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Rating: 
Summary: IBM says you need it...to get a free voucher!!!
Review: 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.
Rating: 
Summary: Don't rely on this to master the material
Review: Given the authors' qualifications, you would expect a much better book. The organization is frankly dreadful, the exposition confusing, and the samples inconsistent with the software provided. It seems to morph without warning from a manual to a marketing pamphlet: it is exasperating to be looking for a solid technical description and to find instead a vague sales pitch. The information is there, mostly, but it is not easy to dig it out of the swirling chaos of this book. It is not as bad, however, as the first chapter (the "Product Overview") would make you think. This is a an indiscriminant farrago of marketing hype, inexplicable repetitions, and crucial omissions. One example: the book says, in a section on DB2 Enterprise Edition, that this edition is "scalable from single processors to symmetric multiprocessors and to massively parallel clusters." Which leaves the distinct impression that the Enterprise Edition will run on multiple machines, which it will not -- that's the Enterprise *Extended* Edition. In a chapter purporting to help you understand the distinctions between products, this is egregious misinformation. Another example: it describes DataJoiner in exactly the same terms as Relational Connect, making it seem as though they were the same product for different database vendors, and that someone just arbitrarily decided to give the product for Oracle a different name (in fact Relational Connect is the successor to DataJoiner, and *both* of them run against Sybase, Microsoft SQL Server, and Oracle. But you could never discover that from this book). IBM's database product packaging is confusing enough without help like this. The rest of the book is better (it could not easily be worse), which is why I gave it a grudging two stars. The sections on SQL are pretty decent, and I found the description of structured types helpful. The chapter on security is confusing, but that's mostly because DB2's security *is* confusing. The sample test questions, as someone else mentioned, are genuinely helpful in giving you a feel for the exam. So -- do NOT use this book as your only, or even your main, study guide. It's moderately useful supplemental reference (though like most technical survey books, it's horribly under-indexed). Use the dummies books, which, though scanty, are at least intelligible and intelligently organized; or use "the gold book" -- the "DB2 Administration All-In-One Exam Guide" which is a respectable technical reference.
Rating: 
Summary: It's a must read for the DB2 certification
Review: 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.
Rating: 
Summary: Good enough for 512 useless for 513
Review: the book - although using a system to deliver information i still don't understand - is good enough for you if you want to pass the 512 exam ... you will find yourself being asked many questions you never heared before but if you really read the book you will pass ... as for the 513 exam - forget it ... even if you would read the book a hundret times you wouldn't pass - thats because you need a score of 55 % but the book covers only 50 % at max. to pass the 513 you need some hands on experience of db2 for at least 6 month to 1 year.
Rating:
Summary: Get certified as DB2 expert?
Review: The reason I bought this book was to get certified in DB2.
I passed the exam #512 DB2 Family Fundamentals using this book as the only source. The key to pass exam #512 is a good knowledge of SQL, if you're new to SQL, then get other book to master SQL before you try to get certified on DB2. Without having a good understanding of SQL, it would be very hard to pass the test.
This book cover about 70% of the knowledge that you need to pass the exam #512. I passed the exam #512 with about 70%.
4 weeks after passing the exam #512, I tried the exam #513 DB2 DBA, unfortunately I didn't pass the test. I only got 52%.
IMO, you could pass the exam #513 using this book only if you master 100% of the content of this book. I don't have any real world experience as DBA, so I couldn't use any other knowledge to guess the correct answer of the exam #513. I think if you have "real world" experience as DB2 DBA for at least 6 months, then this book should be good enough to pass the test. IMO this books covers between 60% to 65% of the knowledge that you need to pass the exam #513.
Rating: 
Summary: I Expext More
Review: This book covers about 50 - 60 percent of what is on the IBM DB2 UDB 7.1 family fundamentals test and about 40 percent of what is needed for the IBM DB2 UDB 7.1 513 DBA certification. I have taken and passed both exams. Frankly I think any book or series of book that claims to be associated with the IBM Certification Guide series should cover the topic in depth. The test is sooo much more in depth, so that from this book you have not much chance of passing the tests. This book is NOT even a good reference guide, as you need much more information than is given to do anything but basic bare essential [stuff]. If You want a good book that covers the topics in depth get "All In One DB2 Administration Exam Guide" for learning the material (The cd test engine [is not good]). For another book that is short of material but has a GREAT cd test engine (great for practice testing) get the "DB2 Fundamentals Certification for Dummies" just for the CD.
Rating:
Summary: Didn't Hit the High Notes
Review: This book does have a solid base, and easily covers all of the requirements for the DB2 Fundamentals exam. However, it begins to come up short for the DB2 Administrator test. Many areas are not particularly well explained, and the description of the DB2 product family is a complete hash job, and really leaves you none the wiser. Perhaps the most annoying part of this book is that there is no public errata, and I quickly found two errors. Given that this is a certification book, it's crucial that it's accurate. The author e-mailed me and pointed out that the mistakes were corrected for the Version 8 book, and that the publishers didn't give them any web space for an errata. Overall, a good book. However, a book written by IBMers on an IBM product for an IBM exam should be final word on the subject. Unfortunately, this is not the case, and I would suggest looking at the 'All in One' Gold books.
Rating:
Summary: Didn't Hit the High Notes
Review: This book does have a solid base, and easily covers all of the requirements for the DB2 Fundamentals exam. However, it begins to come up short for the DB2 Administrator test. Many areas are not particularly well explained, and the description of the DB2 product family is a complete hash job, and really leaves you none the wiser. Perhaps the most annoying part of this book is that there is no public errata, and I quickly found two errors. Given that this is a certification book, it's crucial that it's accurate. The author e-mailed me and pointed out that the mistakes were corrected for the Version 8 book, and that the publishers didn't give them any web space for an errata. Overall, a good book. However, a book written by IBMers on an IBM product for an IBM exam should be final word on the subject. Unfortunately, this is not the case, and I would suggest looking at the 'All in One' Gold books.
Rating:
Summary: Good book but too lengthy.
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: A must have for Exams 512 and 513
Review: Using mainly this book, I have passed both exams (512 and 513) on the first try. I have several years of experience as a DBA in both Oracle and Sql Server.
IMHO, this book is a must-have for passing 512 and 513. Test 513 is indeed fairly challenging. My preparation consisted of learning the first 12 Chapters of this book backwards and forwards, installing DB2 from the enclosed CD, tinkering a bit, and becoming familiar with the online documentation.
It is true that the book only covers 70% of the stuff on Test 513. Print out the objectives for test 513 from IBM's site and carefully review it. Use the online documentation for areas that you are not familiar with.
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