IBM Enterprise Connectivity with J2EE Certification Primer

This article will be focusing on the IBM 484 exam only. You can get all the details about IBM Enterprise Developer Certification track in the Certification Section of IBM site

Is this Exam for you?

This exam is suitable for you if you belong to any of these categories:

1. An enterprise developer, developing and configuring the existing applications or a part of the team designing new applications.
2. You are an aspiring programmer trying to upgrade yourself to the latest cutting edge technologies

You need to possess a solid understanding of the important elements of the J2EE architecture, and how to develop complex multi-tier business applications using sound coding techniques and best design strategies.
The knowledge domain covered by this exam is very vast. You should possess thorough knowledge of the EJB, JSP and Servlets technologies. You also need to have basic knowledge of the J2EE Connectivity technologies including JMS, JDBC, JCA, JAXP and JAAS. Apart from the technical details, the candidate is expected to be well versed in the best practices, design patterns and pitfalls of designing and developing a J2EE application.

What is the test like?

The test consists of 56 Multiple Choice Questions to be completed in 90 minutes. The required passing score is 63%.

The main test objectives are summarized as:

• Section 1 - Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE) Architecture (18%)
• Section 2 - Web Component Development (19.5%)
• Section 3 - Enterprise JavaBean (EJB) Development (27%)
• Section 4 - Client Development (9%)
• Section 5 - Connectivity Services (19.5%)
• Section 6 - Assembly and Deployment (7%)

For a detailed listing

Readying yourself

As part of your work, you might have worked with a few of the J2EE technologies. However, very few people will be experts in all the technologies, which are tested by this exam. So you will need to put in some extra effort for this exam, as compared to exams that focus on a single technology.

• The first objective expects you to have experience in designing and implementing complex distributed applications. You should know when to apply appropriate best practices and design patterns. Given a problem definition, you must be able to choose the suitable pattern and technologies that can attain the desired results. The best way to prepare for this section is by reading the following books. Designing Enterprise Applications with the J2EE Platform (see Resources) Core J2EE Patterns: Best Practices and Design Strategies (see Resources)
• The second objective deals with Web Component Development - here you need to know everything about components present in the Web Tier e.g. Servlet and JSP. If you have cleared the Sun Certified Web Component Developer exam, then this section would not be difficult for you. Make sure you know the purpose of the Model-View-Controller architecture and how it works. Pay particular attention to the various event listener types, filters and session handling techniques.
  The following books are recommended for preparation.
  More Servlets and JavaServer Pages by Marty Hall (see Resources)
  Java Servlet Programming (2nd Edition) By Jason hunter (see Resources)
• The third objective is the most important in the sense that, in the exam, the percentage of questions from this objective is the highest (27%). If you have cleared the Sun Certified Business Component Developer exam, then tackling these questions would be a cakewalk for you. The questions are less complex and focused on the basic concepts. Be clear about how exception handling and transactional behavior is implemented in Enterprise Java Beans.
  For beginners, the best book would be 'Head First EJB' by Kathy Sierra and Bert Bates.
  For more advanced concepts, check out 'Enterprise Java Beans Third Edition' by Richard Monson Haefel and 'Mastering Enterprise Java Beans Second Edition' by Ed Roman.
• For the fourth objective, you have to be experienced in implementing the client tier of enterprise applications. You should be aware of the concepts and syntax in order to use JNDI for looking up enterprise beans, environment entries, resource factories and administered objects.
  You can get relevant information from the third chapter of "Designing Enterprise Applications with the J2EE Platform". Refer to the 6th and 9th chapters of the EJB 2.0 Specifications to learn about the client view of enterprise beans.
• The fifth objective takes the most preparation time in the sense that it covers a set of J2EE Connectivity technologies. There will not be more than 2-3 questions about each technology, and the questions are quite straightforward and mostly focus on the basic concepts. You can find lots of useful links on the net for JAAS, JAXP and JMS. However, there are very few resources available for JCA and the JDBC 2.0 standard extension features. Check out the resources section below for the best preparation material available on the net for each of the topics.
• The sixth objective concerns all the packaging and deploying aspects of J2EE applications. You need to know where to place the various components used by the modules of an EAR file, how to provide the configuration information of the application in the deployment descriptor and so on. You can refer to the seventh chapter of the book "Designing Enterprise Applications with the J2EE Platform" for a detailed discussion of this topic.

Unlike other certification exams, there are very few study notes and mock exams available for the Enterprise Connectivity exam. IBM provides a sample Test for 484 that is available from http://ibmtesting.prime.prometric.com. The sample exam used to be free for all, till recently.
Whizlabs Software will be releasing the Exam Simulator Software for the exam, you can download the free trial version here. Here you can find some sample questions from the simulator.