MCDBA - Yay or Nay?

[richyj]

Does anyone have any experience of the Microsoft Certified Database Admin cert?
I've been developing SQL server 7 databases as part of my job for the last year now, with VB .NET frontends, and a small amount of Access (Eww ) stuff too, and was thinking that as this seems to be my niche in the department, it might be a good plan to get some formal qualification.

Has anyone done this course already, and would you recommend it/suggest alternatives?

Cheers in advance

[sybaseian]

richyj said:

Does anyone have any experience of the Microsoft Certified Database Admin cert? I've been developing SQL server 7 databases as part of my job for the last year now, with VB .NET frontends, and a small amount of Access (Eww ) stuff too, and was thinking that as this seems to be my niche in the department, it might be a good plan to get some formal qualification. Has anyone done this course already, and would you recommend it/suggest alternatives? Cheers in advance

You might get certified, but you won't get the necessary experience.

I'm a Sybase, MS SQL and Oracle DBA with over 12 years experience. I used to be certified, but it was too time consuming to get re-certified for every new version. Experience does count far more than certification - the only time it may cause a small problem is when the line manager is non-technical and couldn't find their way out of a paper bag without help.

PS - I only hire DBA's with a minimum of 5 years solid DBA experience.

[richyj]

Thanks for the input, I'd pretty much guessed that experience would count for far more. I plan to gain experience as I have done so far, and wouldn't mind something to show for it however
Having looked at the modules necessary for the MCDBA it looks like I'll be learning some stuff I don't already know, so may be worth it from that point of view alone. (This is where I find I'm answering my own question )