Re: Total oracle newbie

On Fri, 07 Feb 2003 13:17:03 +0000, Anthony wrote:

> Howdy,
>
> I've worked with DB2 & hierarchical databases for most of my computing
> life, but have been a casual observer to the explosion of Oracle use. I've
> visited websites and inquired as to information regarding Oracle
> certification, there is a course offered costing around 12K fr this but that
> seems ridiculous to me.

I see you posting from a ".au" account, so I can tell you that $12,000 is NOT the cost of "a" course, but the cost for the entire set of courses you'd need to take the OCP exams.

Accordingly, you could spread that across maybe 6+ months.

For the record, and speaking most definitely NOT as a salesman, the DBA Fundamentals courses (I and II) are about $2,800 each (and each lasts 5 days, so you're paying about $560 per day). The Performance Tuning Course costs about $3,200 (another 5 days). And the SQL Course (which I don't teach) is probably another $2,500+, making a grand total of about $12,000.

Do you need to do all of them? No, not if you're prepared to invest in some books, have a PC at home on which to install a free copy of Oracle, and play around. If you're aiming for OCP, though, you will be examined on all of them, so you are expected to know the material covered on all of them.

If you are already pretty good at DB2 SQL, for example, then I would say that the SQL course was probably over-kill. But Oracle SQL is not the same as DB2 SQL (call it an 'accent' or a 'dialect' if you like), and the OCP exam would expect you know the Oracle dialect.

DBA Fundamentals I and DBA Fundamentals II are excellent courses, and should be considered compulsory, particularly if you are coming to Oracle from another database-like background. So that's $6,000 you really have to spend.

Performance Tuning is a tricky one. Personally, I think it's one of the weakest courses we teach, and its relationship to how you tune in the real world is good in parts, tenuous in other parts, with the balance on the tenuous side. It's all good information, but I don't think it makes you able to tune a database. Once again, though, the OCP will expect you to know the material.

If money was tight, and I wanted OCP, I'd find $6,000 to do the Fundamentals courses (both of them), and go buy some Oracle Press books to cover the tuning and SQL courses.

(Incidentally, Oracle Press books are almost universally dreadful, and I'm only mentioning them here because, once again, if you want the OCP, you need to know the curriculum material, and OP books cover it quite closely. If your concern was to be *good* at Oracle, I'd advise staying away from the Oracle Press books like the plague. Two completely different objectives, I'm afraid). Received on Sat Feb 08 2003 - 15:03:43 CST