Passed Part 1 with 91%

Hey folks,
Just another self-congratulatory/ informational e-mail.
I passed Part 1 with 91% (44 out of 48)
Concepts 100%
Common Architectures 66%
Legacy Connectivity100%
EJB100%
EJB Container Model75%
Protocols100%
Applicability of J2EE100%
Design Patterns100%
Messaging100%
Internationalization50%
Security100%
Notes on Questions
General
-------
As other people have indicated there are a LOT of scenario-based questions e.g. ask you to pick architectures etc. that fit that scenario.
Some questions were a little vague so take
your time.
Some questions have LONG descriptions 6-10 lines and are worth drawing pictures to help
think about them.
Concepts
- What kinds of "ilitys" should an architect be concerned with (Scalability, availability etc.)
- Needed to be able to recognize a Sequence diagram
- Need to be able to recognize a UML Realization relationship(implements interface!)
- Recognize what development techniques help code re-use (e.g. factoring etc.)
Common Architectures
- There were a LOT of migration architecture questions which played into Legacy Connectivity or Applicability of J2EE and applets
- Understand what clustering is and how it helps an architecture (scalability)
- Understand what DNS round robin can do for scalability/load balancing
Legacy Connectivity
- At least two on MQSeries
- Quite a few on IIOP esp. port-related
- Quite a few on applets and IIOP
- recognizing when screen scraping is appropriate
EJB
- Needed to know Stateless session beans cannot be passivated/activated
- Needed to know what the Application Assembler does (I didn't!)
- Benefits of pooling of Entity beans (Scalability)
- Relationship of code in ejbActivate() and ejbPassivate()
- Bean lifecycle

EJB Container Model
- Need to know what Container model handles for you (transactions,
CMP)
- Need to know how to speed up performance of certain architectures
e.g. use BMP vs. DAO etc.
- Does "Required" mean that a new transaction is created if the bean is invoked outside of a transaction?
- CMP vs BMP - Benefits and Costs
- How can a transaction be coordinated with legacy systems or Java systems outside the container/server

Protocols
- Need to know about ports for HTTP/HTTPS to answer architecture questions
- Know that you can tunnel IIOP over HTTP/HTTPS
- Know that HTTPS is stateful
Applicability of J2EE
- Given a description of an application tell when J2EE might be required and not
Design Patterns
- Need to know recognize a description of Proxy, Observer
- JDBC ResultSet uses Iterator
- Costs of Design patterns (performance etc.)
Messaging
- Basics of JMS (Publish/Subscribe vs. MQ)
- Know that MQSeries is compatible with JMS
Internationalization
- What class supports conversion of 8-bit characters to Unicode
- What aspects of a system are typically internationalized at startup time
Security
- Certificates - how they can be used in conjunction with jarsigner and a user's keystore
- Know that unsigned applets CANNOT read arbitrary files but can open network connections (ONLY back to the server for the
applet)
- Know what aspects of a firewall can impact IIOP (i.e. what filters)
RESOURCES USED
i) Enterprise Java Beans 2nd Edition (EJB 1.1) by Monson-Haefel
Chapters 1-8.
ii) Design Patterns by Gang of Four
iii) I took a course on Design Patterns based on the book - available at Harvard Extension School
iv) UML Distilled (Martin Fowler & Kendall Scott)
v) Tim Ho's Notes
vi) Read quite a few of the papers on links for SCEA_PREP
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/scea_prep/
Thanks to all at Javaranch
and on SCEA_PREP group at Yahoo!
FYI I'm actually going to wait on Part 2 / 3 for a while until I get more design experience. I think I'll take IBM's XML Certification to be a little more balanced. I hate to say it
but it might be time to hedge a little
with .Net :-(
Best,
-Frank Kelly
SCJP2, SCEA Pt. 1

Congrats Kelly....
Good info for us in your post.

Congratulations and thanks for sharing your examn experience.

Really good post, thanks. I've been studying on and off since Jan but work/hobbies keep getting in the way. Tough to get motivated. I guess piece by piece.

Congrats,
Great score! Welcome to Part-2