IICTI Certified Database Developer

Holders demonstrate that they can apply and evaluate query optimizer internals and execution plan analysis, advanced indexing and physical data design, concurrency control, isolation and locking and advanced SQL and set-based programming, plus 7 further areas, in realistic professional scenarios, as defined in the AQSCERT scheme for Database Developer.

Who it is for: Professionals working, or preparing to work, in data roles.

1. 01Query optimizer internals and execution plan analysis8% of the exam

   • Diagnose slow queries by analysing execution plans and optimizer estimates, and correct them through query, statistics or plan changes.
   • Scope: Cost-based optimisation, cardinality estimation and statistics, join algorithms, plan caching and parameter sensitivity, EXPLAIN ANALYZE, Query Store, pg_stat_statements and plan regression handling.
2. 02Advanced indexing and physical data design8% of the exam

   • Design an indexing and physical storage strategy that balances read performance, write amplification and storage cost.
   • Scope: B-tree, hash, GIN, GiST, BRIN and columnstore indexes, covering and partial indexes, index-only scans, fill factor, page layout, TOAST and compression trade-offs.
3. 03Concurrency control, isolation and locking12% of the exam

   • Analyse concurrency anomalies and deadlocks, and design transaction logic that guarantees correctness under load.
   • Scope: MVCC, isolation levels and anomalies (write skew, phantoms), serializable snapshot isolation, lock escalation, deadlock analysis, optimistic versus pessimistic concurrency, idempotent retries.
4. 04Advanced SQL and set-based programming16% of the exam

   • Design set-based SQL solutions for complex analytical and transactional problems in place of procedural row-by-row logic.
   • Scope: Window functions, recursive CTEs, lateral joins, MERGE and upsert semantics, JSON/JSONB querying, temporal and bitemporal queries, gaps-and-islands patterns.
5. 05Server-side logic engineering10% of the exam

   • Evaluate when to place logic in the database and build server-side code that is testable, secure and transactionally correct.
   • Scope: Stored procedures and functions in PL/pgSQL and T-SQL, triggers and their side effects, error handling and transaction scope, security definer risks, testing with pgTAP and tSQLt.
6. 06Partitioning, sharding and scale-out design5% of the exam

   • Architect partitioning and sharding schemes that scale data volume and throughput without compromising query patterns.
   • Scope: Declarative range, list and hash partitioning, partition pruning, distributed SQL (Citus, CockroachDB, Spanner), shard-key selection, hot-spot avoidance and cross-shard transactions.
7. 07Zero-downtime schema evolution and migrations5% of the exam

   • Design and execute schema changes on live production systems with no downtime and safe rollback paths.
   • Scope: Expand-contract pattern, online DDL and lock impact, backfills, Flyway, Liquibase and Atlas, migration testing, versioned and declarative schema management in CI/CD.
8. 08Replication, change data capture and data consistency5% of the exam

   • Architect replication and CDC pipelines that keep downstream systems consistent and reliable.
   • Scope: Physical and logical replication, read replicas and lag, CDC with Debezium, transactional outbox, eventual consistency and read-your-writes guarantees.
9. 09Polyglot persistence and data model selection16% of the exam

   • Evaluate and select data stores and models that fit workload access patterns and consistency requirements.
   • Scope: Relational, document, key-value, wide-column, graph and vector stores, pgvector, access-pattern driven modelling, consistency and latency trade-offs.
10. 10Database security and privacy engineering10% of the exam

    • Design database-level security and privacy controls that enforce least privilege and regulatory compliance.
    • Scope: Least-privilege roles, row-level security, column and transparent encryption, data masking, SQL injection prevention, auditing, GDPR and data residency obligations.
11. 11Performance diagnostics and capacity engineering5% of the exam

    • Diagnose database performance bottlenecks from system telemetry and plan capacity for projected workload growth.
    • Scope: Wait-event analysis, buffer and I/O metrics, connection pooling (PgBouncer), vacuum and bloat management, workload benchmarking with pgbench and HammerDB, capacity forecasting.

Question types

Single choice 100%

Delivery

Online (remote proctored), Test centre, On-site (corporate)

Retakes

Up to three attempts within any 12-month period. A 14-day waiting period applies after a first unsuccessful attempt and 30 days after a second. Each retake requires a new booking and fee. Retakes draw a different randomised form from the question bank.

Provisional cut score — psychometric validation is required before live delivery. Blueprint v1.0.

1. 1

   Register

   Create a free account and start the programme.

2. 2

   Practice

   Online practice test (coming soon).

3. 3

   Training

   Optional

   Online course or classroom — or skip it.

4. 4

   Certification

   Independent exam and certification decision.

Training is optional and does not by itself confer certification. Find a training partner