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DB2(R) Universal Database V8.1 Certification Exam 703 Study Guide (IBM Press Series--Information Management)

Format: Paperback
Author: Roger E. Sanders
ReleaseDate: 25 May, 2004
Publisher: IBM Press
Rating:

Another Excellent Certification Exam Study Guide
I wish I had this book when I was studying 703 certification exam. If you studying for the Family Application Development Exam (703) certification exam, you will find the book to be quite helpful.

Many of us concentrate on only one or two of the methods of communicating with DB2 in our programs. The book does a good job of explaining embedded SQL programming, CLI/ODBC programming and Java programming. It is difficult to remember all the information about all of these and the book gives a great review of the programming methods.

The book opens with a detailed roadmap on DB2 certification that explains the various tracks. It also has a good explanation of how to register for tests and how the tests work. Understanding how the tests work can save you valuable time on test day.

Like Roger's other certification books, this one is arranged around the test sections, which seems like a good way to study for the tests. Roger likes to white space, pictures and diagrams to improve the readability of his books and this book follows that pattern. Each chapter closes with a section of practice questions, which have very informative answers that follow. .

Use for competitive analysis of dB2
As with his earlier books, a lot of its value is in the focus on what you need to know to pass an exam, in this case, the 703 exam. This is one of the latest in a series of study guides that Sanders has put together for various dB2 certifications. You will find an extensive question set at the end of each chapter, with answers later in the book. These question sets are indispensible for testing your knowledge understanding.

But there is a second potential use of this book. It lets you concisely see various technical abilities of dB2. Useful if you are considering using dB2 or one of its competitors, like Oracle or Postgres or MySQL. For example, MySQL's most persuasive argument is that it is free. But it has limitations. No stored procedures [yet]. By contrast, Sanders describes these in dB2 in various chapters, and how they can reduce bandwidth in a client-server application, to cite only one instance.

Another example of using this book to compare dB2 and MySQL might be the book's discussion of using foreign key constraints in dB2. Whereas currently in MySQL, foreign keys are not permitted. (Except in a very limited sense. )

So with a little imagination, you can use this book as part of a competitive analysis of dB2. Perhaps not what Sanders or IBM fully intended. But the flexibility is useful.