The AWS Certified Database – Specialty (DBS-C01) y exam has been on my bucket list for a few months. I tried it for the first time on Aug 09, 2022, and I failed. Although I considered that I was not that bad at all, I scored 681, where the minimum passing score is 750:
The approach that I took for my first attempt was to buy some courses about the certification at Udemy, which I will no longer share the courses here not to do free merchandising 🙂 , and rely on my previous experiences by migrating and creating databases at the AWS console using several technologies, such as the AWS DMS (Data Migration Service). My background with such technology did not start today, but it takes back to 2019 when I released many posts about these tools:
- CDC ORACLE IS NOT CDC AMAZON
- IF YOU EVER NEED CLARIFICATION ABOUT THE FUNCTIONALITY OF THE CONTENT DELIVERY NETWORK (CDN) SERVICE AMAZON CLOUDFRONT
- MOVE AN ORACLE DATABASE FROM ON-PREM TO AWS : EC2 OR RDS?
- ORACLE AND AWS RDS FOR ORACLE TIP: ORA-20900: RDS ONLY SUPPORTS ORACLE MANAGED FILES. CHECK DDL AND REMOVE ANY
- ORACLE AND AWS RDS FOR ORACLE TIP: HOW TO CONFIGURE YOUR PUBLIC DATABASE LINK IN AWS RDS ORACLE. WHAT HAPPENED WITH MY TNSNAMES.ORA?
- ORACLE AND AWS RDS FOR ORACLE TIP: ARCHIVE LOG RETENTION AND SWITCH LOG FILE IN AWS RDS ORACLE
- ORACLE AND AWS RDS FOR ORACLE TIP: WHERE IS MY ALERT LOG AT AWS RDS?
- ORACLE AND AWS RDS FOR ORACLE TIP 1: HOW TO CONFIGURE YOUR ORACLE ON-PREM TO BE MIGRATED TO AWS RDS ORACLE? A GUIDE TO USE AMAZON DATA MIGRATION SERVICE (DMS)
- ORACLE AND AWS RDS FOR ORACLE TIP 2: HOW TO CONFIGURE YOUR ORACLE AWS RDS TO RECEIVE DATA FROM AN ORACLE ON-PREM? A GUIDE TO USE AMAZON DATA MIGRATION SERVICE (DMS).
- ORACLE AND AWS RDS FOR ORACLE TIP 3: HOW TO CREATE A TASK AT DMS AND START YOUR MIGRATION
- ORACLE AND AWS RDS FOR ORACLE TIP 4: DMS LIMITATION AND MY EXPERIENCE (PROS X CONS) TO MIGRATE YOUR ORACLE DATABASE ON-PREM TO AWS RDS
I enjoyed the videos and sometimes the hands-on, but it was not enough for me to pass, as shown above, even with all the experiences I acquired in my previous projects. Therefore, after a few months of studying the AWS database documentation (link here: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/?nc2=h_ql_doc_do and image below) and have gone through many migration and tests scenarios, I decided to retake the exam.
Then, after rescheduling the exam more than one time because I had crazy weeks at my job that impacted my exam studies and feeling the pressure of writing the thesis of my master’s in Software Engineering, I suddenly got tired of rescheduling it (yes, I think it was about 4-5 times because I had to cancel the exam and book again due to the policy of allowing only three times the rescheduling), and decided to change my exam from Wednesday, March 29 to Saturday, March 25 at 00:15 am ( a few hours ahead on a Friday night where I decided to do it). I had studied a lot, and even though massive activities were going on at my job over the last week, I just decided to take it.
The outcome was not great as I expected, but I passed. It is what matters, after all. The funny part was that I just had run the 10k Adidas Premier Mile – 2023 race. When I was about to onboard the subway in downtown Stockholm and check my e-mails, I just saw the e-mail below with the result passed, and I started celebrating around people who did not understand what was happening?! Haha :D.
What a day! 10k finished with my second-best personal record and was approved at the AWS Certified Database – Specialty! Time to celebrate!
I wish you happy studies!
Hi! I am Bruno, a Brazilian born and bred. Former Oracle ACE, Computer Scientist, MSc in Data Science, over ten years of experience in companies such as IBM, Epico Tech, and Playtech based in three different countries (Brazil, Hungary, and Sweden) and joined projects remotely in many others. I am super excited to show you my interest in Databases, Cloud, Data Science, Data Engineering, Bigdata, AI, Programming, Software Engineering, and data in general.
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