Developer Certifications

Why should you become a DataStax Certified professional?

The demand for Apache Cassandra® and NoSQL skills is skyrocketing, with Cassandra developers commanding 31% higher salaries, the highest of any database technology.

An Apache Cassandra® Administrator Associate Certification, Apache Cassandra® Developer Associate Certification, or Apache Cassandra® K8ssandra Associate Certification is the best way to get started learning and mastering the popular NoSQL database used by teams at Apple, Netflix, Sony, Uber, and thousands more.

An official certification helps you gain confidence in your knowledge of Apache Cassandra® and increases opportunities for career advancement.

Which certification should I pursue?

The Developer Certification is designed for professionals that use Apache Cassandra clusters to manage data. This includes roles such as application developers, data architects, database designers, and database administrators.

The Administrator Certification is designed for professionals who install, configure, manage and tune the performance of Apache Cassandra clusters, such as database administrators, DevOps engineers and Site Reliability Engineers (SREs).

The K8ssandra Certification is designed to up-level your DBA know-how to SRE skills. The topics covered in this exam include Docker, basic Kubernetes constructs, Sidecar, secrets, port-forwarding, helm, ingress, storage, Reaper repair, Medusa backup, K8ssandra, the cass-operator, Prometheus metrics collection, and Grafana metrics display.

Which DataStax Academy Courses Should You Take to Prepare?

Learning Paths

Follow a Learning Path to gain an expert understanding of Apache Cassandra® and DataStax Enterprise principles related to your role.

Each Learning Path is composed of a sequence of recommended courses for your role, curated by our Curriculum Engineers. Courses assume a basic familiarity with programming concepts, the Unix/Linux command line, and networking and storage principles.

Administrator Certification

DS201DS210

Developer Certification

DS201DS220

Apache Cassandra Operations In Kubernetes Learning Series

In preparation for taking the certification exam, we have created a set of lessons in this Learning Series which contains all the information required to pass the exam. Each lesson comes complete with Kubernetes and Docker fundamentals workshop videos, DataStax product documentation, and hands-on exercises to reinforce course content. These courses assume you have a basic knowledge of CQL, Data Modeling, and Query optimization.

K8ssandra Certification

Start LearningTake Exam

What Topics Are Covered on the Exams?

Core Topics

Cassandra Architecture

Ring, nodes, replication and consistency, and how Cassandra achieves scalability, availability, performance, fast response time, and low latency

Storing & Retrieving Data

Cassandra Query Language (CQL) operations including, INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE, and SELECT, and tools for bulk loading and unloading

Developer Exam Topics

Data Modeling

Conceptual, logical and physical data models, plus schema definition including keyspaces, tables, columns, partitions, clustering columns, user defined types, collections, secondary indexes, and materialized views

Administrator Exam Topics

Cassandra Installation And Configuration

Installing Cassandra tarball, YAML configuration file options including vnodes, seeds, gossip, snitches, JVM Tuning, and security (authentication, authorization, and encryption),

Adding & removing nodes, replacing nodes, multi-datacenter concepts, multicloud and hybrid cloud deployments, understanding Cassandra’s write and read paths and associated metrics, running maintenance actions including compaction, repair, rebuild, backup and restore

How Can You Make Sure You’re Prepared For Your Exam?

Since our exams emphasize problem solving over memorization, the best preparation for the exams is on-the-job experience using Cassandra, as well as the learning paths described above. We also recommend the following resources.

Attend Our Preparation Workshops

Attend Our Preparation Workshops

View Workshops
Sign Up For A Free Astra DB Account

Sign Up For A Free Astra DB Account

Try For Free
Take A Practice Exam

Take A Practice Exam

Register
Make Use Of GitHub Resources

Make Use Of GitHub Resources

Check them out
Certification

What Do You Need To Know About Our Certification Exams?

  • We offer a secure online testing environment
  • No scheduling is required.
  • Live proctors are on stand-by 24X7
  • A passing score is 70%
  • You can take the exam at any time.
  • The list price for each exam is $145.00.
  • Free vouchers are available to those who have completed one of the learning paths above. Contact us at academy@datastax.com to request a voucher.
  • Refer to the voucher invitation email for the coupon expiration date.
  • Technical support is available during the exam.

Exam Rules and Process

Proctoring And Exam Execution

  • This is a closed-book exam - no-reference material; either paper or electronic is allowed.
  • A live proctor will watch you, virtually, throughout the exam.
  • The exam area should be clear of any paper, device or other material.
  • No programs or browser windows can be open during the exam.
  • No screenshots, photography, or any other means of copying or recording any part of the exam are allowed.
  • Have a small mirror (like a hand-held or makeup mirror) available so the proctor can inspect your laptop's physical screen.
  • The computer must have only one screen no additional monitors.
  • The proctor will report any incidents; make sure you follow the guidelines.
  • Confirm your identity - prepare to display a currently valid government-issued photo ID (passport or driver's license) where the expiration date is viewable.

Exam Start & End

  • In case of an emergency, you can request postponement of the exam.
  • The exam is 90 minutes in duration. The exam starts when the proctor comes online.
  • A timer will be displayed, and the exam will end when the time is over.
  • If you experience a power outage or disruption, you have 20 minutes to access the exam.
  • No report or feedback or correct and incorrect answer details will be provided.

Good Luck!