IBM certitification questions and answers

IBM’s efforts to promote workforce diversity and equal opportunity date back at least to World War I, when the company hired disabled veterans. IBM was the only technology company ranked in Working Mother magazine’s Top 10 for 2004, and one of two technology companies in 2005 (the other company being Hewlett-Packard).

On September 21, 1953, Thomas J. Watson, the CEO at the time, sent out a controversial letter to all IBM employees stating that IBM needed to hire the best people, regardless of their race, ethnic origin, or gender. In 1984, IBM added sexual preference. He stated that this would give IBM a competitive advantage because IBM would then be able to hire talented people its competitors would turn down.

The company has traditionally resisted labor union organizing, although unions represent some IBM workers outside the United States.

In the 1990s, two major pension program changes, including a conversion to a cash balance plan, resulted in an employee class action lawsuit alleging age discrimination. IBM employees won the lawsuit and arrived at a partial settlement, although appeals are still underway. IBM also settled a major overtime class-action lawsuit in 2006.

Historically IBM has had a good reputation of long-term staff retention with few large scale layoffs. In more recent years there have been a number of broad sweeping cuts to the workforce as IBM attempts to adapt to changing market conditions and a declining profit base. After posting weaker than expected revenues in the first quarter of 2005, IBM eliminated 14,500 positions from its workforce, predominantly in Europe. In May 2005, IBM Ireland said to staff that the MD(Micro-electronics Division) facility was closing down by the end of 2005 and offered a settlement to staff. However, all staff that wished to stay with the Company were redeployed within IBM Ireland. The production moved to a company called Amkor in Singapore who purchased IBM’s Microelectronics business in Singapore and is widely agreed that IBM promised this Company a full load capacity in return for the purchase of the facility. On June 8, 2005, IBM Canada Ltd. eliminated approximately 700 positions. IBM projects these as part of a strategy to “rebalance” its portfolio of professional skills & businesses. IBM India and other IBM offices in China, the Philippines and Costa Rica have been witnessing a recruitment boom and steady growth in number of employees due to lower wages.

On October 10, 2005, IBM became the first major company in the world to formally commit to not using genetic information in its employment decisions. This came just a few months after IBM announced its support of the National Geographic Society’s Genographic Project.

Big Blue is a nickname for IBM; several theories exist regarding its origin. One theory, substantiated by people who worked for IBM at the time, is that IBM field reps coined the term in the 1960s, referring to the color of the mainframes IBM installed in the 1960s and early 1970s. “All blue” was a term used to describe a loyal IBM customer, and business writers later picked up the term.Another theory suggests that Big Blue simply refers to the Company’s logo. A third theory suggests that Big Blue refers to a former company dress code that required many IBM employees to wear only white shirts and many wore blue suits. In any event, IBM keyboards, typewriters, and some other manufactured devices, have played on the “Big Blue” concept, using the color for enter keys and carriage returns.

 Sales

IBM has often been described as having a sales-centric or a sales-oriented business culture. Traditionally, many IBM executives and general managers are chosen from the sales force. The current CEO, Sam Palmisano, for example, joined the company as a salesman and, unusual for CEOs of major corporations, has no MBA or postgraduate qualification. Middle and top management are often enlisted to give direct support to salesmen when pitching sales to important customers.

 The uniform

A dark (or gray) suit, white shirt, and a “sincere” tie was the public uniform for IBM employees for most of the 20th century. During IBM’s management transformation in the 1990s, CEO Lou Gerstner relaxed these codes, normalizing the dress and behavior of IBM employees to resemble their counterparts in other large technology companies.

IBM company values and “Jamon”

In 2003, IBM embarked on an ambitious project to rewrite company values. Using its Jam technology, the company hosted Intranet-based online discussions on key business issues with 50,000 employees over 3 days. The discussions were analyzed by sophisticated text analysis software (eClassifier) to mine online comments for themes. As a result of the 2003 Jam, the company values were updated to reflect three modern business, marketplace and employee views: “Dedication to every client’s success”, “Innovation that matters – for our company and for the world”, “Trust and personal responsibility in all relationships”.

In 2004, another Jam was conducted during which 52,000 employees exchanged best practices for 72 hours. They focused on finding actionable ideas to support implementation of the values previously identified. A new post-Jam Ratings event was developed to allow IBMers to select key ideas that support the values. The board of directors cited this Jam when awarding Palmisano a pay rise in the spring of 2005。

IBM launched another jam session called InnovationJam 2008. This jam began on October 5 at 6:00 p.m. US EDT and continued for 72 hours through October 8. Unlike past jams, Innovation Jam 2008 involved wide participation from hundreds of IBM’s clients, business partners and academics from around the world as well as thousands of IBM’s own employees.

Open source

IBM has been a leading proponent of the Open Source Initiative, and began supporting Linux in 1998. The company invests billions of dollars in services and software based on Linux through the IBM Linux Technology Center, which includes over 300 Linux kernel developers. IBM has also released code under different open-source licenses, such as the platform-independent software framework Eclipse (worth approximately US$40 million at the time of the donation), the three-sentence International Components for Unicode (ICU) license, and the Java-based relational database management system (RDBMS) Apache Derby. IBM’s open source involvement has not been trouble-free, however

International Business Machines Corporation, abbreviated IBM and nicknamed “Big Blue” (for its official corporate color), is a multinational computer technology and IT consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States. The company is one of the few information technology companies with a continuous history dating back to the 19th century. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software, and offers infrastructure services, hosting services, and consulting services in areas ranging from mainframe computers to nanotechnology.^[2]

IBM has been known through most of its recent history as the world’s largest computer company. With over 388,000 employees worldwide, IBM is the largest and most profitable information technology employer in the world. IBM holds more patents than any other U.S. based technology company and has eight research laboratories worldwide.^[3] Widely acclaimed for its highly talented workforce, the company has scientists, engineers, consultants, and sales professionals in over 170 countries.^[4] IBM employees have earned three Nobel Prizes, four Turing Awards, five National Medals of Technology, and five National Medals of Science.^[5] As a chip maker, IBM has been among the Worldwide Top 20 Semiconductor Sales Leaders in past years, and in 2007 IBM ranked second in the list of largest software companies in the world.^[6]

Ultimately, whether you choose to certify is a cost / benefit decision. I’ve already described the benefits. Some are tangible, if not easily measured, like the edge certification gives you in job interviews and increased job effectiveness. Others are intangible, like the pride and satisfaction you’ll gain from professional growth

The costs include your time and effort and the monetary investment. Use this certification cost calculator to ensure you’ve taken all costs into account before committing to certification.

Your biggest potential expenditure is for instructor-led courses (online or in a vendor classroom). Fortunately you can easily avoid this cost, as long as you’re committed enough to study and learn on your own.

The most difficult costs to avoid are those for certification study books and exam fees. But these costs are low, with cert books going for $35 to $70 USD and the exam fee at a modest $150 USD. Even then, you can reduce them. Here are some suggestions:

• Buy used cert books rather than new. If you buy more than one book use Amazon’s “Better Together” discount.
• Participate in one of IBM’s frequent “certification specials.”
  Example: At the time of writing, a special promotion gives you a voucher to save $75 USD on an exam when you buy an approved certification study book. Check developerWorks for future specials.
• Test free at IBM DB2 and IDUG conferences.
  Examples: You can test for free at IBM’s Information on Demand Conference and the Information Management Technical Conference, plus all IDUG conferences in North America, Europe, Australasia, India, and Latin America
• Give a presentation in exchange for free admittance (and testing) at IDUG conferences.
• Test outside the United States, where fees are often much less. This often works for those on green cards or work visas if they can schedule their testing appropriately.

Perhaps the most important cost factor is whether your company supports you in your certification effort. Many companies budget a set amount annually for each employees’ education. Use this to fund any certification course you need. Other companies will pay for conferences or informal training (such as your certification study guide, testing fee, or an online class). Even companies that won’t defer any expenses will often give you time at work to prepare for cert exams. Companies view certification as a win-win for employer and employee. Rare is the employer that does not support, in some manner, its workers who commit to self-improvement through certification.

Different candidates have different experiences. Nevertheless, there exists some conventional wisdom on the subject. Compared to other database vendors’ exams, the questions on the DB2 tests are difficult. But as Table 3 shows, the percentage of questions you need to answer correctly to pass is low. Experience at IDUG conferences indicates a pass rate of about 60%.

All questions are multiple choice, so answer every one. Tthere is no penalty for wrong answers, so at least guess at every question. The exam software allows you to mark questions to return to later, so you can skip hard questions and return to them.

The time allowed for the exams is generous. You’ll only consume the allotted time if you check your work carefully. When you’re done with the exam, click the Done button and the software instantly shows you whether you passed. You can print copies of your score on the spot via the LAN-attached printer. If you pass, IBM sends you a certificate by email.

What if you do not finish the test in the allotted time? The screen freezes, a message tells you the exam has ended, and you’ll see the same pass or fail message you would if you had clicked the Done button yourself. Oops!

You must study for the exams. Being a DB2 guru won’t help if you don’t study! The tests are broader than most IT pros’ knowledge base and also very specific in what they ask. They are designed to be rigorous.

Compared to competing database vendors’ exams, the IBM DB2 tests seem to have fewer overly specific trivial pursuit questions and more questions requiring deep thought. The exams are intended to test your DB2 knowledge and ability to figure out DB2 problems (not just your ability to memorize what’s in the certification study guides). My feeling is that they achieve this a little better than competitors’ tests. Be prepared to stay cool while facing some tough questions. Remain secure in the knowledge you’ll only need a low percentage of questions answered correctly to pass.

My recommended strategy to pass the exams is a four-pronged effort covering these essentials:

1. Study a certification book
2. Take practice tests
3. Get hands-on DB2 experience
4. Use IBM’s free study resources

The next section discusses which certification book(s) you should study. Subsequent sections cover the other points. I’ll especially emphasize free resources — IBM’s free materials are exceptional. You can leverage them to pass the tests while keeping your certification costs low.

The biggest trend in IT careers is certification. You see it everywhere you look… certification books dominate the bookstores, classroom training now guarantees a “pass,” and IT professionals even sign their emails with a list of their “certs.” Is it worth the effort and attention?

First, understand that an entire industry profits from certification. 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. What we can say for sure is that if you certify, you’ll end up knowing more about DB2 than you did when you started.

Many certify for career benefits. If you view it this way, you need to certify with a product that has major market share.

Look at at IBM’s annual report, and you’ll see strong growth in a company whose software, hardware, consulting, and financial services span a range that no competitor can match. Organizations around the world maintain business relationships with IBM and look to IBM as their preferred partner. Along with DB2’s technical excellence, this ensures DB2’s position as a leading database management system.

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.

Software Test (36%)

1. Demonstrate an understanding of the discipline of testing
2. Demonstrate in one’s daily work and plans why testing is necessary
3. Apply a knowledge and understanding of the purpose of testing
4. Evaluate security requirements and differentiate different types of attacks
5. Understand the benefits, costs, and limitations of GUI test automation
6. Write test plans
7. Implement and execute test scripts
8. Determine entry and exit criteria for testing
9. Establish standards for test data
10. Perform risk analysis
11. Plan for contingency testing
12. Plan resources for test implementation
13. Define the test environment
14. Use systematic methods to determine the resources, time needed, and defect capacity of a test team
15. Identify and differentiate the types of metrics useful in the test effort
16. Identify software test tools

Software Development (28%)

1. Apply techniques for improving the efficiency of software development
2. Apply an iterative development process
3. Use a Design Review Checklist for creating, inspecting, and using designs
4. Demonstrate familiarity with the external and internal views of the Design Review Checklist
5. Apply techniques to trigger all exception cases
6. Know the purpose of inspections and how they help improve quality
7. Perform inspections on code and documentation in order to shorten the software development schedule
8. Inspect test specifications, test cases and test plans
9. Perform static analysis
10. Track and report the results of static analysis for inspections as well as to benefit future code design and implementation
11. Identify the importance and purpose of estimation

Software Quality (36%%)

1. Understand quality management systems and standards
2. Measure quality in the product maintenance phase
3. Measure the customer view of product quality, including using surveys
4. Track the ways in which a team’s process and practices reduce defects
5. Track Defect Removal Efficiency (DRE)
6. Use the Whole Plan Model to ensure software quality
7. Determine the projected impact of early defect removal practices on a product’s resources and schedule
8. Demonstrate an understanding of, and an ability to use, the Whole Plan Model tool
9. Measure quality processes as an overall project indicator
10. Use the metric effort indicator to track efficiency
11. Employ use cases to improve the quality of requirements
12. Define standards a team may use to qualify security requirements
13. Assess security aspects of the product design
14. Measure the effectiveness of a team’s inspection process