January 6, 2003 at 11:58 am
Hi All,
My employer has agreed to pay for me get the MCDBA cert. Due to several reasons I cannot take the courses in class. (Only 1 car and my wife has it, can't get time off during the day, etc.) I've been looking all over the web to try and find a boxed set or recommended books to study from. Chapters and Amazon have some but few of the reader reviews have been positive.
Does anyone know of good boxed sets or books to study for the MCDBA cert? I need to find them all before hand so I can make a proper training plan. If it matters, I have about 3 years dba/programming experience.
Thanks in advance.
Chris.
Chris.
January 6, 2003 at 12:19 pm
That's simple for certifications http://www.microsoft.com/mspress/certification/mcdba.asp
In my humble opinion, anything else would be a waste of time.
If you want knowledge, insight, tips and tricks, neat tools, and helpful scripts - Then SQLServerCentral.com is where you need to be. But make the boss happy, besides, it is good to have it on your resume. If to show nothing more then you took the time to take the tests and passed them.
Regards,
Zach
John Zacharkan
January 8, 2003 at 5:39 pm
I much prefer a book to a class. The Microsoft Training Guides are a good place to start but they seem to lack the depth necessary to pass the exam. I usually start with the Microsoft book to get5 the basics and to see what material is expected for the exam and then suppliment that other another test oriented book.
Neither of these will take the place of hands-on experience but at least you'll have some guidance on what areas they are testing on.
Steve Hendricks
MCSD, MCDBA
AFS Consulting Group
(949) 588-9800 x15
Steve Hendricks
MCSD, MCDBA
Data Matrix
shendricks@afsconsulting.com
(949) 588-9800 x15
January 8, 2003 at 6:02 pm
I like to use two books per exam, one Exam Cram if available, another by a different company. Our own Steve Jones co-authored one by Sybex, probably worth a look. Overall I've been happy with those, most others are not bad. If you've got the money in the budget, I'd include the Transcenders (there are cheaper ones if money is tight) since they are pretty realistic and great to practice the test format.
Three years experience should put you in good shape, have to focus on the parts you dont often use AND that MS wants to test on. Plus you have to have..I think the Win2K server, plus another elective. If you've been coding, pick whichever MS language is appropriate/closest and do that one.
Andy
January 8, 2003 at 7:17 pm
I like the Exam Cram and the Exam Prep books. However, I will say even then you should practice and verify thru other sources as I have come across errors in some books. I have also looked at the MSPress stuff (not the most helpfull of all) and the SAMs books.
January 23, 2003 at 8:04 am
Hi, I am hoping to be sponsored by my company to do the exams this as well (but with no official training of course!) but have been put off by the awful reviews of most mcdba books. I was just going to do with the official ms curriculum texts, the guide and exams books. The main worry is that I'll find the elective exams too hard, my topic is VB which I've only done at Uni 4 years ago. Can I just verify there are only 4 exams requried.. my training centre said there were 6.
January 23, 2003 at 8:24 am
Well not according to this: http://www.microsoft.com/traincert/mcp/mcdba/requirements.asp
Chris.
quote:
Hi, I am hoping to be sponsored by my company to do the exams this as well (but with no official training of course!) but have been put off by the awful reviews of most mcdba books. I was just going to do with the official ms curriculum texts, the guide and exams books. The main worry is that I'll find the elective exams too hard, my topic is VB which I've only done at Uni 4 years ago. Can I just verify there are only 4 exams requried.. my training centre said there were 6.
Chris.
January 27, 2003 at 4:44 pm
I have completed all my Microsoft exams (SQL + NT + W2K) by self study using the Microsoft Training Guides and the Exam Cram books. I found that the Training Guides gave me enough in depth knowledge that was easy to understand and the Exam Cram books gave me a good review of the material before sitting the exam.
Cheers,
Angela
January 31, 2003 at 3:48 am
I have personally always found the New Riders books to be the most helpful in a practical sense. The exam cram books are good practice. MS Books Online is an essential reference for describing the answer MS will be looking for in a debateable scenario (of which there will be quite a few).
Hope this helps,
Andrew Coote
MCDBA, MCSE, MCSD
January 31, 2003 at 5:37 am
For the guy doing the VB exams. They ask you a lot of stuff you may only ever need to know except for the exams (VB 6) so don't rely on prior knowledge alone, read some of th erelevant publications or course notes. If your thinking of VB .NET then you'll need to grt up to date anyhow as its so different to previous versions of the language.
Nigel Moore
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