Oracle Certified Professional Dba Certification Exam Guide

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Summary: Even Basic Scripts Are Wrong
Review: Basic information in this book is wrong. The value in reading this book is that the numerous errors leaves the reader second guessing everything and using another reference to double check the facts. I also noticed good portions of the scripts are wrong, including ones so basic as the buffer cache hit ratio and rollback buffer wait ratio. It's disappointing to see so many errors get by editors.

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Summary: Excellent guide to study for AND PASS the OCP exams
Review: I purchased this book and the Exam Cram series of books to study for the OCP DBA exams. I feel despite this book's heft and the fact that the CDROM really didn't link to the online book (like the back page said it did), that this publication is the best possible non-cbt type preparation we have for passing the OCP exams. We must note this book is sanctioned by Oracle Press, giving it the "exam slant" one needs to anticipate some of the questions. In fact, having recently taken the Backup & Recovery Exam (and passed) I noticed some of the questions on the exam (3 or 4 out of 60) did actually appear in the chapter tests at the end of the backup & recovery chapters. I also used this book to review for the DBA exam, which I passed barely, but mostly because of the material in this book. I highly recommend it for review and the best tool short of buying a CBT course to pass the exams.

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Summary: Poorly written, inaccurate, waste of time
Review: I read many reviews warning not to buy this book, but I needed something and wanted to give it a chance. DON'T make the same mistake I made. I've read most of the first section laboriously, constantly re-reading paragraphs trying to understand what was written. I finally gave up and turned to another book, by Steve Fernstein (I think) on New Features of Oracle 8i by Published by O'Reilly. WHAT A DIFFERENCE to read something well written and well edited!

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Summary: Too many mistakes and lot of junk
Review: I thought if a book is published by oracle press should be better than average. After reading few pages, I realized that I made a big mistake buying this book. The book is full of mistakes and does not cover all the material required for exams.

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Summary: Painful
Review: If a study guide is to be effective, it should combine written material and hands-on exercises - unfortunately, the author of this book chose to use examples which are not easily replicated on the database server. That is, where he could have used tables and examples from the default schema / databases usually included in an Oracle installation, he chose to use his own structures. An annoyance, when you're trying to grasp the concepts and you have to stop to create objects just to test the code. Relatively light treatment of the exam subjects and not a book you'd want to keep as a reference post-certification. Use the excellent Oracle8:The Complete Reference or the Exam Cram series instead of this....

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Summary: can't be used as an only source of information
Review: networking part covers may be 50% of what has to be covered and is not enough to pass the test. other parts are better, but also not complete. by my opinion, this book can be used as a guideline only.

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Summary: Still the best one-stop resource for OCP DBA
Review: Oracle Certified Professional Dba Certification Exam Guide is still the best one-stop resource for preparing for the OCP exams in Database Administration. While I agree that no one should rely on this book 100%, it covers about 80% of the material tested on the actual exams. There are also some errors which I believe are a result of poor editing. These shouldn't take away significantly from the book. I have continued to use the book to teach students preparing for the OCP exams in Database Administration. In addition to hands-on experience, those preparing to take the Oracle7 OCP DBA exams may combine this book with Michael Ault's exam cram books covering tests 1 to 4 and the preparatory tests from Self Test Software (Stsware). Jason has done a great job in bringing together several Oracle manuals in one book.

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Summary: Excellent exam guide
Review: Oracle DBA exam guide is very comprehencive exam guide for people who has some background in Oracle databases. I happy that I bought it. In fact it helped me to become a sertified DBA.

Rating:
Summary: Better than nothing
Review: The material in the book was very repetitive. There were several chapters that seemed to have the identical material as the overview chapters. Although I wasn't completely satisfied with the book it did cover a broad range of material and was useful as a study guide. I don't consider it a very useful DB administration reference however.

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Summary: Excellent review for OCP exams!
Review: There are many, many, and many mistakes in this book. It's no help for passing OCP test, but misguiding you. This book wasted me a lot of money. It's a doubt why Oracle Press published such a junk book.