Re: Oracle Certification - Study Material

In article <8isvnj$tvs$1_at_nnrp1.deja.com>,   japs1_at_my-deja.com wrote:
> I wish to study for the Oracle8 DBA OCP exam.
>
> I will be doing this on my own (ie. not provided by employer), and
 have
> looked into the Computer Based Training (CBT) route, rather than
> Instructor led training.
>
> The problem is, when I looked into the price of the CBT's that support
> this exam, I noticed the pack of 5 was $2999.00.
>
> Well, unfortunately this is WELL outside my budget, and I was
 wondering
> if anyone had any other ideas of how to study for the exams.
>
> Does anyone know where I can buy the CBT's second hand?
>
> Are there any good books that would support the exam content.
>
> I have been working as an Oracle applications designer/developer and a
> little DBA over the last 4 years, and have been in general systems
> design/development for 10 years in total.
>
> I want to start to get more of an appreciation of the DBA side and
> thought that studying for, and sitting the Oracle8 DBA OCP exam would
> be a good start.
>
> Any help is most greatly appreciated.
>
> Japs1.
>

If you read the Concepts and DBA Administration manuals for the version you will be testing on, cover to cover, then I believe that you can pass the DBA examination without using any other references.

You should be able to do the same for the Net 8 test.

But for backup and recovery you might want some materials because I found recogning the important rman commands difficult from just reading the manaul and rman makes up maybe half the examination. Actual time spent creating a recovery catalog and running backups and recoveries with rman may be enough to over come this. I read the student notes from Oracle's backup class that a co-worker had, and found them very good for the rman material.

For Performance and Tuning I think that the Oracle Press book and/or some of the others on the market read after reading the Manual or a couple of these books in place of the manual will work.

If your goal is to get certified then if you are going to spend money spend it taking Oracle's classes since the tests seem to be based on the same material source. There is a lot more material in the manuals than in the Oracle class on the subject so the classes cut out unnecessary material. To be a good DBA you need to know that material, but to get certified you can skip what isn't covered in Oracle's preparation materials.

Be sure to download and take the free sample tests. That is what tiped me off to not being ready for the Backup and Recovery examination after doing well on the Basic SQL and DBA Admin from just reading the manuals (and having 5 years experience).

--
Mark D. Powell  -- The only advice that counts is the advice that
 you follow so follow your own advice --


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