Re: Oracle certified Professional DBA

> a) What span of time do you typically take these exams , all four of them ?
Each exam lasts for about 90 minutes. There was a 3 month gap between my first and last exams as I felt more confident after greater experience. Just take them when you feel you're ready.  

> b) Does cramming help at all ?

Definately so. My guess is that very very few folks can pass without both academic study and experience.

> c) I have looked at the book by Couchman, the DBA certification guide and
> there is a lot of stuff I don't know in that. Does that make me a bad
> candidate for this exam ?

I haven't seen the book. The example questions you can download from the Web are a fair indication IMO.  

> d) I can understand that experience is the best way to pass this exams, but is
> it impossible for someone with minimal experience to pass these exams by
> studying and such.

There are questions which are designed to catch out folks with only one of academic knowledge and experience. You may be able to scrape a pass with just one and a lot of luck.

> e) I haven't done much backup and recovery(lucky) but I have
> in place reasonable procedures for backup which has worked well for
> me. I have done one recovery with help from Oracle support( major disk crash)
> I believe I probably couldn't have done this without Oracle support. That
> bothers me in my capabilities as a DBA.

There are dozens of possible recovery scenarios. I'm afraid there's no substitute for training/study and experience/practice.  

> f) I haven't started writing these exams yet, I have Oracle 7.3
> at my disposal for me to play around with, and not Oracle 8. Does anyone
> recommend I go straight for Oracle 8 certification or Oracle 7.3.
 

Go for what you have experience of. There is a 7.3 > 8 conversion exam which you could take later. Remember though that each exam costs £100 or $150 pass or fail.

Good luck
Eugene (Unemployed, but with a nice certificate on the wall). Received on Wed Jan 06 1999 - 06:51:00 CST