1Z0-1113 - The Oracle certification no one cares about?

I recently discovered the 1Z0-1113 certification, which is named Helidon Microservices Developer, and is supposed to test your knowledge in "the Helidon programming language, coding practices, and utilization of MicroProfile features".

Awesome!

This certification is provided by Oracle, and it's a Java exam, so I'd expect there to be exam preparation books, test exams on for instance Enthuware, Udemy courses, forum posts et cetera about the exam.

Boy, was I wrong. After searching through both Google, the Oracle forum and also certifaction forums, asking on both the Oracle ACE Slack on Twitter, I still had nearly no information about what the content on the exam is, how hard it is, what kind of questions there are and so on.

If you try googling the exam code, you'll get a lot of brain dump results - but not much else.

So, let me summarize the resources I've found about this exam:

• The official Oracle page about the exam, including a list of syllabus topics.
• This generic LinkedIn post about study strategies - at first sight, it seemed useful, but after a more detailed read, it turns out to be just purely generic stuff enriched with the exact text from the official certification page.
• This Udemy practice test collection, that I've already signed up to
• This Udemy practice test collection and this one, that I just discovered, and plan to sign up for and practice through
• The official Helidon documentation
• The course from Oracle named Developing Microservices using Helidon for the Enterprise and the Cloud seems spot on.

However, this Oracle course will set you back $5000. You can't buy access to a single course from Oracle without signing up for not just the Java Learning Path, but the entire Technology Subscription. I'm certain that there are loads of useful and great information available through this subscription, but even the idea of buying access to an expensive all-you-can-consume learning portal just to do this one single course is not very tempting. The table of contents might be useful, though it's hard to say whether the topics listed are tailored for the exam or just general things to know about when developing Helidon applications.

So I signed up for the Udemy practice test, which gave me access to a total of 296 questions, divided into practice exams consisting of 50 questions each. On the real exam, you'll have 60 questions - and 90 minutes. The Udemy questions are multiple choice, as the real exam has, so in format, they're quite on brand.

In content, style and so on, though? I have no idea, but it's the best I've got so far. I've also read through the syllabus for the exam, which I for simplicity included below, and I'm familiar with most of the topics. However, those certification exams might try to trick you, or ask about obscure code you'll never come close to in real life. Is this exam like that? I have no clue.

My strategy for now is to do these mock exams, read the official docs and also play around a bit with Helidon on a small side project. After that, I don't know what more to do, so I might as well give the exam a shot. If I do, I'll definitely write a follow-up post here on the blog.

The exam topics, as listed on the official web page, are:

1. Microservices Architecture

   • Explain the Microservices architecture
   • Describe the communication protocols for microservices

2. Introduction to Helidon SE and Helidon MP

   • Identify the various Helidon flavors
   • Decribe Helidon SE features
   • Describe Helidon MP features

3. Helidon Application Building and Packaging

   • Explain the key concepts for building and packaging
   • Identify the characteristics of Helidon applications
   • Describe the containerization of Helidon applications

4. Helidon SE

   • Introduce Helidon SE basic API
   • Explain reactive programming in Helidon

5. Helidon MP

   • Define MicroProfile
   • Explain the role of MicroProfile in Helidon

6. Helidon Configuration

   • Explain the MicroProfile Config API
   • Explain MicroProfile Config concepts
   • Deploy Config with Kubernetes

7. Observability in Helidon

   • Explain observability concepts
   • Explain the observability APIs

8. Security for Helidon

   • Describe the key security features
   • Explain authentication and authorization concepts
   • Describe the key Helidon security features

9. Data Access in Helidon MP

   • Understand data access in Helidon
   • Describe the data access API in Helidon MP

10. Service to Service Communication with Helidon

    • Identify the client types in Helidon
    • Use fault tolerance with service to service communication

11. Testing Helidon Applications

    • Explain the general testing strategies
    • Describe Helidon specific testing