OCP Oracle Database 11g New Features for Administrators Exam Guide (Exam 1Z0-050) (Oracle Press)

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 Wells 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.UPDATE 12/30/09.Well, the 11g OCP upgrade book published by Sybex never materialized, which makes this book still the only one available for studying for exam 1Z0-050. Predictably, Oracle Press ignored my complaints and has still not issued a corrected second edition. However, someone has put up an errata web page. If you Google "errata oracle 11g new features sam alapati" you'll find it. I am referenced as having submitted errata which I did NOT! The errata web page goes some way towards correcting the obvious errors, but does not address the incomplete or confusing explanations. Use with caution. I passed exam 1Z0-050 back in May and did so using Oracle's software and documentation along with "Oracle Database 11g The Complete Reference" by Kevin Loney (it's not a complete reference, trust me) and the Student Guide from Oracle University's "Oracle Database 11g: New Features for Administrators" course (which also had a ton of errors). Hope that helps.

The book is organized fairly well. I haven't taken the test yet, but the content seems structured around what is on the test. However, I agree with the other reviews. Typos abound in this book. There are extra spaces and missing letters. The examples have extra semicolons, parens, and other mistakes. There are a couple of cases where whole paragraphs are repeated in different subsections. The summary sections often contradict the earlier sections of the chapter. Many of the chapter questions are poorly worded and the answers contradict earlier sections in the chapter.In summary, the book is useful if you use the oracle documentation to validate its assertions. It is amazing that a book this poorly edited is released for publication. Unfortunately, I haven't seen any other source that is organized for the test as well as this book, so I marginally recommend it.

If you are like me I take readers opinions as their own opinion and not a concept of fact. I needed to upgrade my certification and other than going to OU for a class this was the only publicly made available book out in the market. The other readers warned me but I ignored. The code in the book does not work. Very little attention to providing details and explaining concepts. It has alot of PL/SQL procedures without reference or context to anything. I stopped reading after chapter 5. I have a good grasp of ASM, but just irritated with the way the author complicated the subject matter. Totally frustrating read. If you can get a copy of the Oracle University Student from torrent downloads I would advise you use them.

So many have said it, but after using or trying to use this book myself, I have to concede, this is by far the worst technical book I have ever, ever read. It is absolutely loaded with mistakes. Unfortunately if you plan to upgrade then this is the only book out there to use at the moment, so if you decide to buy it you'll need to verify absolutely everything against the Oracle documentation and a 11gR1 database . This in itself might not be a bad thing, but if you're pressed for time it can be very frustrating... and who wants to pay top dollar for a book full of mistakes!Further to this the author struggles to explain complicated subject matter and I had to refer to Oracle's documentation time and again to clarify concepts.This proofed to be extremely frustrating. I will not buy a book from this author again.Ps. The errata only covers a small set of mistakes and still has mistakes in it!

I was giving it the benefit of the doubt based on the comments about inaccuracy and ordered it. How bad can it really be? However after going thru it three times over there are WAY to many errors for this to be completely useful. There are even contradictions on alternating pages. You need to have the Oracle 11g doco up along with this book to validate what you are reading is right. It's good to direct you on what topics to cover, just be sure you read each section, then follow-up with the Oracle doco associated so you get the real story.

Buy this book. It's not good, but buy it anyway. If you want to pass the exam and not to loose too much time, it is worth the money.Mister Alapati is already known from his book "10g New Feautres for Administrators" as someone who makes enormous number of errors. The number of errors in this book (11g) is gigantic. Not only in the text, but also in the example codes, that obviously never has run. Even in the answers of the Self test questions you see errors.So, you don't buy this book for its contents. Without additional source of information you don't have a chance on the exam. You buy it for its structure. It covers the most of the exam topics (watch out the release 2 new features!), and it gives you an idea how you should plan your work.And most of all... there isn't any other exam prep book on the market for 11g. Sybex doesn't publish exam preps any more, so Mr. Alapati can enjoy his monopole position.

First a word of warning: this book contains a lot of mistakes. It also plagiarises substantial parts of the Oracle documentation, i.e. you find examples literally copied and pasted into the book from the available documentation.This severely diminishes the value of the book - and in effect reduces it to an index of areas to study because many parts can already be found in the documentation and because it is full of bugs and therefore cannot be relied upon as the sole source of information.I therefore find that I read the online documentation alongside this book - and I rely on the online documentation where the two differ.It is a shame that the author obviously has not worked through a substantial part of the subject matter - by simply copying and pasting and rewording contents. It is also beyond me how the author and publisher gets away with this obvious disregard for basic copyright law and moral obligations as an author - there is no doubt that in the academic world the author would have been ridiculed and send off on his bike - never to again publish on another subject.Alas, there is no alternative - Sybex, my favorite certification publisher, is yet to release an 11g OCP New Features book for exam 1Z0-050. Such a shame...

I used this book to study for my 11g OCP, but I noticed a lot of errors within it - few that could contribute to wrong answers in the exam. He has an errata on their website, but this also didnt cover everything I picked out. I would have thought something like this and distributed out to the world of oracle DBAs would have had better auditing. I just hope its not the same when 12c new features is available by the same author.All in All - decent to use, but watch out for lazy errors

All you need for upgrade ocp

I am OCP since 8i and I have used this book (along with official Oracle documentation) during my preparation for 1Z0-050. The book has its own share of shortcomings, a fair share of inaccuracies, mistakes and omissions. On the other hand, I’ve successfully passed the exam. The book by its self isn't’ enough and I would not recommend it to anyone new to Oracle database administration. I still have, however, found it useful. I usually read all available books and do a lot of hands-on practices during my preparation for an exam and this book served its purpose.

Das Buch führt in die Thematiken der Prüfung ein. Allerdings muss man in der Prüfung feststellen, dass ein bisschen was fehlt und insbesondere die Tiefe der Antworten nicht ausreichend ist. Die OCP-Prüfung gräbt tiefer.