Solaris 7 System Administrator Exam Cram (Exam: 310-009, 310-010)

As usual, the Exam Cram is a supplementary book, not a primary book--it's meant as a brush-up course for applicants who have the rudimentary concepts down and are looking to solidify and expand their understanding. This particular Cram half succeeds; as a refresher course on the galaxies of terse and oft-cryptic Unix commands, it's thorough and clear, tabulating the many flags and switches with admirable detail.

Each major command is given at least one or two pages, and each of the switches for those commands have an explanatory sentence or two. Exam tips that warn of mistakes and popular misconceptions are scattered throughout the arrays of commands. Considering that much of the SCSA exam is actually about remembering which commands do what, it's a valid approach--and one strength of this book is that it does know you're preparing for a test. The Solaris Cram helpfully points out critical-pass topics, like printing, and tells you which objectives traditionally don't come up on the exam, like Solstice AdminSuite. By focusing your knowledge, it helps you study more efficiently.

But the Achilles' heel of this book is the presentation of concepts. If you understand Unix internal functions and boot processes, you'll sail through without a hitch--but if you're buying this book because you're unclear on exactly how Absolute Mode additions factor into access permissions, you're likely to be more lost than when you started.

It's not that the writing is necessarily bad... it just makes no effort to remove technical jargon when defining concepts, and winds up sounding like a computer manual. There is nothing incorrect about defining simple concepts like mirrored disks as "the technique of copying data being written to an online device to another offline device ... [which] provides real-time backup of data that can be brought online to replace the original device in the event that the original device fails"--but certainly there are simpler and clearer ways to explain it. And it is representative of the writing style, with more complex topics being presented via even more dense technobabble.

Unix gurus who like that sort of thing will no doubt find this a benefit, but people struggling to understand exactly how the Physical, Logical, and Instance device names differ may wind up wandering in the woods.

The sample exams are plentiful--not only is there a 5- to 10-question exam at the end of each of the 22 chapters, but there's also a separate 80-question sample exam for each of the tests. Thankfully, Coriolis has added "fill-in-the-blank" questions to supplement its usual multiple-choice questions. (Since fill-in questions are a part of the exam, it would have been a major gaffe not to have them.)

The quizzes have the same strengths and weaknesses of the book; nearly every question deals with which commands are used when, without addressing troubleshooting or process interpretation at all. The chapter-end questions also tend to be fairly simple, but by no means are they free rides. A glossary of terms, a separate glossary for commands, and a listing of configuration file locations fill out the book.

The "Need To Know More?" section, usually full of good suggestions for outside readings in other Exam Crams, is uncommonly bare. In this case, the suggested books are nearly always (and only) the official Solaris Administration guides. Admittedly, there's not a lot out on Solaris 7 right now, but hearing for quite literally the 17th time that reading System Administration Guide, Volume I, is your only other option if you don't understand what's presented here... well, it gets wearisome.

Essentially, this is a fine book aimed at a narrow market. If you're simply looking to hone your knowledge of Solaris commands so that you can pass the exam, you'll find this a vital tool. --William Steinmetz