Customer Reviews

MySQL 5.0 Certification Study Guide

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Quite simply, this book should be on the shelf of anyone who intends to take the MySQL Certification exams.

The book was written by Paul DuBois, certainly the top author of MySQL related books. Paul's style is very readable and the book provides extensive coverage of the exam material.

In fact, the book is so extensive because it was written not only by Paul, but by Carsten Pedersen, certification manager at MySQL AB. The book was written by the people who created the exam, and it shows. I can tell you right now that if you read the certification study guide and know its content, you will pass the certification exam. There is not a question on the exam that is not covered by this study guide.

The exercises are good, though not always formatted the same as what you will encounter on the actual exam. Doing the exercises should reveal how well you understand a given topic in the guide.

Here's an overview of what the book covers:

* MySQL and MySQL AB

* MySQL Software

* Using MySQL Client Programs

* Data Definition Language

* The SELECT Statement

* Basic SQL

* Update Statements

* Joins

* Importing and Exporting Data

* MySQL Architecture

* MySQL Installation and Configuration

* Security Issues

* Optimizing for Query Speed

* MyISAM Tables

* InnoDB Tables

* Advanced Server Features

Finally, here is the best part about the MySQL Certification Study Guide: it's free. In the back of the guide is a voucher code for 25% off the cost of a certification exam, or roughly the price of the book. If you are serious about taking the MySQL Certification exams, you can't go wrong with this book.

I love this book, but I am outraged that VUE refuses to honor the included voucher code for MySQL 5 exams. The book is targeted for MySQL 5, and the text in the book clearly states the voucher is for ANY MySQL exam. But VUE claims the included voucher is only valid for MySQL 4 exams.

I attempted to escalate this issue but was told by VUE that it is Amazon's fault for including the wrong voucher number. The code is clearly printed by the book publisher, not Amazon, so this is just very poor finger pointing by VUE trying to blame Amazon.

The book is worth every penny despite the false advertising related to the voucher.

UPDATE: I contacted the publisher and got a quick response. The publisher is working on fixing VUE's screw-up, so hopefully this will be resolved soon.

I found myself wanting more when it came time to try the practice exam questions. The book comes with PDF's that serve as the practice exam. What I expected was software that would simulate the test. I'm taking the DBA class next month and I don't expect any issues passing the exam, though I would feel more comfortable forking out the $ to take it if I had a wider pool of questions to study from.

The book does a fairly good job of covering both exam tracks (DBD & DBA) from what I've seen thus far and is laid out in a practical way for those preparing for the exam. This book is not intended as a reference, though some new admins may choose to use it like that.

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Post-exam follow-up:

The certification study guide did a good job of helping me pass the exams the first time through. Primary goal - accomplished. If you plan to attend the MySQL 5.0 DBA class, I got a copy of my own in the class so I wound up with an extra (so I keep one at work and one at home). Combine this with the on-line resources available and the value of this book increases.

I do find myself recommending this book to other developers and administrators to learn how to improve their MySQL skills, but I don't recommend it as a reference. It accomplishes its purpose well, however, I think it could have been better by having more of the information we need after the exam is over. This is not a manual for MySQL and clearly does not stand on its own for that purpose. If your goal is to get certified as a DBD or DBA, this book will likely help. If your goal is to use this book as your only manual for MySQL, this is not the best investment of resources to that end.

Hits:
o Helped me pass the MySQL DBA exam first-time with very thorough study and having taken the MySQL 5 DBA class.
o PDF files for exam prep materials and a full PDF of the book itself
o Has some nice query optimization explanations in it.
o Provides nice resources for those who are upgrading their skills from MySQL 3.x, 4.x.

Misses:
o Does not cover MySQL Cluster.
o CD did not contain software that helped me take practice exams.
o Resource not intended to be used as a full reference of MySQL.
o Many of the prep questions were given before the material to answer the questions were presented.

Note: I would increase my rating of this book to four stars, but Amazon won't let me change the rating in my review.

This is an excellent book covering MySQL in great detail.

I did buy this book not because I want to be certified, but because I wanted to have detailed information about MySQL version 5 and all the new functionality it has. I am certainly not disappointed.

There are useful examples for every subject covered and the book is much more readable than the online MySQL manual.

This is not a book for beginners or a book about designing a relational database. If you want to learn SQL or database design you should look elsewhere.

The book is quite big and my first impression was it's going to take a long time and it's full of useless info. But once I started reading, I had a nice surprise. The book actually covers 2 certifications (Dev and DBA), 2 exams each. I can't speak for the Dev part, but the DBA part was very well structured and each exam required less than 200 pages of reading. The information was dense enough and always up to the point. The practice questions were really not a question samples, but more like a 60 pages summary of possible exam topics.

I also liked the style very much. It's very proffesional but not too dry and reading is not boring.

There are a few glitches here and there (table of content is off, the CD ROM didn't work well), but they are not really impacting your study.

Overall, I liked it very much and I wish more vendors would adopt that format and style.

And, by the way, I passed both exams at the first try using this book only (well, I've been working with MySQL a bit in the past, but I clearly had holes in my knowledge before).

So I highly recommend this book as a perfect MySQL certification guide and general reference.

This book is a necessary but not entirely sufficient resource if you plan to complete the 5.x developer and/or DBA exams with self-study. Most of the subject areas present on the exams are covered in enough detail to easily pass if you are experienced with another database product and can apply that experience. (FYI, I have 15+ years working with Oracle/SQL Server and have dabbled with MySQL since 3.x, passed all 4 exams using this guide).

That said, you will likely need to supplement the book by reading the MySQL documentation if you wish to get as much knowledge as possible from the study process. Certainly try out each command on a test MySQL instance multiple times using version 5.x (NOT 5.1 where some behaviors have changed).

The practice questions provided are not all in multiple-choice format as you will encounter on the exam, which can be a good mental exercise for review, but the answer formats can be frustrating in some cases, as in the case of a multiple-choice question with five possible letter choices, wherein the answer is a paragraph that doesn't indicate the correct letter choices. Trivial but annoying.

Be sure you complete all practice questions from the accompanying CD and understand why your answers were right or wrong. There are no labs or practical exercises included, although a sample schema is included from which many of the practice questions are drawn.

If you are not taking the exams, this is still a good primer on MySQL.

I studied for the MySQL DBA exam using this book, chapters 23-42. I passed both exams on the first try two weeks apart. I can truthfully say that in order to pass both exams, you must know certain facts from several different chapters to answer a single question. This is especially true for mutiple choice questions that require multiple answers. While there are many typos and changes to MySQL since the books release, just go to the URL http://www.mysql.com/certification/studyguides/errata50.html and make those corrections, and you will find that this book is indeed a complete study guide. The developer chapters (1-22) are just as replete with needed info. Have fun studying the book and passing the exams.

This is the book for MySQL CMDBA, CMDEV, and CMA certifications!

But please note we do not include vouchers for the exams in the latest printing.

As many people, when I first got the book I marveled at the size and thought upon myself that a book this large is going to take a long time to read. Realistically I've breezed through it rather rapidly and feel very confident facing the DBA certification. Unlike most I did also read the other Certification Exam's part as my primary job role is a developer I plan to attain both Certifications. Both sections were concise and precise, I learned quite a bit that I had thought I already knew enough about. I would highly recommend this book to anybody with at least some solid foundations in SQL and MySQL.

Well I've been using Mysql for the last 5 years now and got to say that I already had pretty good hold on it. But through this book I came across numerous interesting things that I was unaware of and no prizes for guessing that I cleared the exam with ease. The book has each and every detail of topics that are asked in the exam and hence is a must for anyone looking to give the exam