Customer Reviews

Solaris 9 System Administration Training Guide (Exam CX-310-014 and CX-310-015)

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This is the best book available to prepare you to pass the Solaris 9 certification exams (it's better than the Exam Cram book which, as its title suggests, is a bit sketchy and doesn't have anything like the kind of depth of explanation that Calkins' book does).

I'm really surprised that even a couple of people have indicated in their reviews that they think the Exam Cram book is better. By all means buy the Exam Cram book if you can afford to, it's a handy supplemental text, but if you have to choose only one book then get Calkins' one, it's a hands down better choice.

Calkins' book sticks rigidly to the certification topics, introducing no extraneous material. The certification topics are covered and explained in detail; if you study the book, you will really LEARN something, and you can rest assured that whatever you learn will help you to pass the exams. Important issues of practical experience aside, if you study this book well, I can't see you not passing the exams. I passed them both well, this book was my primary preparation.

Good luck to everyone.

I'm prevously an MCSE. I used this book to learn Solaris and to take the Part1 and 2 Sun cert. exams. I finalized my certification by taking the Solaris 9 SysAdmin Part 2 test this morning in Denver, and passed with a score of 85. I felt well prepared in all of the objectives for both exams. This book not only prepared me for the cert exam, but will remain a valuable reference on my shelf.

In short, the book covers the how to part with "step by step" instructions. There are exercises with what to type.

Often when seeking help or learning, you just want to how to perform a task. And this book comes thru. Learn by doing. Not by memorizing endless forgettable facts.

Questions at the end of the chapter to help reinforce the material.

So it's READ, DO, QUIZ.

I've got Microsoft, Novell and Cisco Certs, but don't recall a book that provides the detail that this one provides.

Give me screen captures and "step by step" instruction over endless paragraphs of mind numbing text.

Good Job Bill. We appreciate the extra effort.

A great book! The best one up to date on this topic, I used this one and cram exam book and scored 90% on the test. This book covers all material very thoroughly, has examples, very well structured, nicely formatted, a pleasure to study with.
Bill Calkins did an excellent job.

This book helped me to clear 310-014. Now I am preparing for 015. I have seen Solaris Certification books without Printer portion. But this one covers all the areas and will be worth for you.

Wow! I'm an intermediate Solaris Sys Admin. I used to be an SGI SA, but alas... not much call for that any more. I took the Sys Admin I and II classes at Sun to make it easier to switch to Solaris Admin. This book, at least as far as I've gotten so far, has so much more of the wonderful little details that help sys admins *really* understand what's happening on a system. Though I bought it in order to take the certification test, it's the Solaris 9 Sys Admin book I was looking for when I bought a whole bunch of other less than stellar Solaris books. Every Solaris SA should have this on their bookshelf.

This is the second time I have used Mr. Calkin's study guides to pass the Sun Solaris System Administrator exams. The way the book is formatted, the presentation and depth of each topic, along with the practical questions at the end of each chapter is what sets it apart from the other study guides. It is far easier to read and several thousand pages shorter than the official Sun documentation. All in all, you can not go wrong in purchasing this book.

This book contains not only an up to date list of the material covered in the Solaris 9 exams, but also a lot of practical information valuable to anyone using Solaris 9. The author gives the reader a knowledge of the tools needed to use a Solaris system more effectively. Questions at the end of each chapter enable the reader to assess their skills in each test area, and the CDROM based testing tool provides the look and feel of the actual exams. I have also tried the Exam Cram book, but find this one to be much
more thorough in preparing me for the exams.

I'm a Solaris instructor and must comment on the Dalia Aziz comments who wrote that the Calkins book is full of filler. Aziz is flat out wrong-it's a great, in depth training guide. Our firm reviewed the Gibbs book because it was the first one out and we needed a Solaris 9 training guide for our students; I returned it. In short, here's our review: and here's why Gibb's book (Pub. Osborne) is several hundred pages less than the Calkins book: Gibbs has 3 sentences on managing disks with SMC, nothing on managing core dumps, nothing on Flash archives, nothing on fssnap, nothing on printers, 1 sentence on smpatch (Calkins has 7 pgs on smpatch). Gibbs devotes an entire chapter to vi and another entire chapter on basic command syntax- both are not on the exam (talk about fluff). Gibbs also includes sections on Admintool and Adminsuite when both products have been discontinued in Solaris 9. Gibbs still refers to SVM as DiskSuite and contains numerous typos. Gibbs tells the reader to use rlogin, rcp, rsh and does not even speak of the secure shell. I could go on and on about what that book missed. I gotta give Calkins credit for waiting to get it right vs. being first to market with a sub standard book. Great job Calkins- we use this book in our Solaris Admin 1 and 2 courses and our students are getting certified!! Hey Aziz, better check your reference: there's a total of 12 exam objectives not 6.

This is the only book I used to study for the exams. In the few areas where the book was weak on a topic, I sought additional information or clarification from articles I found on the Web. There are a few typos here and there, but nothing major. Overall, a good book.

Of course, the best testament to the thoroughness of the book for covering exam objectives is this: I can now add the letters 'SCSA' after my name. Thank you, Mr. Calkins.