Customer Reviews

Solaris 2.6 Administrator Certification Training Guide, Part 1

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I passed Part 1 in part due to Solaris 2.6 Administrator Certification Training Guide, Part 1. I also used a lot of experience, O'Reilly's UNIX in a Nutshell, and the Sun Educational Services 2.x Admin 1 course book I got when I took the SA-235 course. Solaris 2.6 Administrator Certification Traininguide, Part 1 has about the same information as the SA-235 course book.

The practice exam on the CD-ROM was nice to have, but it doesn't completely simulate the real exam. The real exam has lots of fill in the blanks. The CD-ROM practice exam just has multiple choice. I found several more practice tests (Some questions were identical to the CD-ROM's) on the Internet.

If you don't have the SunEd course book, then Solaris 2.6 Administrator Certification Training Guide, Part 1 will be invaluable.

The editorial review is wrong about what is covered. Only those objectives on the Part 1 exam are covered, which is what you want. The list in the Editorial Review has Part 2 objectives listed too.

I've already started reading Solaris 2.6 Administrator Certification Training Guide, Part 2, so I must have liked this book. The only reason I rated it 4 out of 5 stars is the excessive typos. These are not the authors fault, but due to poor editing.

Reading this book and taking careful notes took my score from 38% to the 80/90% range. I am convinced this book is the reason I passed the exam. It would have been helpful to have access to a machine to "play with", especially the openboot commands, but one might get by without it if he/she has enough prior hands-on experience. I am definitely going to keep this book as a reference, and I have placed my order for Part II already. The author was helpful when contacted regarding the texts.

This should be regarded as a single-purpose-book; make you a certified solaris admin. It's not a good reference-book, not a book 'great for beginners, usefull for guru's alike' nor a 'explains all theorie, but has great practical value' and other contradiction idea's. No, it's a certification book, training you to do the exam. I like the cd-rom very much, many questions (some are wrong answered ,though) and nice 'flashcard questions'. Can one certify by reading a book alone? No, with this subject some experience is vital - but even a x86 with a free solaris 7 will do the job. This book will show you the way, but you have to work though the matter yourself, behind the keyboard. If that would not be the case, then the certification wouldn't be valuable. This book is a good help, although we can't compare many books on this subject, can we?

Bill Calkins' book does a great job of summarizing the huge amount of potential exam material Sun gives you. The author has met the (unstated) goal of determining what of the material can practically be put on a test, and he concentrates on that material. The sample (CDROM) exam is a great way to become familar with the test format and to review. You would be silly to think that any of those questions are the same on the exam, though. Plus, the range of subjects covered on the new 2.7 exam has been changed slightly. Some have been moved to the part II exam, though it's no fault of the author. This book will be valuable to anyone taking the exam, and as a handy refence to Solaris. There is no book like it.

First time I took the exam I winged it and failed, bought this book then passed. The subject matter doesn't hold up by itself, it is a good starting point to head onto Answerbooks & man pages. The sample questions were very useful, it tells you the correct answer when you get one wrong (something you really don't get from a Sylvan test). The big problem with the questions were what was missing - no questions on either lp or CDE, both heavily focussed on in my tests (10-15 questions.

A very good book through which to prepare. The chapters are laid out as per syllabus, concise but precise and well-explained. However, there are printing errors and in rare cases author points out difficult facts without going into an explanation. However, the basic materials are all very well contained. I would suggest reading Curt Freeland's book as a terrific supplement to understand some points made. The CD contains exam material which I found to be vry simple. Real exam has a lot of fill-in-the-blanks which were sadly missing in the CD. Do not base on the samples in the CD to pass. Good work by author. His recommended site www.learnsolaris.com is also very good.

It can match the objective of the exam, however it does not contain enough materials for you to pass the exam.

I think if you are beginner to Solaris, don't just read this book for preparing the exam, you must supplement with other books, such as A Practical to Solaris - highly recommend.

I did not know much about Solaris in general until I bought this excellent book. It is a great source of knowledge and gets straight to the point. It covers everything that you need to know to take the Solaris Part 1 exam. I have recommended this book to many of my work friends and six of them have already bought this book. This book has already helped me get my first Solaris System Administrator job. Well done Bill, Part 2 really soon, please.

There are many good books on the basics of unix, but only a few good books on Unix administration. This books clearly covers the administration of Solaris Unix machines. It also helps to prepare the reader to pass the first part of Sun's tough Solaris Administration Certification Exam. While nothing beats experience, I've seen certification make a tremendous difference for job hunters.

Bill Calkins does a worthwhile job providing some basic information that will let an experienced Unix Admin achieve Solaris Certification.

As a reference, there is a great deal lacking in the book. Not only is the detail insufficient to make the book useful to an Administrator on a regular basis, but anyone who depends upon this book as a primary source of information will be working off inaccurate and at times out-dated information.

Beginning in the first chapter on the boot process, Bill Calkins describes the functions of init and those of the run control scripts in confusing and misleading manner. Init does exactly what it's told to do by the inittab, nothing more. Nor are run control scripts moved through "in numeric order until the desired run level is reached"!

Yank s2 and pop it in after s3 and then reboot. When NFS Server starts before CDE, it shows that init is a simple & unintelligent daemon that only does exactly what it's told. Or create a run level 4. Init 4 will not take you through 1, 2, 3 first!

Summary: if you want a certification, this book is like having crib notes. Once you pass the tests, the book is useless. If enough people pursue their certification this way, Sun's certification will mean as much as having an MCSE or a CNE.

BTW: I've had my certification for more than a year and will not be keeping my copy.