Passed!

Finally, I got my results:
Score: 146
Max 155
Min 124
General Considerations(maximum = 58): 56
Documentation(maximum = 20): 20
GUI(maximum = 24): 21
Server(maximum = 53): 49

I used RMI, subclassed Data and used singleton on the server to avoid locking problems. Then no thread handling was necessary on server either. My GUI was simple, with text fields for searching origin and destination. No other search was possible. I implemented a run time connect/disconnect feature in GUI to provide possibility to connect to either local or remote database.

Congrats..............

Congrats ........
Could you give us some more details about your preparation, design choices etc.
Regards
Einstien

Congratulations on passing the exam.
Can you please tell, when did you uploaded the assignment and appeared for the essay exam.
Also after submitting your assignment, did you saw any change in the Test History section. Because in my case it shows an Assignment button. But I think it should not, because I have already submitted my assignment around 23rd of january and had taken the essay exam on the 1st of february.
Garry

Originally posted by einstien albert:
Congrats ........
Could you give us some more details about your preparation, design choices etc.
Regards
Einstien

I actually used quite a long time on the assignment, because I wanted to make sure that I passed, and also because I did not have all that much experience with Java. I find that usually, the best way to learn a new programming language is to actually write a program. And so I did. (Minesweeper, not very original, but it worked...
After finishing my test project I felt more confident in starting on the assignment, although it was not as difficult as I expected, so I could probably have started right away. I spent about one month working with the assignment.
As for design choices, I found most of them quite easy to make. My general goal was simplicity and flexibility. RMI was a simple choice because of the ability to use an existing framework and because it is an industry standard. Subclassing vs. modifying the Data class was also an easy choice, because by subclassing Data I could separate high-level and low-level code. The methods in my sub-class did not use any direct file access, but relied only on the getRecord method of the Data class.
The server I made very simple. By implementing a singleton server, only one instance is started. Then the locking is also very easy to do, and you need no thread handling on the server. The server does not handle abandoned locks, but this I specified in the design document to be the responsibility of the developer, not the system. The locking I implemented as a Vector storing Integers corresponding to the record ID's. I declared the Vector in the data class.
As for the GUI, I was thinking flexibility. I the GUI completely separate from the application logics by having one control class and one gui class. The two classes communicates with each other by methods and events in the observer pattern fashion. The control class calls methods in the gui class, and receives events according to the users choices. By doing it this way, it is possible to replace the whole GUI by writing one separate class, as long as the new class implements a particular interface containing the methods required to be supported by the GUI.
I used Sun Forte as IDE.
The whole process of getting certified went just fine, with one exception. When I compiled the final jar file for the upload, I used Forte to do this. Apparently, Forte included a local file reference in the manifest file, which resulted in an "Corrupt file" response from the galton database. For long I did not know what to do, before a friend of mine suggested to recompile with the Java SDK jar tool. Then I discovered by chance that the manifest contained an error. I uploaded again and received the certification within one week.
Thor

Originally posted by Garry Kalra:
Congratulations on passing the exam.
Can you please tell, when did you uploaded the assignment and appeared for the essay exam.
Also after submitting your assignment, did you saw any change in the Test History section. Because in my case it shows an Assignment button. But I think it should not, because I have already submitted my assignment around 23rd of january and had taken the essay exam on the 1st of february.
Garry

This seems strange... I just pressed the "Test History" button to see the result.
I had some trouble uploading because of an incorrect jar file, but after I resolved the problem I received the result within one week.
Thor
Thor

Congrats
Mark

Thanks for the Info. I guess somebody's got to be the unlucky one and just think it is my turn this time.
Garry