Learning a technology and working on a technology complements each other. Learning a technology gives you the overview of how things need to be done. And working on a technology helps you understand the in-depth details of getting work done using that technology. Most of the times when you are working on a project you cover certain specific areas of technology required in that project.

Java has evolved from a language to develop platform independent client application to an architecture for developing n-tier enterprise application. It is important that you keep yourself updated with all the changes so that you are not left behind with obsolete systems. Taking certifications and update exams is a structured way of updating yourself with the technology. Therefore you should think of JAVA certification from the day you decide to work on it to the day you want to keep working on it.

Sun has identified 3 job profiles for the people working in Java:

• Programmer : A person who has the basic understanding of Java (Standard Edition) and can write code for well defined design specifications.
• Developer : A person who has a good knowledge of design principle and can apply them to develop large software systems.
• Architect : A person who can architect and design large enterprise systems with dozens, or hundreds of servers, Websites with millions of page views per month. A person need to have a good understanding of following aspects in various architectures: scalability, maintainability, reliability, availability, extensibility, performance, manageability, and security.