Developers vie for Oracle Cloud Infrastructure certs

Oracle hopes a new developer certification program can drive more interest in its cloud platform, which is well behind the likes of AWS, Microsoft and Google in terms of market share.

To this end, Oracle has introduced a new Developer Associate certification for Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, to help developers familiarize themselves with the platform and ultimately build modern enterprise applications there. Oracle now offers five distinct certifications for architects, operators and developers on OCI.

"We absolutely expect this certification will help to grow the number of developers in the Oracle cloud ecosystem," said Bob Quillin, vice president of Oracle cloud developer relations. "This is a real, professional set of skills and we have a broad set of tools on the toolbox to get and keep developers up to speed."

Oracle has struggled to attract enterprise customers to OCI, the second-generation version of its cloud platform. The company is hoping the certifications will help in that regard by teaching developers how to use the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure service APIs, command-line interface and SDKs to write applications.

Bob Quillin

"Certifications matter when it comes to building software," said Holger Mueller, principal analyst at Constellation Research in Cupertino, Calif. "It matters for enterprises to know what they can expect from developers with a certain certification level. And developers want to document their skills level with a certification."

Passing the certification means that developers have learned OCI architecture, as well as use cases and best practices, Quillin said.

Traditional leading app platforms providers such as Oracle have a massive installed base of customers and developers invested in their solutions who will continue to adopt new cloud-based solutions.

Developers are less motivated to climb onboard a new brand, which is very costly, so vendors are tailoring new programs and certificates to attract non-Oracle expertise developers and broaden its developer following.

However, "Beyond that pool, developers are less motivated to climb onboard a new brand, which is very costly, so vendors are tailoring new programs and certificates to attract non-Oracle expertise developers and broaden its developer following," said Charlotte Dunlap, principal analyst at GlobalData in Santa Cruz, Calif.

Quillin said the move to add the new certification was based on developer demand.

"We have thousands of Oracle Cloud Infrastructure certified individuals and are seeing a strong customer demand for Oracle Cloud technical skills," he said.

This reflects strong momentum among developers who want to build new applications, as well as build extensions to existing applications and data.

"The creation of a certification is a usually a sign of maturity for a platform or product," Mueller said. "This is the case for Oracle's cloud developer certification, which just launched. As with all certifications, popularity will determine relevance and we will see in a few quarters what the uptake will be."

Oracle University is offering the new Developer Associate certification at $150. Oracle University is also reducing the price of all Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Associate level certifications -- including architect and operations -- to $150 and offering the Foundations certification at $95.

In addition, Oracle University has made all its Oracle Cloud Infrastructure learning content available at no charge. Oracle previously charged $2,995 per user subscription.  

The certification exam is 105 minutes long and contains 60 questions. It is currently available only in English.

Moreover, the developer certification is aimed at developers who have 12 or more months of experience in developing and maintaining applications. They should also have an understanding of cloud-native fundamentals and knowledge of at least one programming language.