Please help me providing some questions for IZO-042 .

[Rukmini]

Hi,
I think I am a novice in this forum. I want to attend myself in OCA 10g exam . Please I need your help. ..............

[Rukmini]

Who can help me?

[davey23uk]

you can help yourself, get a junior job, learn oracle for a couple of years, take the exam based on your knowledge

[Rukmini]

Ok, thank you for your proper instruction. I think it is a good suggession for me. If you ask me any question or puzzles , i will try to solve.

[citrowske]

It's a tough business to start in. You can't get a job because you don't have experience and you can't get experience without a job. Credentials is the key here. The big credential is experience. You can get experience by having a job or by doing it yourself on your own computers. Obviously job experience is better. Another method to get credentials is to acquire certifications. But it's hard to get certified without experience, and certifications alone won't be enough to land the job.

You did not say if you were in the IT field or not. If you don't have an IT-related job and want to go into Oracle...your chances if getting in are a little better than zero.

How much do you want it? Immerse yourself in it. If you enjoy it, it'll show and you'll eventually get that opportunity.

Without knowing your situation, I have a few suggestions:
1. Download the software and install it, use it. It's freely available.
2. Read, read, and read books and Oracle documentation. Find books with practical exercises that make you use the system. Oracle has a lot of free pdf documents and material. Tons of material here: http://www.oracle.com/pls/db102/homepage
3. Do your best to attend an official Oracle training class. It'll go a long ways towards learning the material, getting some expert advise, and meeting other DBA's, and getting some practical hands-on exercises.
4. Attend local Oracle user groups. Networking is a key here. Converse with others, meet the people and companies who use Oracle. Don't start asking for a job. You don't want to turn people off. Get to know people...let them you know are trying to learn Oracle to the best of your ability. If you are sincere, it should show.
5. Learn UNIX/Linux. Most Oracle is installed on Unix/Linux. You'll need to know it to get a job. Download Oracle's Unbreakable Linux and install it. Get Red Hat's linux. Take some Linux courses. It's important...maybe even critical.

Another indirect method to get into the dba world may be to go the "dare I say" Microsoft route. Learn Microsoft SQL Server. It's not as hard to learn, you won't need to learn Unix/Linux, and it will introduce you to common database terminology. And, it'll also be easier to get a junior-level job doing Microsoft SQL. Once you start learning it, start applying the concepts to Oracle. Knowing both databases is a good thing. It makes your more marketable. Very few companies today are in a vacuum of one single platform. Plus, once you get a job in sql server, it's easier to ask the employer -- hey, I want to cross-train in Oracle so I can help out the Oracle side as well.

I'm sure there are plenty of Oracle "purists" who will scoff at my suggestion, as if Microsoft is the enemy. This is not about drawing lines in the sand -- it's about learning databases -- and about getting a job in it.

I know that's a long-winded answer, but I hope you find some value in it. Good luck.

[PAVB]

Learn Microsoft SQL Server. It's not as hard to learn

Oh boy, another one.

Would you say Sybase is not as hard to learn either?
Are you aware SQL Server is a sophisticated version of Sybase?
Did you know SQL Server 4.2 was "actually" Sybase? the same code?
That there is a reason the name is SQL Server? "SQL Server" is actually the name of Sybase engine and Microsoft people couldn't find anything better!!!

Just because you can install SQL Server just by clicking around in a fancy interface -thing you can do nowadays with Oracle too - doesn't mean it's easier.

Well, if you are talking about using SQL Server like you use Excel or MS-Access, that's easy - but that's not what you have to learn to become a DBA.

By the way, you can also install Oracle on Windows -you don't have to learn Unix if that's what troubles you.

[citrowske]

Define what you mean by "easier".

I define "easier" this way. What is the learning curve? How much studying will it take to do most tasks a DBA has to do:
1. Installation
2. Backups
3. Restores
4. Performance tuning
5. File management
etc.
When you get into more advanced topics like clustering etc., it's going to take more training on both platforms. But let's stick with the normal everybody DBA tasks, and I find it hard to believe that anybody could argue that they can begin administering Oracle in the same amount of time it would take to begin administering SQL Server. It's not even close.

I regularly use both platforms, and in fact, learned MS SQL server first -- version 7.0. But having learned both databases and having used both of them for quite some time, I can speak with experience that Oracle has a significantly longer learning curve compared to MS SQL Server and making that statement doesn't means MS SQL Server as simple as an MS Access.

And finally, just because Oracle CAN be installed on Windows, doesn't mean that companies do it. Most shops install Oracle on some variant of Unix. It's simply a fact.

[davey23uk]

Define what you mean by "easier".

And finally, just because Oracle CAN be installed on Windows, doesn't mean that companies do it. Most shops install Oracle on some variant of Unix. It's simply a fact.

if its a fact, you can back your claims up surely?