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| OCP Oracle Database 11g: New Features for Administrators Exam Guide (Exam 1Z0-050) (Osborne Oracle Press) | 
enlarge | Author: Sam R. Alapati Publisher: McGraw-Hill Osborne Media Category: Book
List Price: $59.99 Buy New: $32.35 You Save: $27.64 (46%)
Buy New/Used from $26.99
Avg. Customer Rating:   (6 reviews) Sales Rank: 60257
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Unknown), English (Published) Media: Paperback Edition: 1 Number Of Items: 1 Pages: 523 Shipping Weight (lbs): 2 Dimensions (in): 8.9 x 7.3 x 1.2
ISBN: 0071496823 Dewey Decimal Number: 005.7565 EAN: 9780071496827 ASIN: 0071496823
Publication Date: April 28, 2008 Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
A Fully Integrated Study System for OCP Exam 1Z0-050 Prepare for the Oracle Certified Professional Oracle Database 11g New Features for Administrators exam with help from this exclusive Oracle Press guide. In each chapter, you'll find challenging exercises, practice questions, a two-minute drill, and a chapter summary to highlight what you've learned. This authoritative guide will help you pass the test, and serve as your essential on-the-job reference. Get complete coverage of all OCP objectives for exam 1Z0-050, including: - Installation and upgrades
- Partitioning and storage
- Intelligent infrastructure
- Diagnostics and fault management
- Performance
- Oracle Recovery Manager and Oracle Flashback
- Security
- Oracle SQL Performance Analyzer
- SQL plan management
- Automatic SQL tuning
On the CD-ROM: - One full practice exam that simulates the actual OCP exam
- Detailed answers and explanations
- Score report performance assessment tool
- Complete electronic book
- Bonus exam available free with online registration
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| Customer Reviews: Read 1 more reviews...
  Bordering on Useless - AVOID! October 4, 2008 I concede that writing a technical book which is 100% complete and accurate is virtually impossible. However, that does not detract from the author's and technical reviewer's responsibility to strive for that level of perfection. Especially for an exam guide.
I have been taking the OCP DBA exams since Oracle7 and have bought an exam guide every time to help me with my studies. This book is by far the worst one I have ever used due to its missing content, errors and confused explanations. And I'm barely a third of the way through. Sounds harsh? Here are some examples:
One page 5, it states the default ADR directory is of the form $ORACLE_BASE. WRONG! It's $ORACLE_BASE/diag. This error is repeated several more times in the book.
Also on page 5, it gives an example of the location for trace files for a database called orcl2 with an instance name of orcl2. The example given is /u01/app/oracle/diag/rdbms/orcl2/orcl2. That's fine, but it doesn't explain if the first orcl2 is the database name or the instance name.
On page 11, it defines an init parameter called DDL_TIME_LOCKOUT. WRONG! It's actually called DDL_LOCK_TIMEOUT.
On page 15, point #7 mentions you are offered the choice of listeners for the new database you're creating using the DBCA. That's true only if there are some listeners already configured which use that ORACLE_HOME. If there aren't, which is more likely if you've just installed 11g and are creating an 11g database for the first time, you get a warning message. This message tells you there are no listeners and that you'll need to configure one using Netca in a separate session before you can continue (assuming you want to configure Database Control for your new database). Thus point #7 is incomplete.
On page 17, it defines some profile resources for passwords, including PASSWORD_REUSE_MAX and PASSWORD_REUSE_TIME. The definitions for these two are the wrong way around.
That's 5 examples in the first 17 pages! Another reviewer mentioned the author's thanks given to April Well for her "expert technical vetting" which allowed the author to "avoid errors and improve the quality of the presentation". The technical vetting either wasn't done at all or was done in such a hurry that many, many errors, omissions and confused explanations got as far as the publisher. That is wholly unacceptable and in my view Oracle Press should withdraw this edition of the book immediately. What makes it worse is the author, Sam Alapati, is the co-author of the Oracle Database 11g New Features for DBAs and Developers book published by Apress. I'm finding the things which are wrong in this exam guide are also wrong in the other book. Unbelievable!
My advice is to avoid this book altogether. If you have to verify virtually everything you read with Oracle's own documentation, you may as well just read Oracle's documentation. It'll save you time and money. You'll also benefit from the knowledge that what you're reading has actually been proof read by someone with the necessary amount of time and prerequisite level of competence.
I shall be writing to Oracle Press to demand a refund of my purchase price and a heavy discount or free copy of the second edition. We'll see how seriously they take their customers views and how well they stand behind their publications.
  Full of Errors July 24, 2008 3 out of 3 found this review helpful
The 'Acknowledgments' section starts thus: "I wish to acknowledge the excellent technical editing of the book by April Wells. Thanks to April's careful and expert technical vetting, I've been able to avoid errors and improve the quality of the presentation."
It's therefore hard to know who is most at fault for the appalling quality of this book. I wouldn't hire either of them for a job that required any attention to detail.
I started making a list of errors to see whether my initial impression was correct, and I am finding at least one per page on average. Here's a typical example: in a 3-page discussion of Automatic Memory Management starting on p328, there are (by my count) 63 mentions of memory-related parameters; of these, 9 are incorrectly named. And recognising the correct names of parameters is a common exam question!
There are also inconsistencies between different parts of the text, and in the self-test questions and answers, which means that you'll have to look up the correct information elsewhere.
Moreover, many of the explanations are extremely woolly and repetitive. For example: "The DBMS_ADDM package contains several 'directive' procedures to add specific directives to create directives of various kinds."
It's almost as though the publishers have used the first draft by mistake. No doubt the coverage of exam topics is comprehensive (I haven't checked against the syllabus), but the errors and the imprecise explanations make this a book to avoid if you want to pass the exam.
  Too many unbelieveable mistakes - Call back this book! July 3, 2008 3 out of 3 found this review helpful
I cannot believe the author, as an experienced Oracle DBA, provided the following command (here only one bad example from huge other mistakes)to run a pl/sql function!
Chapter 4, page 233. Using the EVOLVE_SQL_PLAN_BASELINE Function SQL>exec dbms_spm.evolve_sql_plan_baseline(sql_handle=>'123456789999');
The Correct Command should be: SET SERVEROUTPUT ON SET LONG 10000 DECLARE report clob; BEGIN report := DBMS_SPM.EVOLVE_SQL_PLAN_BASELINE( sql_handle => '123456789999');
DBMS_OUTPUT.PUT_LINE(report); END; /
The other simple misleading errors are the default value of the new parameters. When I read this book, I have to compare the related contents with Oracle manuals for 11g.
This book should be called back!
  It's ok content wise, just lots of typos and obvious errors June 30, 2008 1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I'm about half way through the book and am amazed by all the typing mistakes in the book. Most are so obvious and some can cause some confusion to readers. Hopefully the publisher releases errata [...]. The actual content seems to be ok and has provided me enough information to research on my own. Hope there is a second edition and hopefully it's better...
  Unfortunately, too many mistakes June 23, 2008 3 out of 3 found this review helpful
Unfortunately, the book contains an incredible amount of errors - both typing and meaningful: different paragraphs conflict with each other, questions conflict with material in chapters, etc ... Previous "exam cram" books contained many mistakes, but definitely not as much as this one ...
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