2 Books to Prepare for Spring Professional Certifications Exam

Ever since Pivotal (now VMware) has removed the requirement of mandatory training to become a certified Spring developer, many Spring developers have been asking for good resources to prepare for Spring Professional V5.0 Exam like books, courses, mock exams, study notes, etc. to prepare for Spring Core Certifications via self-study. Since, earlier, you cannot give Spring certification exam without attending an online or instructor-led core Spring training, which costs around 3200 USD in the USA and North America and 50K INR in India, many experienced Spring developers refrain from becoming a certified Spring developer.

Now that restriction has been lifted and it's not mandatory to take training to take Spring certification, many Java developers who have good working experience in Spring framework are looking to get recognition for their skill.

This is also a very good opportunity for both junior and intermediate Java developers to add this high profile certification in your resume as you just need to spend 200 USD to buy an exam voucher. It's even cheaper the Oracle's Java certification which costs around 246$ in the USA and around 10K INR in India.

Spring is one of the most popular Java frameworks of the last decade. Introduced in October 2002 with the Idea of dependency injection, Spring has come a long way to become the default Java application development framework.

With its popularity, demand for Java Developer with Spring skills also grows and to date, Spring remains the key technology to get a Job in Java web development world. Having Spring certification on your resume not only increase your knowledge about Spring framework but also improves your chances of getting the Java developer position you are vying off, hence I recommend all Java developer to become Spring certified professional.

Books to Prepare Spring Professional Certifications Exam

Here are a couple of good books and courses to prepare for the Spring Core or Spring Professional Certification Exam. The industry also recognizes certified developers likeOracle Certified Java Developer andPivotal Certified Spring developers. Pivotal, the company behind the Spring framework, provides several Spring-based certifications like Spring Professional certification exam to recognize your Spring core skills.

1.Pivotal Certified Professional Spring Developer Exam: A Study Guide

The 1st edition of the Pivotal Certified Professional Spring Developer Exam by Iuliana Cosmina is the only study guide available for Spring core verification like Spring Professional V5.0 Exam.

The good part of this book is that it covers all exam topics given in an official study guide and it is a structure for certification i.e. it contains quizzes and practice questions after each chapter to make you familiar with concepts which are important from exam perspective.

You will also find useful tips sprinkled around the book for Spring certification. In nutshell, an ideal book to prepare for Spring Core Certifications if you rely on self-study instead of training. For better preparation, I also suggest you combine this book with the Spring Professional Certification Exam Tutorial - Module 01course on Udemy. This is a special course created keeping this exam in mind and also answers all the questions from the official Spring exam guide.

Since Spring training material was designed for Spring certifications and till last month training was mandatory to take the exam, many candidates just take training to use the study material to prepare for Spring core certifications. This means absolutely no demand for any study guides for Spring certifications.

Now that restriction has been lifted and training is optional, many experienced Java and Spring developers, who prefer self-study over classroom training are looking to get certified I expect more books and study guides will come into market, but till then you can use these two books to prepare for Spring core certification, I mean, Spring Professional v5.0 Exam.

One more thing you can do is to buy David Mayer's Spring Mock Exam , this will help you to get yourself familiar with the exam patterns and the level of questions you can expect in the real exam. You can use this simulator to improve your speed and accuracy as well as fill the gap in your knowledge. It will also help you to find your strong and weak areas.

2.Spring in Action

This is one of the best books to learn Spring for a long time, even I learned Spring framework by reading this book. The best part of this book is that it is now updated and the 5th edition covers Spring 4, which makes it an ideal book to prepare for Spring Professional v5.0  Exam and Spring Professional v5.0 Exam.

Though you can use the earlier version of the book as well, it makes more sense to read the latest version to prepare recent exam topics added on the 5.0 version of Spring Core Certification. If you want you can also combine this book with Spring Framework 5: Beginner to Guru  course for better learning.

Even though this book is not organized as per the exam topics, as it is not a study guide but a general book to learn Spring framework it covers most of the exam topics. It is also a recommended book by Pivotal and mentioned in the official Spring Certification Study Guide for v5.0 and Study Guide for v5.0

2. Online Courses to Prepare Spring Professional Certifications

You can also combine these books with some excellent online Spring Framework courses for better results. Some of the courses are especially created to pass Spring Professional certifications like the one I am going to share with you now.

1.Spring Professional Certification Exam Tutorial - Module 01

This is the best course material to prepare for Spring Professional Certification. It explains and answers all questions from the Spring Professional Certification Study Guide is not only useful for certification but also for Java interviews.

Each answer is explained in detail with a video tutorial, description and a good example for you to get a deep understanding of the discussed topic. With this course, you will get all the required knowledge and skills to pass the Spring Professional Certification Exam.

This course covers the first module of the entire course and inside you can find answers to all topics from Spring Professional Certification Study Guide first section, which is Container, Dependency, and IoC. If you are serious about passing Spring Professional Certification then I also suggest you check other modules of this course like Spring Professional Certification Part 2 , 3, 4, and 5.

The course covers each and every topic of Spring certification exam like all the modules described below:

Apart from these two books and courses, you can also purchase David Mayer's Spring Web Simulator  to prepare well. It contains more than 400 questions on various exam topics and provides you much-needed practice to improve your speed and accuracy.

Remember, you need to score around 78% to pass the Spring certification i.e. you need to answer 38 questions correctly out of 50 questions in 90 minutes.

That's all about some of the good books to prepare for Spring Core Certification. Even the best of the books become quickly out-of-date but thankfully Spring in Action is updated to Spring 4 and it's still the best book to prepare for Spring Professional V5.0 Exam.

I also suggest you buy an exam voucher as soon as possible because the exam voucher is now very cheap, around 200 USD and I expect them to become a little more expensive as demand will now increase.

They are also valid for 1 year so you can take the exam within 1 year, which mentally provide a deadline to you to become Spring certified. You can even make it a goal to come certified Spring professional this year if you want to.

Other Useful Resources for Spring Core Certifications

• Free Spring Certification dumps and PDF
• Top 5 Courses to learn Spring framework in depth
• Top 5 Courses to learn Spring Boot in depth
• Top 5 Courses to learn Spring Security in depth
• Top 5 Courses to learn Microservices in Java
• Java & Moie's Core Spring 4.2 Certification Exam PDF
• Spring Professional Exam v5.0 Study Guide
• Spring Professional Exam v5.0 General Information (PDF)
• How to Crack Spring Core Profession v5.0 Certification
• Top 5 Courses to Pass Spring Certification
• Top 5 Free Mock test to Pass Spring Certification

Thanks for reading this article so far. If you like these Spring Certification books and courses then please share with your friends and colleagues. If you have any questions or feedback then please drop a note.

P. S. - If you are looking for some online courses to prepare for Spring Professional certification then I strongly recommend you check out the Spring Professional Certification Exam Tutorial  course on Udemy. It's an 8 module course and answers every single question from the official Spring certification exam guide.