Candidates for this certification must demonstrate basic understanding of how to design, create, and query relational databases such as MySQL, Microsoft SQL Server, or Oracle. Candidates must have at least 150 hours of hands-on experience or education in database design and object management, data retrieval and manipulation, and related troubleshooting. Candidates must be able to write ANSI SQL statements as well as diagnose syntax and runtime problems. The syntax used in the exam is ANSI SQL.