over a decade or more of experience and about 10,000 times more real SQL Server knowledge than myself.
And Microsoft just took a big steaming dump on these individuals by belittling their accomplishments.
September 4, 2013 at 10:34 am
ccd3000 (9/4/2013)
My sympathies to all. That was the first certification I ever took seriously from Microsoft. Could PASS or some other independent professional group have their own complementary certification? Assuming MS would go along with it. After this they may have no choice.
Doing so would be extremely expensive. I don't see anyone else with the pockets to do so. Remember that these "pinnacle certifications" are for just the very top, and yet they will be the most expensive to create and maintain. Not to mention the expense to keep it from being brain-dumped or boot-camped. No business would do this on their own - they'll lose money.
PASS struggles to make ends meet. When the yearly Summit is their main revenue generation, you can see that they won't have the resources to take this on. The only company that I would feel would be reputable enough to do this right is SQLSkills, and as mentioned they would lose money doing so.
MS needs to see the value in having these advanced certs, and how having these folks with the advanced certs influences how companies will buy their licenses - as in, they'll buy more.
If you are interested in what else that I have to say about this, I've blogged about it[/url].
Wayne
Microsoft Certified Master: SQL Server 2008
Author - SQL Server T-SQL Recipes
September 4, 2013 at 11:08 am
SQLRNNR (9/4/2013)
patrickmcginnis59 10839 (9/4/2013)
“We want it to be an elite community, certainly. But some of the non-technical barriers to entry run the risk of making it elitist for non-technical reasons. Having a program that costs candidates nearly $20,000 creates a non-technical barrier to entry. Having a program that is English-only and only offered in the USA creates a non-technical barrier to entry.”
Well this is a pretty compelling snippet. At the same time, Gail offers that some of these barriers are falling, but I'm not able to find any details on that, anybody know what the actual details are? I am concerned that the chief task in attaining the MCM is costs, and I'm not a fan of people buying certs. Whats the bottom line, if Microsoft continued the MCM for current versions, or the MCSM, besides the knowledge, what does the average Joe have to do, including travel? Whats the bottom line here?
Bottom line is $500 for the knowledge exam, $2000 for the lab exam, and travel costs. For the SQL MCM, I had to travel to Colorado to take the knowledge exam. For the lab exam, they opened it up and allowed for one to take it remotely (from the normal test centers) at an additional fee of $500. Based on whether you would have traveled or not and the length of travel involved, your prices may vary.
This is good info and certainly conflicts with the commentary from Microsoft defending their decision. On the other hand, it looks like there are MCSM exams in the works with various areas of focus including data centric topics.
I freely admit some bias toward Microsoft's position, and also some bias against the MCM and admittedly since I'm not taking the MCM, I'm not really affected, and I think Gail's writeup seems to be preaching to the choir so to speak. I do think that with DBA's in general, our community tends toward emphasis on being "exceptional", and labelling workplaces as "excellent", and given the low numbers of folks achieving the MCM, this strikes me as this certification being along the same lines...
Now on the other hand, this leaves poor slobs like me who has to explain to management why I want what the community calls "excellent, exceptional practices, knowledge attained by the rare and few" when in reality I'd rather this be the norm or the "barely acceptable" practices and the "exceptional DBA" phenom and the MCM certification in my opinion work against this. Sure, I'm not going to let hundreds of "no lock" queries and nerve wracking last minute ad-lib systems and practices dissuade me from any job I happen to be at, but it really underscores how unlike you guys I am. I just thought I'd throw that out there as maybe an example and rational of how little relevence Gails rant has in my job. Maybe if it were called "Microsoft Certified Mandatory" I'd feel a bit different.
September 4, 2013 at 11:14 am
Not sure I agree PASS is barely making ends meet. Outside the Summit they don't generate much revenue, but that generates a lot.
They could tackle some of this, but not a premier, masters level cert.
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