I am a J2EE Architect! – Says Sun Microsystems.

Now, it is mid-night 12:33 AM. A windy night and rain is pouring heavily outside. Weather is so cool, and my heart is too. Though I am feeling like running outside and shout louder in the rain…, I can not do that now. Because, I am 24, and yet, the time is mid night 12.

The much awaited result is out..! I have been waiting for this result, since last 3 to 4 weeks. My Architect exam result. Why I am so excited about this is, I am only 23.7 years old – too young to have Architect Certified! :-)

Out of all my learnings till date, I consider this exam is pretty worth. The perspective of looking at software systems has changed, after looking them through the architect view. I don’t see software as a program or piece of code; I see software is assembled of components and constructs. They are like bricks and stones that give the infrastructure (I am more or less has become as a mechanic!)

I will cherish this great moment till life long. Let me recall, what I have done, lost, tried and given up to get this Architect Exam.

The Exam has 3 parts. In Part-I, we need to answer for multiple-choice questions. In Part-II, we need to workout a J2EE based architectural solution, for the problem given by Sun Microsystems. In Part-III, questions will be asked from our Part-II solution. Part-III is an essay type exam. We need to answer their questions in paragraphs.

Sun Certified Enterprise Architect – Part I

Date : 25^th Sept 2007

I have already published a post about this Part I exam, here: http://manivannan57.blogspot.com/2007_09_01_archive.html

Sun Certified Enterprise Architect – Part II (Assignment)

Date: 28t^h Feb 2008

Here is the stage, you host your skills! I registered for the part II – Assignment exam. I received the assignment, and started reading the requirements about a week. I understood what the requirements were, but did not find even a single clue about how to derive solution

I started reading advises from saloon forum http://saloon.javaranch.com/cgi-bin/ubb/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=forum&f=26 at my free times. Needless to say, more we listen to people’s advice, the more we get confused. So, I gave up reading the forum, as it had ‘N’ number of views, arguments, advises, approaches and etc. (But, one should really read through the forum, just to see how different people mind can think to derive a solution for a given single problem! :-) )

I was helpless to bring solution and to verify my solution is correct. Because, I have not met any real world architects so far. Also, I had a fear that, they can misguide me to give a Design Solution instead of the required Architectural solution. Because, most of the techies do not distinguish a ‘Design’ and an ‘Architecture’. (And there are cases, where people have failed in the exam, as they submitted a design kind of solution rather than the architectural solution).

I’ve decided to keep my architectural solution very simple and straight-forward. I have strongly decided not to use any Framework (that is not a part of J2EE) in my solution. I did so.

The difficult part in my assignment, which I feel is, session handling decision. I needed to give a session handling solution for JSP and Swing based clients. First, I have decided an approach. I went out for coffee and cam back, and then changed the approach. I went out, looked at the children playing in the street, cam back then, and changed the approach. Likewise, it got changed many times, that I cannot even remember.

I was very strong in one thing – the examiner should be able to understand my architectural solution without any difficulties. Keeping that in mind, I put lot of details in supporting documents. I explained the approach over several pages; also, clarified the reason why I opted that approach over others.

Also, I have presented a Traceability Matrix for Functional and Non Functional requirements. That might be impressive. But, that is dangerous too. If I forget to add any requirement in the Matrix, then he will catch me. I spent lot of time to make sure that all the requirements are addressed in the Matrix table.

That’s all.

One early morning I submitted the assignment to Sun.

Sun Certified Enterprise Architect – Part III (Theory Exam)

This exam was an interesting one. We need to write the answers as paragraphs. No! we cant fill the paragraphs with some legacy stories; the answer we provide here will have to match with the architectural solution submitted for Part-II. So, I reloaded all the assignment requirements and my solution into my memory, before taking up this exam.

All of the questions were about Non Functional requirements. That’s, about performance scalability and the kind of stuffs. I gave only valid points to fill up the paragraph. I repeated most of the lines from my Part-II supporting documents. Because, it should match right.

Finally

Part II & Part III Score: 88% (Pass)

Part I Score: 95% (Pass)

Overall Grade: Pass

That’s it!

I am so excited to get passed in this exam. I am happy that I have passed in the top most level of J2EE exam, in this young age. Many people advised me that one should have minimum 6 to 8 years of experience in designing and architecting software applications to give such exams. But, me poor guy has only 2 and half years. But, I have endless passions to do.

This is the last level of the exam. So, I have decided to not to take any more certification exams in the future.