I am always in the favour of certifications. The reason for this is that  certifications give one a confidence, a trust that he/she has done somethign good, some thing which really does prove that he/she is serious enough to be current with the ever changing technology. I don’t think that we should take the certification as a way to show that we are more superior than those who don’t have it or don’t like it. All have  different opinions about things and at some point or the other, all are correct. I take certifications for my own satisfaction and that’s the main reason, I don’t post any logos or mention which certifications I hold. 

11g is the most latest offering from the Oracle corp for its flagship product, database.  As the version 11g is around from some time now, the certification track of it also is out. At the moment, the Oracle Certified Associate(OCA) track of the fresh OCP is out. The next level, OCP of 11g is yet to be out. But the exam for the already certified professionals , for example, 10g is already out with the exam code, 11g New Features for DBAs(1z0-050) is already out. This post is basically is a collection of the references that I did use when I was preparing for it. I found the exam quite exhaustive so I guess, if this post can help someone , he/she atleast won’t be feeling the same exhaustiveness.

The exam contents are mentioned here For the starting of the preparation, there is a must requirement for the material. The best material is from Oracle University only as OU offers official course for the topic. But , some may not be able to avail the course due to various constraints. I must mention that its not a must for the already certified people to attend a course for the exam as the Hands-on-Course requirement(HOC) is only for the fresh candidates. In case, you are not able to attend the course from OU, still the exam preparation can be done from these following books, 

http://www.amazon.ca/OCP-Oracle-Database-11g-Administrators/dp/0071496823″> OCP-11g New Features, Sam Alapati

http://www.amazon.ca/Expert-Oracle-Database-11g-Administration/dp/143021015X”>Expert Oracle Administration 11g, Sam Alapati

These two books cover almost all the topics which are both for the exam and for the actual working environments. Combining this with the official docs from oracle at http://tahiti.oracle.com wil be enough to cover the topics of the exam.

The exam is focussed essentially about the new features which are offered in 11g. Surely enough, if you are well verse with the 10g , you will find some link between the 11g features with them. Though, this is not true for all the new features , for example, Real Application Testing but having a good knowledge about 10g will surely help. 

For the practical demos, I used, Tim Hall’s articles and Oracle by Example series very heavily. Here is the link for both, 

http://www.oracle-base.com/articles/11g/Articles11g.php#ocp

http://www.oracle.com/technology/obe/11gr1_db/index.htm

I would really suggest to use Tim’s articles as using them will give you an immediate idea about how things look in action.  I won’t say that the same is not true for the OBE series, but it is not solely mentioned for the exam, so you may find some things in the articles which you won’t need atleast while just starting. But combining both, will be a good mix to start with the practical hands-on. 

In addition to the above mentioned sources, Arup Nanda’s , Top Features of 11g  series is also a must read for those who are looking for a quick know-how about the features. I used it very heavily for my preparation as the language used is very simple and Arup’s style to present the topic in the form of an actual business problem makes it easier to understand and also with that note, its easy to remember the topic as well. The series is also having good demos of all the mentioned features which again is a big help when you yourself don’t know how to make a demo/presentation. 

For some topics, I had to look around for that “little extra” as I was not very clear how to go for them. So in that process, I used various links. Here are those links which I used. In case , you also will get struck at the same point, I hope these links will help you.

Partioning in 11g

http://www.orafaq.com/node/1912

http://www.rittmanmead.com/2008/09/13/investigating-oracle-11g-interval-partitioning/

http://asanga-pradeep.blogspot.com/2008/08/11g-partitioning-enhancements.html

Automatic Memory Management in 11g

http://kevinclosson.wordpress.com/2007/08/23/oracle11g-automatic-memory-management-and-linux-hugepages-support/ 

http://blog.tanelpoder.com/2007/08/21/oracle-11g-internals-part-1-automatic-memory-management/

So that’s all about the technical stuff I guess. Now, the last but certainly not the least part, find someone who can prepare it with you. I got lucky and had my friend Neeraj working with me for the same exam. It helped a lot to prepare as like a team as I like to discuss, share the stuff. When I discuss something, it sticks in my mind with all the essentials of it and also, if there are any doubts , they get cleared as well. So, besides the technical topics and their know-hows, try finding someone who is going to study for the same. I can gurantee that you will find the preparation much easier. 

So that’s all! Hope you get some help from this not-so-technical post for your exam preparation and clear with flying colors. Good luck!