- I passed today (May 4th, 2000) the second Oracle8 DBA test "1Z0-013 Oracle8: Database Administration". - I got 60 out of 63 questions right, but only 43 correct answers are required for passing. - I prepared hard (4 months passed since the first exam), and this exam covers a quite large area of knowledge. - However, since the passing limit is so low, you can probably take the exam already when you don't know everything. Basically, a DBA can have very different experiences on his/her job, so this is probably why they don't expect you to know everything, but only "sufficiently much". - I used the book Jason S. Couchman: Oracle 8i Certified Professional: DBA Certification Exam Guide With CDROM. Osborne / ORACLE Press, August 1999, ISBN 0072120878, 1200 pages, $99.99. for preparation. Check for a newer edition when you buy it. There are some errors in the book, but basically it is the best book there is for preparing for the exams (unless you want to spend thousands of dollars for the official Oracle Training). I only know one other book. - Of course, I also read the Oracle Manuals quite throughly (especially the Oracle8 Concepts Manual, The Oracle8 Administrator's Guide and the Oracle8 Reference), Of course, I also played around with the system. Practical experience will help you to understand many things better and to remember them better. If you only read them, some things can be quite boring and you forget them too soon (some things immediately). - Finally, I invested $99 for the example questions from selftestsoftware.com This is probably the reason why I passed with such a good "grade". There is only a pass/fail result, so it is not very important to put too much work and money into the preparation (the number of correct questions is, however, written in the examination report which you get after the exam). But basically, I wanted to be on the safe side, it would have been quite embarrassing to fail (you also would have to pay the $125 for the test again). - It was a good preparation to do the 300 example questions, some again and again. At least one of the questions appeared (maybe in a slight variation) in the actual exam (and I would have got that one wrong if I hadn't seen it before). - I was a bit disappointed that the explanations you can get for the sample questions are very short. They reference the Oracle manuals and the official Oracle training material (which is too expensive for me), but the explanation for the correct answer is usually only a few lines, and normally no explanation is given for the incorrect answers. Also, one answer in the sample test was wrong. The question was what happens if you set the INITIAL storage parameter in a table definition too low (only one database block). They said the correct answer was "an error message is returned", but really Oracle silently increases the size of the initial extent to the minimum possible. So when you to the sample tests, read the certification book, or my course materials, you should always be a bit critical and think or check yourself. - By the way, teaching INFSCI 2711 was also an important part of my preparation. Some things taught there did appear (Storage Parameters, Indexes, Data Dictionary, Partitioning, Segments for Sorting during query evaluation, Oracle Processes and data structures, buffering, tablespaces, which things not to put on the same disk, the ANALYZE TABLE command, migrated rows, ...). But I should have covered also the rollback segments, redo logs, control files, startup and shutdown, temporary tablespaces, direct load insert, ... Maybe after some time you will find some more chapters on the INFSCI 2711 homepage. If you want to be informed about any major news, please send me your email address. Some Technical Remarks on the Test: ---------------------------------- - You have 90 minutes for 63 questions (sometimes there can be additional beta test questions, which are not graded, but I had none). - The time is more than enough. Since it is absolutely closed book (you even have to leave your purse outside) you either know it or you don't know it. I read the questions very carefully, and took a short note about each question (hoping that that might help me to find out afterwards which I had done wrong), and was done in less than an hour. You cannot take any notes with you and must sign that you keep the questions confidential. - They do show you in which areas you made mistakes, but they do not show you the wrong questions. - Read all the answers carefully, sometimes there might be a better answer further down. Also if a scroll bar is shown, scroll down, the right answer might be out of sight. - If you don't know the answer, eliminate the obviously wrong ones, and guess between the remaining ones (after reading the question again very carefully). There are no negative points for wrong answers, and if you leave a question open, you certainly lose the point. - You can mark questions, to which you want to return at the end, but you actually can return to all questions, not only the marked ones. I did a second pass of all the questions in the remaining 30 minutes, but didn't change anything. - You need two forms of identification. You also need to know your SSN by heart (and enter it without the hyphens). Official Contents List: ---------------------- 1. Oracle Architecture Components (4 Questions) 2. Using Administration Tools (1 Question) 3. Managing an Oracle Instance (5 Questions) 4. Creating a Database (2 Questions) 5. Data Dictionary Views and Standard Packages (2 Questions) 6. Maintaining the Controlfile (2 Questions) 7. Maintaining Redo Log Files (5 Questions) 8. Managing Tablespaces and Data Files (5 Questions) 9. Storage Structure & Relationships (3 Questions) 10. Managing Rollback Segments (3 Questions) 11. Managing Temporary Segments (2 Questions) 12. Managing Tables (5 Questions) 13. Managing Indexes (4 Questions) 14. Maintaining Data Integrity (2 Questions) 15. Using Clusters and Index-Organized Tables (2 Questions) 16. Loading and Reorganizing Data (4 Questions) 17. Managing Users (3 Questions) 18. Managing Profiles (2 Questions) 19. Managing Privileges (1 Question) 20. Managing Roles (2 Questions) 21. Auditing (1 Question) 22. Using National Language Support (3 Questions) Some Remarks about the Contents: ------------------------------- - You need to know something about the Oracle architecture: E.g. which Oracle process is responsible for a given task. What does a system change number (SCN) mean? What are the steps in which a query is processed? What happens at Commit time? You also should know a bit about the SGA and its components. - You need to know a bit about the Oracle Enterprise Manager (see below). E.g. which OEM tool would you use for a given task. Also the Server Manager Line Mode (svrmgrl) did appear in one question. - You need to know quite a lot about the data dictionary including the V$-tables. E.g. which table would you use to find a given information. Actually, 16 of the 63 questions contained data dictionary tables in one way or the other. But this doesn't mean much. As I always say, if you really understood the data dictionary, you know Oracle. Some V$ tables appearing in the sample questions (which I still remember) are V$CONTROLFILE, V$CONTROLFILE_RECORD_SECTION, V$DATABASE, V$DATAFILE, V$LOG, V$LOGFILE, V$PARAMETER, V$ROLLNAME, V$ROLLSTAT, V$SESSION, V$SORT_SEGMENT, V$SORT_USAGE, V$THREAD, V$TRANSACTION. - You need to know security quite well (the grant command, of course, but also system privileges, roles, profiles for resource limits, profiles for password management, auditing). - You need to know how to create a new database. You should understand the CREATE DATABASE, ALTER DATABASE, ALTER SYSTEM commands. - You should know how to manage tablespaces (add datafiles, rename datafiles, etc.) By the way, Oracle's ALTER DATABASE RENAME FILE only changes the information in the controlfile, you must still move the file by means of operating system commands. - You need to know how to start and stop a database (including the different shutdown modes). Also the three startup states (instance running, database mounted, database open). You need to know how to create an administrator password file (with the ORAPWD utility). You need to know about some initialization parameters. E.g. which parameters cannot be changed after creating the database? - You need to know about rollback segments. - You need to know about log files (redo log groups). - You need to know a bit about SQL Loader. - You need to know about the natural language support. - Of course, the physical parameters for table declarations (INITIAL, NEXT, PCTINCREASE, PCTFREE, PCTUSED) are also subject of the exam. - You should know what scripts like sql.bsq and catalog.sql do. (They can be found in the $ORACLE_HOME/rdbms/admin folder). - You should know what kind of information is stored in datafiles, redo log files, control files, the parameter file, trace files, the alert file. - You should know some Oracle limits, e.g. minimum and maximum number of controlfiles, recommended minimum number of controlfiles etc. - There was a question which included the REF construct of the object-relational features. - The example questions contained the Optimal Flexible Architecture which describes where to put which files (only in one single question). It is explained e.g. in the "Oracle8i Personal Edition for Windows NT Getting Started" Booklet. This booklet also explains how to create a database "by hand" (which might be a useful experience). At least for Oracle8i on NT you have to use the utility ORADIM for the initial creation of a new Oracle instance. (This is operating system specific, so it should not appear in the test.) Oracle Enterprise Manager (OEM): ------------------------------- - Part of the OEM system is the DBA Management Pack. It is a graphical interface to the data dictionary and allows not only to see the information in the data dictionary, but also to perform all common DBA tasks which otherwise need SQL commands like e.g. ALTER DATABASE. It consists of 5 DBA tools: - Instance Manager: Start up or shut down a database, edit database initialization parameters, manage in-doubt transactions and user sessions. - Schema Manager: Create, edit, drop, and examine schema objects (e.g. tables, view, indexes, clusters, synonyms, sequences, procedures, functions, packages, snapshots). - Security Manager: Administer users, roles, system privileges, and profiles. - Storage Manager: Administer tablespaces, datafiles, rollback segments, and redo logs. - SQL*Plus Worksheet: Basically the same as SQL*Plus. However, it now finally got a history mechanism (saving the last 50 commands) and separates the command input and the query result output in two different windows. It also has the standard screen-oriented editiong capabilities for commands, in contrast to the very basic line-editor for the standard SQL*Plus. - There are also wizards for Backup, Recovery, Export, Import, Data Loading. - In addition to the DBA Management Pack, there is the Enterprise Manager Console. - It allows to administer several administrators, to create a schedule who is notified if certain events occur (e.g. a tablespace is full, the database does not respond any more etc.). OEM can be configured send an email to a paging carrier if this happens. - You can define jobs which should be executed at certain times or in response to certain events ("fixit jobs"). - The enterprise manager has its own repository in the oracle database to manage its information. - You can manage several databases on several computers (even globally distributed) from a single console. - There are "intelligent agents" on the remote nodes which work together with the OEM. It executes jobs and checks events defined in the OEM.