any way?

[xjin]

Would anyone who has NO Oracle DBA experience (1*), use his/her part-time study (2*), and pass OCP within short time period (3*) offer some tips to beat OCP?

1* eg. first time to hear CONTROL FILE & REDO LOG FILE.
2* 1-3 hours per day, may have multiple part-time works.
3* 3-6 months for all exams.

[grjohnson]

Originally posted by xjin
... to beat OCP?

I hate that term... it's not about beating it, it's about learning from it.

[Edited by grjohnson on 09-16-2002 at 06:02 PM]

[Sureshy]

Someone with no DBA experience (1*), using his/her time to study (2*) to pass OCP in short period (3*). would have to have a damn good reason to be considering OCP track in the first place.

If you are simply knowledge hungry, then fair enough.
If you are using OCP to get a DBA position, I would be very sceptical, there are many threads in these forums that will give you an idea of the rough road you are walking down.

OCP is not there to get inexperienced Oracle fanatics jobs, especially in this current market. It is there to allow you to build your knowldege and have an undestanding of Oracle, possibly get your foot in the door of a company which uses Oracle (but not as their DBA). In my opinion you cannot set a time scale on how long this will take, it depends on you.

It took me 6 months to get the OCP (with 12 months DBA experience), it takes some people over a year, one person did it in 1 day (I wonder where wannabe is nowadays).

Yes, I suppose it is possible to 'beat it' in 2/3 months maybe, but this is not a GAME.

[carlaus]

To reiterate the previous posts - OCP will not get you a DBA job, but it will certainly improve your knowledge of Oracle. I'm an Oracle developer with 4 years experience (and some basic DBA skills). I did the OCP DBA track to help me learn more on the internal workings of Oracle, and to become aware of the more esoteric features of the software. DBA certification has certainly helped me achieve this goal.


It may also help me take on some more DBAish tasks at some of my client sites, but I'm not counting on that.


Regarding time - it took me about 8 months from start to finish, with very irregular study hours.


...and I agree, it is best not to approach it as something to be "beaten".

[Tim2]

I took my first Oracle exam on June 2nd and did the 5th on September 11th. I have no real world Oracle experience, though I have a great deal of experience with MS SQL Server and have a very easy time with certification exams in general. But I also took two beta Microsoft exams in June and July and a week and a half vacation after that. I didn't take my 2nd Oracle exam until July 24.

I have to admit that after the first exam I found it difficult to motivate myself and took the exams as soon as I thought I could pass, rather than when I thought I could threaten a perfect score. I'm primarily a developer and want to learn enough to investigate supporting Oracle with the software I write (so the SQL exam was also the most interesting to me). I also teach SQL Server classes occasionally and often have a student or two with an Oracle background. The ones in the past helped pique my interest and I think I'll be more able to compare & contrast some things for future students.

I read the Oracle Press book, usually the Exam Cram for version 8 of the corresponding exam, the Cramsession.com study guides, and tried any free or demo practice exams I could find. I do have 8i installed at home, but again, especially after the first exam, I did precious little actual experimenting with it.

I'm currently studying for the 9i upgrade exam and hope to take that before the end of the month. I've got a couple of trips out of town then and it'll be delayed at least a couple of weeks if I don't finish it before those.

So, it's certainly doable, but it is a lot of work.