CCD-410 getting replaced by CCP-Data Engineer

[#1]

Hi Cloudera Team,

I am planning to give Hadoop CCD-410 certification.I am basically working on Mainframes, planning to switch to Big Data side of things.

Now when i see that current CCD-410 is getting replaced by CCP-Data Engineer i have below points.

1) CCP-DE is more hands on course covering entire gamut of Apache Ecosystem where as CCD-410 acts more like that somebody knows basic

   of Hadoop and has basic qualification to start working on Hadoop projects.

2) While both the certification have different objectives,completely scratching off CCD-410 does not make sense.People like me can cross train 

    themselves, get this certification and try their luck in Big data world,whereas CCP-Data Engineer being more hands on under rigorous time

    time constraint fits for people who have tried their hand in Big Data projects for 3-5 years.

3) As said earlier,people like me will more likely to go for CCD-410 and then switch to Big Data rather than risk directly taking CCP-DE,and in country

    like India these kind people will be atleast tens of thousand.

4) In case,CCD-410 is scrapped,above set of people will be switching to entry level certifications from Hortonworks or MapR etc,which does not

   make business sense to cloudera.

In light of above points - i would suggest that ( i can just suggest !!) please keep the 'theorotical' exam like CCD-410 intact (i know it involves

some practical knowledge as well) for entry level proffessionals trying to switch to Big Data side.Maybe you can come out with another version

which covers more Hadoop echo systems in somewhat more details but emphasis should be more on knowing of basics.

Also Exams like CCP-DE would fit the bill of experienced Pro havings hands on Hadoop.

P.S - I would request to take this mail right up to decision making team at the top as this concerns many many proffessionals like me.

Thanks,

Syed Rizvi

[#2]

Hi Syed,

Thank you for your input and suggestions. It's an interesting feature of the tech industry, this desire to be certified before being able to do anything meaningful; to be certified before one has any skills or can contribute to the job they're being hired to demonstrate those skills.

We hear the opposite complaint more frequently:

- that people who get "minimally-qualified candidate" certifications don't have the skills to do the work

- that our customer hire certified people who have "theoretical knowledge" from reading a book (or using a test dump) and  who fail them and cause project failures

- That employers want proof of skills

In Big Data, we have a skills gap, not a desire-to-have-skills gap. We're working with our customers, partners, and community to close the skills gap in meaningful ways that help those communities be successful. 

[#3]

Hi Brad,

Thanks for the reply..While i do understand the fact that cloudera wants to be associated with something very relevant to companies/communities 

it works with,i still cannot fathom the fact to completely scrap the exam altogether.

Instead of completely scrapping the exam - the existing certification could have been evolved to be more stringent in terms of level of 

questions/practical scenarios covered/demanding better understanding of the echo systems.

What i see here is - the number of cloudera certified folks will go down drastically (currently people with 3-5 years of experience also do not

have the range of echo systems covered practically as expected in CCP-DE).Hence CCP-DE will remain the option for select elite,with entry 

level folks will be forced to look for other alternatives.

Thanks,

Syed Rizvi

[#4]

your comment:

"Instead of completely scrapping the exam - the existing certification could have been evolved to be more stringent in terms of level of 

questions/practical scenarios covered/demanding" is an exact definition of the CCP exam.

We're changing the name rather than evolving because evolving is illegal -- a credential must defensibly equal across time. 

Who said it would take 3-5 years experience? The first people who beta tested scored perfect or near-perfect scores and they don't have 3-5 years experience.(and time is a very poor marker of experience -- what takes one person three days to master takes others a lifetime.)

Perhaps you should take the exam before you judge it.

[#5]

Hi Brad,

SO does one need to prepare directly for the CCP-DE exam and not to enroll for CCD-410...

actually i was planning to enroll for CCD-410 exam.. but if it is no longer available in future then  the certificate may also not carry more value

bcause the exam itself will be no more available..

Thanks,

Sangeeta

[#6]

correct on all questions. CCD-410 is not a prerequisite. CCD-410 focuses on MapReduce which will be somewhat worthless a year from now. CCP is where the value is.

As we’ve said in numerous forums:

Cloudera is announcing several changes to its professional certification program. We have several goals in making these changes:
- To support a growing catalog of products and offerings in the CDH ecosystem with relevant certification programs that can evolve and adapt to changes in the open-source Big Data ecosystem
- To provide more value to certified individuals and to the organizations that rely on certifications by moving to performance-based (hands-on) exams.
- To encourage ongoing professional growth and development in our customer community.

The following changes will go into effect immediately.
- Cloudera recommends that all candidates take CCP: Data Engineer which is already available.
- Candidates who have purchased a CCD-410 exam may transfer their registration to CCP: Data Engineer Exam (DE575) with no additional cost.
- Candidates may apply the purchase price of a CCD-410 practice exam towards the CCP: Data Engineer Exam (DE575) between July 1, 2015 and December 31, 2015.

[#7]

I am preparing for CCP - Data Engineer. Is there any practice exam available or about to be launched that we can practice before the exam. It seems that Hortonworks has (HDP Certification Practice Exam) with practice exams on ec2 instances at around 30 cents/hour. Is Cloudera planning to launch something similar for CCP - Data Engineer certification. If it is already there then could you please share the information. 

[#8]

We’re looking into our options. Unlike Hortonworks, we’re using large data sets and multi-node clusters and problems designed to test you in that environment. As such, it’s quite a bit more expensive. Even if we could get the storage, memory, and node footprint down to $10/hr, that’s still prohibitive. And while we could build something smaller, there are some pieces we just couldn’t count as valid (real-time ingest for example, but others that relate to performance and size) so we’re looking at options.

We do have training courses with practice exercises of course. We’re considering holding regularly-scheduled webinars (or a kind of MOOC) to walk through exam problems -- maybe give out the problems first and let people try and then convene and discuss/demonstrate approaches and solutions and why -- use the quickstart VMs and post at least smaller sample data and code so people start to understand how it all works and why it’s important and why we feel strongly about our approach.

We’re also watching the beta to see where people get stuck and what skills are prevalent and which ones are just non-existent. Since we monitor and have the logs and can see every command you execute, etc. and save all that and run analysis, it’s valuable for us to see where people succeed and fail and build learning events that address the gaps.

[#9]

Hi Cloudera Team,

I am planning to give Hadoop CCD-410 certification, i see that current CCD-410 is going to replaced by CCP-Data Engineer,so will CCD-410  be scrapped completely or it will remail as associate certification for entry level proffessionals.

[#10]

HI Cloudera team,
i'm also prepared almost 2 months in the certification point of view and planning to give ccdh410 in next month and after listening that it is no more (may be from next year), i'm surprised and stopped preparing for the test , but for preparation for CCP:DE lot time it will take and effort and more hands on.........................Can you please arrange some pratice test kind of thing for preparing for CCP:DE...................So it will be useful for many people and they will prepare in that pattern mentioned in Practice test....think once...atleast i'm planning to attend the test in next year only