Customer Reviews

DB2 Universal Database v7.1 for UNIX, Linux, Windows and OS/2 Database Administration Certification Guide (4th Edition)

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

 

 

This book is an update of "DB2 Universal Database V6.1 for Unix, Windows and OS/2 Certification Guide, ISBN 0130867551" - see also my review on that one, it is more or less applicable to this new one too. The updating itself was done in a nice manner - parts of text were re-written, so this is a real 7.1 book. Important: for certifications, the old 6.1 book prepared you for all 3 exams (fundamentals, administration, application development). This has changed: this 7.1 book covers only the first 2 tests, the chapters on application development were cut short and are meant only as an overview for this area. You find the text on this (updated even more) in another new book: "DB2 Universal Database v7.1: Application Development Certification Guide, ISBN 0130913677" - it prepares you for the application development certification test. My experience is that these books, combined with some real hands-on work with DB2, are absolutely sufficient for passing the certification tests. The tests are not so terribly difficult. The hardest one is the one on administration, fundamentals are easy (a warm-up test), application development is somewhere between. A colleague of mine even learned from the 6.1 book and passed the 7.1 administration certification test without difficulties. Should you buy this book, if you own the 6.1 version? It depends. If you want to have the series complete, buy it. But basically the 6.1 version + 7.1 new features from the 7.1 CD or from IBM WWW page could do it too... If you are new to DB2, this is a very nice book for you. Gives very good overview, reasonable explanations, good examples. Could contain a little bit more overall conceptual explanations, could contain more details, the structure could be somewhat better - but altogether, it is out of the questions that it earns 4 stars.

This book is not bad, covering almost all the test objectives for 512 and 513. However, you have to spend a lot of time studying this heavy book. I have to say it's not compact. And the sample questions are so few! So I recommend this as a reference book, not a primary study guide.

If you want to pass 512 and 513 in a short period of time, I recommend you download a free CBT provided by IBM: Fast Path to DB2 UDB for Experienced Relational DBAs. This CBT is really cool. It covers all test objectives of 512 and 513 except SQL usage. And it contails many sample questions. It also provides a good lab. You can practice using a sample database. You can complete this CBT in about 8 hours. During you study, you can use the certification guide as reference book. And for SQL usage section, you can use the cetification guide to study.You can download this free CBT (or ask for a CD-ROM) in IBM website. CBT for application development is also avaliable.

This book is disorganized, vague and contains errors! It's a chore to read, and the authors/editors have done a poor job of "connecting the dots" for readers -- i.e., they don't explain fundamental concepts & terms before delving into the complex implications and interrelationships of a feature. For example, they mention the importance of database objects when first introducing authorities (pg. 164), but don't bother to sufficiently explain or give examples of what a database object (vs. a database) is until the next chapter (on page 199). There are countless incidents like this. The book comes with a great sample database that you can work with; however, the publisher didn't bother to ensure that the author's code samples correspond with the database. So, for instance, on page 239 in chapter 5 if you attempt to use the code the authors provide, you will spend more time figuring out why it doesn't work than watching their example do what they claim it does. This book is exasperating and maddening. It desperately needs to be reorganized and could benefit from a well-written glossary. However, it does provide a lot of necessary detail (even though it's not presented well) and the sample database and the copy of DB2 UDB Personal Edition v7.1 that it comes with are invaluable for anyone who does not have access to UDB.

This book covers about 50 - 60 percent of what is on the IBM DB2 UDB 7.1 family fundamentals test and about 40 percent of what is needed for the IBM DB2 UDB 7.1 513 DBA certification. I have taken and passed both exams. Frankly I think any book or series of book that claims to be associated with the IBM Certification Guide series should cover the topic in depth. The test is sooo much more in depth, so that from this book you have not much chance of passing the tests. This book is NOT even a good reference guide, as you need much more information than is given to do anything but basic bare essential [stuff].

If You want a good book that covers the topics in depth get "All In One DB2 Administration Exam Guide" for learning the material (The cd test engine [is not good]). For another book that is short of material but has a GREAT cd test engine (great for practice testing) get the "DB2 Fundamentals Certification for Dummies" just for the CD.

Although this book is recommended by IBM as required reading for 513, I recommend 'DB2 All in One - Sanders' instead of this. I used both books along with their free CBT (Fastpath) and passed 513. In truth, I just 'lightly read' this one and mainly used it for it's excellent practice questions. If you are interested in testing 513 for free (type 'free db2 voucher' into google) - you will be interested to know that the qualifying exam is directly from the questions in the back of this book. If you're not going to buy it, at least browse the questions and answers in a bookstore - you'll need it for 513.

The reason I bought this book was to get certified in DB2.

I passed the exam #512 DB2 Family Fundamentals using this book as the only source. The key to pass exam #512 is a good knowledge of SQL, if you're new to SQL, then get other book to master SQL before you try to get certified on DB2. Without having a good understanding of SQL, it would be very hard to pass the test.

This book cover about 70% of the knowledge that you need to pass the exam #512. I passed the exam #512 with about 70%.

4 weeks after passing the exam #512, I tried the exam #513 DB2 DBA, unfortunately I didn't pass the test. I only got 52%.

IMO, you could pass the exam #513 using this book only if you master 100% of the content of this book. I don't have any real world experience as DBA, so I couldn't use any other knowledge to guess the correct answer of the exam #513. I think if you have "real world" experience as DB2 DBA for at least 6 months, then this book should be good enough to pass the test. IMO this books covers between 60% to 65% of the knowledge that you need to pass the exam #513.

As I write, I have passed exam #512 DB2 Family Fundamentals and i'm presently studying for exam #513 administration. Although I only studied from this one reference for the first exam I felt that when I actually took the exam I was hit with more than a few questions that I was unprepared for. In particular more detailed knowledge of (IBM specific) DML statements would have been helpful. The text of the book doesn't really contain a DDL/DML refernce.

I do feel however that if it were not for my previous experience as an Oracle DBA many of the SQL questions would have gone over my head.

The toughest part of the exam in my estimation is the section on concurrency and locking. And although I feel that the explanations given in the book are satisfactory the wording of the questions on the exam was a bit more difficult to comprehend than I was really prepared for. So I would advise you to study that section of the book very thoroughly.

In preparation for the administration exam I have purchased DB2 High Performance Design and Tuning which gives very thorough attention to performance and tuning issues. The exam prep guide only gives cursory information about this oh so vital subject area. I feel that with both of these texts I will be more than adequately prepared for the admin exam.

And even though I have not checked out the accompanying CD to this point I would advise you to investigate its' contents as there may be some valuable information available.

Using mainly this book, I have passed both exams (512 and 513) on the first try. I have several years of experience as a DBA in both Oracle and Sql Server.
IMHO, this book is a must-have for passing 512 and 513. Test 513 is indeed fairly challenging. My preparation consisted of learning the first 12 Chapters of this book backwards and forwards, installing DB2 from the enclosed CD, tinkering a bit, and becoming familiar with the online documentation.
It is true that the book only covers 70% of the stuff on Test 513. Print out the objectives for test 513 from IBM's site and carefully review it. Use the online documentation for areas that you are not familiar with.

This book does have a solid base, and easily covers all of the requirements for the DB2 Fundamentals exam. However, it begins to come up short for the DB2 Administrator test. Many areas are not particularly well explained, and the description of the DB2 product family is a complete hash job, and really leaves you none the wiser.

Perhaps the most annoying part of this book is that there is no public errata, and I quickly found two errors. Given that this is a certification book, it's crucial that it's accurate. The author e-mailed me and pointed out that the mistakes were corrected for the Version 8 book, and that the publishers didn't give them any web space for an errata.

Overall, a good book. However, a book written by IBMers on an IBM product for an IBM exam should be final word on the subject. Unfortunately, this is not the case, and I would suggest looking at the 'All in One' Gold books.

I am not a DBA before and base on this book, I pass both exam 512 and 513.

512 is easy. My colleague who is fimilar with SQL pass 512 with only half day study of this guide, and with the tips that I gave him. 513 is more difficult, I think I will fail when I took the exam, but the result is I pass. Concurrency, authority and privillege is a must read topic. You can skip the chapter for typed table, NT security.

Don't waste time on reading other IBM DB2 manuals if you just want to pass the exam.