Until the end of last year, Oracle maintained an exam retirement list. The list still exists, but is no longer update. The new model is to put a red banner on the actual exam page.

Two exams recently had retirements announced with only three months of lead time. They are both the Java 8 upgrade exams. (The main Java 8 exams remain live.)

This caught me by surprise. Oracle has historically kept exams live longer and given more lead time for retirement. After all, it’s not uncommon to take more than 3 months to study for an exam.

Which exams are being retired?

• !Z0-810 – Upgrade Java SE 7 to Java SE 8 OCP Programmer
• 1Z0-813 – Upgrade to Java SE 8 OCP ( Java SE 6 and all prior versions)

What are my options if I hold an older cert and was thinking about upgrading it?

If you hold an OCP 7

• If you feel comfortable, take the 1Z0-810 before it is no longer being offered. Keep in mind that Oracle’s retake policy is that you can’t take the exam for 14 days if you fail. If you worried about failing and want to be able to retake the exam, I recommend targeting early February.
• If this isn’t enough time, you will need to take the Java 11 exams. If you passed the OCA 7 and OCP 7 exams, you get to choose between the 1Z0-816 (part 2) and 1Z0-817 (upgrade). The 1Z0-816 has any associate cert as a pre-req. The !Z0-817 has a professional cert as a pre-req. I wrote a blog post helping choose between the two exams. If you got the OCP 7 via an upgrade exam in the first place, you’ll have to take the 1Z0-817.

If you hold an OCP 6

• If you feel comfortable, take the 1Z0-810 before it is no longer being offered. See the above advice.
• If that isn’t enough time, you only have one choice – the 1Z0-817 upgrade exam.

If you hold an SCJP/OCP 5 (or lower)

• If you feel comfortable, take the 1Z0-810 before it is no longer being offered. See the above advice.
• If that isn’t enough time, you will not be able to take an upgrade exam. You will instead need to take both the 1Z0-815 (part 1) and 1Z0-816 (part 2).