It is quite often that I encounter attendees in my Oracle University courses that strive to become OCP or sometimes even OCM, asking me whether they should better go for an older versions certificate before they take on the most recent. The reasoning behind those questions is mostly that it may be easier to do it with the older version. My advise is then always: Go for the most recent version! No Oracle Certification exam is easy, but the older versions certificate is already outdated. The now most recent one will become outdated also sooner as you may think 🙂
For that reason I really appreciate the option to upgrade from 9i/10g/11g OCA directly to 12c OCP as discussed in this posting. There is just no point in becoming a new 11g OCP now when 12c is there, in my opinion. What do you think?
Pickleball spielen 
#1 von Franck Pachot (@FranckPachot) am September 23, 2014 - 21:10
The main reason/motivation for certification is to learn during preparation, and to compensate the lack of experience in some areas. For both reasons there is no point to prepare on old releases. Beta exams are great for that.
#2 von Noons am September 24, 2014 - 02:35
Obviously you have never had to contend with 99.9999999% of hiring pimps who DEMAND a specific certification, or else… Yes, it’s all about jobs.
Not about hazy definitions of knowledge or experience certification.
#3 von Hemant K Chitale am September 24, 2014 - 08:01
If I am the manager of a set of environments running 10g and 11g, I would be sceptical of a fresh DBA who is „only“ 12c certified. If the candidate has noticeable 10g and 11g experience but then gets 12c certified, I am fine hiring him based on his 10g and 11 experience. There are a number of environments which won’t go to 12c for a couple of years yet.
#4 von laurentschneider am September 24, 2014 - 14:20
if you learn only the 9i 10g 11g and 12c staff, you will miss PARTITION OUTER JOIN (9iR2), PERL INFLUENCED REGULAR EXPRESSION (10gR2), LISTAGG & Nth VALUE (11gR2). It would make more sense to have a free online update for every release that a 1500€ exam every 10 years.
Still, the 9i for 7.3 ocp retirement in 2015 sounds like an anachronism ( http://education.oracle.com/pls/web_prod-plq-dad/db_pages.getpage?page_id=206 )
#5 von Uwe Hesse am September 24, 2014 - 17:44
Frank, thank you for that feedback!
#6 von Uwe Hesse am September 24, 2014 - 17:46
Noons, true: Fortunately I don’t have to deal with ‚pimps‘ of any kind very often – makes my life easier 😉
#7 von Uwe Hesse am September 24, 2014 - 17:52
Hemant, thank you for this contribution to the discussion! It is not necessarily so that a 12c OCP has no knowledge about earlier versions. And I expect that you would investigate the candidates experience beyond the certificate anyways. Even with a technical environment on 11g today, I would still recommend to go for a 12c Certification now.
#8 von Uwe Hesse am September 24, 2014 - 17:58
Laurent, thanks for participating! I didn’t say that you shouldn’t learn things about older versions. Actually, much of older versions knowledge is even required to understand how the new version works since so many new features are based on old features. Free stuff is always nice, but the corporation is not in the first place known for giving things away for free 🙂
#9 von laurentschneider am September 24, 2014 - 23:04
true, I have not see a database without undo and without temporary tablespace for a while 😉
#10 von shivani am September 25, 2014 - 11:51
Hello sir, i AM SHIVANI & I AM 10G OCP i want ti be OCM. but nobody guide me. I have a dream to be OCM. please help me sir. This is also my mother’s dream but in my country there is no 11g or 12c training center. so please guide me. thank you
#11 von derek mott am September 25, 2014 - 20:34
There is one big reason to go from 11gOCA to 12c OCP via 11g OCP and that if for people who have already have taken 11g OCP DBA certified training but do not have and cannot afford/resource the 12g DBA OCP certified training that is required from the 1z0-067 route. Ideally the more quality training the better. But the necessity of having authorized high 12g DBA OCP training on the extreme has not really been discussed; and it might catch some people out as a Gotcha!
#12 von Uwe Hesse am September 27, 2014 - 12:05
Shivani, we have a fine OCM Preparation Workshop that you can attend over the Web (we call it LVC): http://education.oracle.com/pls/web_prod-plq-dad/db_pages.getpage?page_id=609&get_params=dc:D69748,clang:EN Check with the Country selector in the upper right corner for offers near to your timezone.
#13 von brandye barrington am September 30, 2014 - 03:25
You do bring up a good point, Derek. The training must be on the version for which you take the exam or later. For example, if you are going to take the 11g DBA OCP exam, your training will need to be 11g or 12c. If you are going to take the 12c DBA OCP exam, your training must be 12c. So, you are correct in that if someone has already taken the 11g traning, they should go ahead and go from 11g DBA OCA to 11g DBA OCP and then upgrade to 12c via the 060 upgrade exam.
Thanks for facilitating the discussion, Uwe!
Brandye Barrington
Oracle Certification Program
#14 von Uwe Hesse am September 30, 2014 - 09:14
You’re welcome, Brandye, and thank YOU for taking the question!
#15 von derek mott am Oktober 7, 2014 - 23:26
There has just emerged an even bigger reason to go for the latest major release! Oracle Certification have just announced they will retire older database certifications! See: https://blogs.oracle.com/certification/entry/1055_01. The later release you certify on the longer before it goes into retirement and the less recertification you have to do to stay current!
#16 von kirthana am November 12, 2014 - 07:28
can we own certificates on 12c directly without owning any certificates of oracle before? and is training in oracle academy necessary to take an exam?
#17 von Uwe Hesse am November 15, 2014 - 14:35
Kirthana, yes, you can go e.g. for the OCA 12c certificate without any 11g certificate needed: https://education.oracle.com/pls/web_prod-plq-dad/db_pages.getpage?page_id=653&get_params=p_id:248#tabs-1 Oracle Academy is an internal organization that supports schools and universities, whereas Oracle University is the line of business that offers courses for customer education. OCA 12c does not require an Oracle University course as a prerequisite, while OCP 12c does.