Customer Reviews

Oracle8i Certified Professional DBA Certification Exam Guide

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

The book is logically organized and quite easy to read. However, DO NOT rely on this text as your only source of information as it does NOT cover all the material (probably about 70-80%). Also the main author is Jason Couchman - not Schwinn, and there are quite a few typos and technical errors both in the text and the test questions.

As overview, it is usefull. Compared with the exams, I found it covers about 70% of the material and has quite a few typo's and errors. The network part is CD only (bad). I suggest the Oracle DBA Certification Kit or the Exam Cram Books ... and a bit of practice.

I found several errors in this book. Only if you are actually doing the examples you will realize that some of them are misleading. It seems like simple typographical errors, but for a beginner very dangerous.

I am an OCP Developer with 3+ years experience, and I echo Duncan Berriman's comments on this book. Many of the concepts are already familiar to me, so I can spot some of the errors right away. Others, such as contradictory statements, are harder to reconcile. What I'm most worried about are the errors that I don't catch; I'm afraid that I could be committing false info to memory, and that it will be detrimental to my test scores.

Also, (and this may be a little nitpicky) I would like to see better writing and editing. A lot of the sentences need to be reworded or deleted, and other sentences, even whole paragraphs, seem to be out of order.

I think that I am going to rely more on the Coriolis Exam Cram books. They are easier to read, are more concise, and seem to be more accurate.

Below, someone said that they were surprised that Oracle would put their name to such a poor book; I am NOT surprised. I also have an Oracle Press doorstop entitled, Oracle Developer 2000 Handbook. In the future, I will check Amazon ratings before buying any Oracle books.

I am OCP certified DBA. I used this book for SQL and Tuning exams. I found this book not very useful, and also some questions and answers in the book are not correct on tuning section. Be prepared to found topics on exam that are not mentioned in the book.

I passed the 5th and final test today (Networking) for my OCP certification, and I used this book as my main resource. I also used Exam Cram books for PL/SQL, Backup & Recovery, and Networking (a must!). I also used Couchman's OCP DBA Practice Exams book (contains 15 exams), and practice exams from the folks at Self Test Software (there's one for each test, containing approx 300 questions per). I studied like a demon and then used the practice exams to show me where I needed to go back and review. I passed each test on the first attempt. My background is client/server programming using PowerBuilder, with an Oracle database as the backend. My DBA experience is minimal; my PL/SQL experience is intermediate.

This book contains a lot of mistakes. Many incorrect examples and information are wrong too! If you are a beginner, you will be misled by it. I will not recommend you to study this book if you would like to pass the OCP exam.

This is a good book to give you a basic introduction to Oracle if you are new to it. The questions, although they test your understanding, are way too simple compared to the exam.
I would recommend it as a basic reading supplemented by other texts.

Been an Oracle DBA for about 7 years. This book has many basic errors and contradictions as did the version 7 guide. Its a real shame as it will mislead and confuse people who will then probably fail their exams. Emailed Couchman both times but with no reply until recently when anyone who has every emailed him got an email which started a spam war due to his inability to use BCC. Not worth the money. Amazed Oracle would put their name to this - they should at least get the books checked.

I have passed all five exams for Oracle 8i OCP certification in Database Administration. My only study resources were this Exam Guide, Couchman's Practice Exams text and Oracle's own documentation (which is now available via the internet). I feel I learned a tremendous amount from this book, not only helping me pass the exams, but enhancing my career skills as well.

I found this book was extremely useful, especially the PL/SQL, Admin and Architecture, and Backup/Recovery sections. For the Tuning and Networking exams I relied more on the Oracle documentation. This book gives an excellent overview of what is covered on the exams and Oracle's documentation helps fill in the gaps. I recommend this book to DBA's with some experience who wish to become certified.