Rating: 
Summary: Beware the CD
Review: Book 5 stars. CD 1 stars. I have just finished the Net8 part of the book. I got a very good understanding of all the options. I can highly recommend the book for the text and the offline review questions. The CD is frustrating. All the answers are one question off. (i.e., on question 1 it gives the answer for question 2). When you score the exam you look like a fool. If you click on the answer button, the explanation will give you the appropriate answer.
Rating:
Summary: Beware the CD
Review: Book 5 stars. CD 1 stars. I have just finished the Net8 part of the book. I got a very good understanding of all the options. I can highly recommend the book for the text and the offline review questions. The CD is frustrating. All the answers are one question off. (i.e., on question 1 it gives the answer for question 2). When you score the exam you look like a fool. If you click on the answer button, the explanation will give you the appropriate answer.
Rating: 
Summary: Good book but not complete
Review: Good book for the most part but lacking in good material covering the V$ performance view and DBA static views which crop up excessively in the test especially in relation to chapters 4 - 7 (memory and I/O) tuning. A little week on the MTS views also which shocked me when I took the test. Should use this book along with Tuning section from standard Oracle8i documentation and V$ and DBA views from Reference section also from standard Oracle8i documentation.
Rating:
Summary: Good Book - Bad CD
Review: I enjoyed reading this presentation of the Oracle software even though it contained many typographical errors. It was like sitting down with a senior software engineer and having him explain how the software works. My only disappointment was with the included CD containing practice tests. I had to have the CD replaced because it was shipped before it was tested. The replacement CD would not install on my PC using the instructions in the readme file. It appears no one tested the instructions. I don't understand why the publisher is unwilling to test the product before shipping it. I was able to run the tests directly from the CD, however this was much noiser than running from disk. This book is still better than what Oracle provides, even with the CD problems.
Rating:
Summary: Network Administration Chapters Review
Review: I found this book very informative and covering almost ALL questions covered in the exam. There are 11 Chapters in total (including additional 8i Chapter on CD) , which are all written in an easily to understand way with 20 review questions after each chapter. The topics covered in the last chapter (on CD) can be also found throughtout the relevant chapters, but it a good revision chapter on the new NET8 abilities. There are 3 practice exams within the book and CD, I would advise only attmpting the last Practice exam (toward the end of the book) when you get close to feeling you are ready to sit the real exam. This will give you a good guide as to whether you have learnt enough about NET8. The only negative issue I have in regard to this section of the book is that some of the revision question answers are incorrect, and can be a bit frustrating, on the upside though, if you can determine which are wrong, you must be learning something. The Bonus Exam on the CD is the worst offender, in which has all the wrong answers for the questions.. gave me a bit of a fright when I first saw my score. Also, the questions are a bit to 'theoryish', and I would've like to have seen a few more Situation questions like the real exam uses. All-in-all though, these NET8 chapters, as well as drawing on industry experince, were the only resources I utilised on the road to completing my NET8 exam, whilst scoring 48/59. In hindsight, these NET8 chapters deserve 4.5 stars, losing that half a star because of the error in the exam questions. Great information for any DBA though, and definatly the only one to consider when making your Oracle book purchase for OCP.
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent Choice of Study Guide
Review: I found this study guide to be exceptional. Very well written and comprehensive. The examples and figures displayed throughout the book were well done and emphasized the key concepts essential for the exam. It is obvious the authors are knowledgeable and have extensive real-life application in a variety of settings. This provides for a more practical and useful study guide. Also, since I travel extensively, I found that the Book/CD package allowed me to study anywhere.
Rating:
Summary: Passed the Performance Tuning Exam
Review: I passed the performance tuning exam with 48 out of 57 and studied for just 46 days. I read through this book first and then found a copy of the Instructor Lead Training (ILT) book. I found that Oracle documentation was much more difficult to read. When taking the bonus exam, manually write the answer on a piece of paper and check each answer while you are going through the test because when you click the grade button, that answer sheet is WRONG. I used this book to tune two databases at work because the material is very well presented. Regarding the exam, there were 20 very, VERY easy questions and 20 questions that were very difficult. W. C. Feurtado, MCSE, MCDBA, and OCP-DBA wannabe (4 down, 1 to go) ...
Rating:
Summary: I recommend this book.
Review: I scored 54 out of 57 on the 8i Performance and Tuning exam using this book. The explainations in that section are better than in any other book I've used. I also used the Self Test Software and some notes I found on-line to get fully prepared. The Network Admin portion of the book is good too, but there seems to be a lot more errors in that part. Also some of the examples confused me, but perhaps that was due to the errors, I don't know. Better supplement this book with another reference, just in case. This book is heavy and bulky, so it isn't something I'd want to tote around. Wish they didn't bundle two books together. On the whole it is a great book; if not for the errors in it, I'd have given it 5 stars.
Rating:
Summary: good preparation kit
Review: I'd like to say this book is good but not excellent. Divided into 2 parts, Performance Tuning and Network Administration. You can rely on Network Administration part to make you pass the exam without using other preparation kit. But for the Performance Tuning part, I accept that it's not quite complete. Don't be surprised if you find some questions in the exam ask about something that never stated in this book.But may be you have no choice since I've never seen Performance Tuning material that cover all of the exam ( even from Oracle Press). Anyway, you still can pass it ( like me) but not so good score.Just read it carefully
Rating:
Summary: Performance Tuning incomple but enough to pass
Review: My Performance Tuning exam study was completely based on this book and I passed. However, I had a few surprises on the exam; there were certain things that were not even mentioned in the book. I did 80%. For my previous exams, I'd used books in this series but I had also studied Oracle lecture notes and I had made more than 90%. For Performance Tuning exam, don't forget to study the MTS chapter, which is in the Network Administration section of the book. There will be several questions on the subject.
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