Re: DBA OCP-tests

Hi:

I received my certification a few months ago, after about 1.5 years as a DBA. The tests are fairly difficult, but certainly not undoable. If you've worked as a DBA and had to solve a lot of problems, then you are more likely to pass. If you don't understand what the books are telling you, then I would suggest tackling the work in a more aggressive manner might help. Figure out how to make the database(s) that you are responsible for run 2-3 times faster (this is definitely doable!), perform recovery tests using a different box, identify what your performance bottlenecks are and figure out how to improve them, etc. Doing these types of things (where you use the books as more of a reference than a "course") will get you the knowledge and experience that you will need to pass the tests. I don't think that you can just study the books and pass, you have to have done much of the work before you can pick out the relevant information in some of the questions. As the other fellow suggested, I would also recommend that you download the assessment tests and practice.

The areas covered extensively in the exams include: thorough undestanding of backup and recovery, thorough understanding of instance-level performance tuning, thorough understanding of security mechanisms, and thorough understanding of SQL.

Good luck,
Dave

Ivan Bajon wrote in message <6g2snq$jnk$1_at_news1.tele.dk>...
>I am currently studying for the OCP test 1. I was wondering if anyone has
>taken the test and would help me in the right direction. I've got the
 Oracle
>Press books. They're quite a mouthful. What I'd like to know is:
>
>1) Is the test a killer unless you are a rocket scientist?
>2) Do the questions require in-depth knowledge of every little detail or
>will a general knowledge suffice?
>3) Are there any books more directly aimed at the OCP than the Oracle Press
>books?
>
>I've been working with Oracle for a year now so Oracle is in no way
>unfamiliar to me. But the material I have is overwhelming so I need to know
>how to study well. I hope someone can give me a clue. I know that there are
>courses and cbt's but I can't afford those.
>
>- Ivan Bajon
>
>
Received on Sat Apr 04 1998 - 00:00:00 CST