Rating: 
Summary: This book helped me certify.
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent !!
Review: I just went through the initial few chapters and it really is excellent. I think the author has changed the style from the older version (oracle 8 certified OCP book). The topics are arranged logically. It can be used even by a novice. The fonts are smaller and better. I highly recommend this book !! Let me go through the whole book and will give a final update.
Rating:
Summary: Very Helpful
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: Very Helpful
Review: 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.
Rating: 
Summary: Misled by this site.
Review: I received the book today and returning it now. On this web site, the authors are listed as: Ulrike Schwinn, Jason S. Couchman, and Jeremy Judson. But the real authors are: Jason S. Couchman, Ulrike Schwinn. The book looks not so bad. But it's so wordy that there is no room for the Unit V in all these 1156 pages...it goes to the CD. Even the smaller font won't help it. I'm quite unhappy about the misleading. Therefore, a two star.
Rating: 
Summary: Simply not enough
Review: It is a good review material for you to know some of the important features of oracle in a short period of time.
However, it is no the book for you to pass the exam.
Rating:
Summary: Sloppy
Review: My background: 12 years in IT. 8 years with Oracle. 2 Years as Oracle DBA. Currently using 8i....
I have only used this book to study for the 8i Network Administration Exam (Part 5 of the 8i OCP certification suite of tests). I must admit that by reading the 3 chapters devoted to this exam, I am able to do well on the OCP practice test for this exam. (Which has been a good indicator for me on the previous 4 exams). I am scheduled to take this 5th and final exam in a couple of days.
However, I have found the writing sloppy, as well as the editing, not to mention the overal organization and outline. I do believe I have noticed some mistakes (perhaps just typos). Yes it does the job, I suppose. This is the only source I have used to study for the 8i Network Administration exam part of the 8i OCP suite, and it appears to be doing the job. But this book appears to be a 'rush' job... just thrown out there as quickly as possible to make some money. I would be very careful about buying something from these authors again. And this book is nothing Oracle Press should be proud of either, in my opinion.
Also, if you do not already have some decent background with Oracle concepts, etc. This book might not be too good. Since I have some experience, I apparently have been able to filter the info in the book to make some sense. For some this may be difficult. I have had to re-read some sections, paragraphs and sentences several times to try to understand the meaning, especially as they relate to something previously covered; which in a better written book, would not have been necessary. Thanks.
Rating:
Summary: From Developer to DBA'er
Review: Ofcourse I have not yet finished reading (and passing exams), but because this book is clearly written I am moving fast ahead. On a step-to-step basis you can move forward to the main goal, become a certified DBA. The far more than 1000 pages are not overwhelming at all. When you are an Oracle developer and you want to move ahead in the Oracle-world than this is a-must-buy! One minor point is that you can find the source of exam 5 on CD-ROM (as a PDF-file) only. Therefore one star less (sorry).
Rating:
Summary: Not bad .....but not great!
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: Mostly Impressed
Review: The book targets the exam objectives by section very well. The examples were excellent. The practice questions were very helpful although there were a few errors like most exam prep books. The fifth section (Network Admin) is not in print...it's only on the CD.
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