DB2 The Database

Certification has arrived, no question. But as a DB2 professional, should you certify? Will it increase your abilities or help your career? How can you do it quickly and inexpensively? That last thought is key knowing the inside story on DB2 certification before you proceed will save you a ton of time, stress and money.

Trainers sell certification-oriented courseware, consultants push training, publishers market books, and vendors sell all the above. The upshot is that you can't take most articles on certification at face value. Let's take a different tack. We'll try to look at the issue objectively, from the standpoint of the IT professional.

Why certify?> Some do it for the challenge of demonstrating their knowledge, or for the inner satisfaction that comes from mastery of the material. Whether a "certified DB2 developer" is better than one that is not certified is, to say the least, highly debatable.

Consider the situation by platform. DB2 completely dominates on mainframes and the IBM System i, with over 90% of the database market share for each. IBM is one of the top two commercial database vendors for both UNIX and Linux systems. On Windows servers, Microsoft's SQL Server leads in market share, yet DB2 presents a reasonable presence nonetheless.

Certification Detail: Developerworks