DB2 Universal Database V7.1 for Unix, Linux, Windows and OS/2 Database Administration Certification Guide [With 2 CDROM's]

by Bill Wong, Jonathan Cook, George Baklarz

Book Overview

*Gain DB2 Universal Database Certification *Includes demonstration program covering new product features *Preparation for v7.1 Fundamentals and Database Administration Certification Exams *Contains... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0130913669
• ISBN13: 9780130913661
• Release Date: October 2000
• Publisher: Prentice Hall PTR
• Length: 790 Pages
• Weight: 3.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 2.1" x 7.0" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

IBM says you need it...to get a free voucher!!!

Although this book is recommended by IBM as required reading for 513, I recommend 'DB2 All in One - Sanders' instead of this. I used both books along with their free CBT (Fastpath) and passed 513. In truth, I just 'lightly read' this one and mainly used it for it's excellent practice questions. If you are interested in testing 513 for free (type 'free db2 voucher' into google) - you will be interested to know that the qualifying exam is directly from the questions in the back of this book. If you're not going to buy it, at least browse the questions and answers in a bookstore - you'll need it for 513.

Good book but too lengthy.

This book is not bad, covering almost all the test objectives for 512 and 513. However, you have to spend a lot of time studying this heavy book. I have to say it's not compact. And the sample questions are so few! So I recommend this as a reference book, not a primary study guide. If you want to pass 512 and 513 in a short period of time, I recommend you download a free CBT provided by IBM: Fast Path to DB2 UDB for Experienced Relational DBAs. This CBT is really cool. It covers all test objectives of 512 and 513 except SQL usage. And it contails many sample questions. It also provides a good lab. You can practice using a sample database. You can complete this CBT in about 8 hours. During you study, you can use the certification guide as reference book. And for SQL usage section, you can use the cetification guide to study.You can download this free CBT (or ask for a CD-ROM) in IBM website. CBT for application development is also avaliable.

It's a must read for the DB2 certification

I am not a DBA before and base on this book, I pass both exam 512 and 513. 512 is easy. My colleague who is fimilar with SQL pass 512 with only half day study of this guide, and with the tips that I gave him. 513 is more difficult, I think I will fail when I took the exam, but the result is I pass. Concurrency, authority and privillege is a must read topic. You can skip the chapter for typed table, NT security.Don't waste time on reading other IBM DB2 manuals if you just want to pass the exam.

An essential text but not the only reference needed to pass

As I write, I have passed exam #512 DB2 Family Fundamentals and i'm presently studying for exam #513 administration. Although I only studied from this one reference for the first exam I felt that when I actually took the exam I was hit with more than a few questions that I was unprepared for. In particular more detailed knowledge of (IBM specific) DML statements would have been helpful. The text of the book doesn't really contain a DDL/DML refernce.I do feel however that if it were not for my previous experience as an Oracle DBA many of the SQL questions would have gone over my head. The toughest part of the exam in my estimation is the section on concurrency and locking. And although I feel that the explanations given in the book are satisfactory the wording of the questions on the exam was a bit more difficult to comprehend than I was really prepared for. So I would advise you to study that section of the book very thoroughly.In preparation for the administration exam I have purchased DB2 High Performance Design and Tuning which gives very thorough attention to performance and tuning issues. The exam prep guide only gives cursory information about this oh so vital subject area. I feel that with both of these texts I will be more than adequately prepared for the admin exam. And even though I have not checked out the accompanying CD to this point I would advise you to investigate its' contents as there may be some valuable information available.

A nice update of the Version 6.1 book

This book is an update of "DB2 Universal Database V6.1 for Unix, Windows and OS/2 Certification Guide, ISBN 0130867551" - see also my review on that one, it is more or less applicable to this new one too. The updating itself was done in a nice manner - parts of text were re-written, so this is a real 7.1 book. Important: for certifications, the old 6.1 book prepared you for all 3 exams (fundamentals, administration, application development). This has changed: this 7.1 book covers only the first 2 tests, the chapters on application development were cut short and are meant only as an overview for this area. You find the text on this (updated even more) in another new book: "DB2 Universal Database v7.1: Application Development Certification Guide, ISBN 0130913677" - it prepares you for the application development certification test. My experience is that these books, combined with some real hands-on work with DB2, are absolutely sufficient for passing the certification tests. The tests are not so terribly difficult. The hardest one is the one on administration, fundamentals are easy (a warm-up test), application development is somewhere between. A colleague of mine even learned from the 6.1 book and passed the 7.1 administration certification test without difficulties. Should you buy this book, if you own the 6.1 version? It depends. If you want to have the series complete, buy it. But basically the 6.1 version + 7.1 new features from the 7.1 CD or from IBM WWW page could do it too... If you are new to DB2, this is a very nice book for you. Gives very good overview, reasonable explanations, good examples. Could contain a little bit more overall conceptual explanations, could contain more details, the structure could be somewhat better - but altogether, it is out of the questions that it earns 4 stars.