Product Description

A new edition of this title is available, ISBN-10: 0789737906 ISBN-13: 9780789737908

The Solaris 10 System Administrator Certification Exam Prep 2 is the ideal book for both new and seasoned system administrators. This book will give you the insight you need into the newest certification exams for system administrators, the 310-200 and the 310-202. It offers classroom-style training by one of the best and well-known authors in the Solaris world, Bill Calkins. It will equip you with vital knowledge for success on exam day plus it acts a reference guide that will come in handy after the test. The content addresses all the new exam objectives in detail and will show you how to apply this knowledge to real-world scenarios.

The included CD features ExamGear's innovative test engine, which will be an effective tool for preparing for the Solaris 10 exam. It provides you with five different ways to test yourself, random questions and order of answers, detailed explanations of correct and incorrect answers, and it pays special attention to exam objectives. Also included on the CD is a PDF of the complete text of the book.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #316655 in Books
• Published on: 2006-01-02
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 1104 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780789734617
• Condition: USED - VERY GOOD
• Notes:
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

About the Author
Bill Calkins is owner and president of Pyramid Consulting, a computer training and consulting firm specializing in the implementation and administration of Open Systems. He also is the owner of www.UnixEd.com, a web site that provides online UNIX training materials. Bill has more than 20 years of experience in UNIX system administration, consulting, and training at more than 100 different companies. He has authored several UNIX textbooks, which are currently best sellers and used by universities and training organizations worldwide, including the Solaris System 9 Systems Administrator Training Guide from Exam Cram.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Introduction

Bill Calkins has been training Solaris System Administrators for more than 15 years. This book contains the training material that he uses in his basic and advanced Solaris administration courses that, over the years, have helped thousands of Solaris administrators become certified. This is our first edition of the Solaris 10 System Administrator Exam Prep. It began with the Training Guide for Solaris 2.6, 7, 8, 9, and is now the Exam Prep for Solaris 10. Instructors from universities and training organizations around the world have used the book as courseware in their Solaris Administration courses. In addition, administrators from around the world have used this book as a self-study when instruction from a Sun training center is either not available or not within their budget. Many of you have written with your success stories, suggestions, and comments. Your suggestions are what keep making this guide more valuable.

This book provides training materials for anyone interested in becoming a Sun Certified System Administrator for Solaris 10. When used as a study guide, this book will save you a great deal of time and effort searching for information you will need to know when taking the exam. This book covers the exam objectives in enough detail for the inexperienced administrator to learn the objectives and apply the knowledge to real-life scenarios. Experienced readers will find the material in this book to be complete and concise, making it a valuable study guide. This book is not a cheat sheet or cram session for the exam; it is a training manual. In other words, it does not merely give answers to the questions you will be asked on the exam. We have made certain that this book addresses the exam objectives in detail, from start to finish. If you are unsure about the objectives on the exam, this book will teach you what you need to know. After reading each chapter, assess your knowledge on the material covered using the review questions at the end of the chapter. When you have completed reading a section, use the practice exam at the end of the book and the ExamGear test engine on the CD-ROM to assess your knowledge of the objectives covered on each exam. This CD-ROM contains sample questions similar to what you are likely to see on the real exams. More sample questions are available at http://www.UnixEd.com, so make sure you visit this site to find additional training and study materials.

How This Book Helps You

This book teaches you how to administer the Solaris 10 operating system. It offers you a self-guided training course of all the areas covered on the certification exams by installing, configuring, and administering the Solaris 10 operating environment. You will learn all of the specific skills to administer a system and specifically to become a Sun Certified System Administrator for Solaris 10.

Throughout the book, we provide helpful tips and real-world examples that we have encountered as system administrators. In addition, we provide useful, real-world exercises to help you practice the material you have learned. The setup of this book is discussed in the following sections.

• Organization—This book is organized according to individual exam objectives. Every objective you need to know for installing, configuring, and administering a Solaris 10 system is in this book. We have attempted to present the objectives in an order that is as close as possible to that listed by Sun. However, we have not hesitated to reorganize them as needed to make the material as easy as possible for you to learn. We have also attempted to make the information accessible in the following ways:

• . This introduction includes the full list of exam topics and objectives.

• Read the "Study and Exam Prep Tips" section early on to help you develop study strategies. This section provides you with valuable exam-day tips and information on exam/question formats such as adaptive tests and case study–based questions.

• Each chapter begins with a list of the objectives to be covered, exactly as they are defined by Sun. Throughout each section, material that is directly related to the exam objectives is identified.

• Each chapter also begins with an outline that provides you with an overview of the material and the page numbers where particular topics can be found.

• Instructional Features—This book is designed to provide you with multiple ways to learn and reinforce the exam material. The following are some of the helpful methods:

• Objective Explanations—As mentioned previously, each chapter begins with a list of the objectives covered in the chapter. In addition, immediately following each objective is an explanation in a context that defines it more meaningfully.

• Study Strategies—The beginning of each chapter also includes strategies for studying and retaining the material in the chapter, particularly as it is addressed on the exam.

• Exam Alerts—Throughout each chapter you'll find exam tips that will help you prepare for exam day. These tips are written by those who have already taken the Solaris 10 certification exams.

• . Key Terms—A list of key terms appears near the end of each chapter.

• Notes—These appear in the margin and contain various types of useful information such as tips on technology or administrative practices, historical background on terms and technologies, or side commentary on industry issues.

• Cautions—When using sophisticated information technology, mistakes or even catastrophes are always possible because of improper application of the technology. Warnings appear in the margins to alert you to such potential problems.

• Step-by-Steps—These are hands-on lab excercises that walk you through a particular task or function relevant to the exam objectives.

• Exercises—Found at the end of the chapters in the "Apply Your Knowledge" section, exercises are performance-based opportunities for you to learn and assess your knowledge.

• Suggested Readings and Resources—At the end of each chapter we've prepared a list of additional resources that you can use if you are interested in going beyond the objectives and learning more about topics that are presented in the chapter.

• Extensive Practice Test Options—The book provides numerous opportunities for you to assess your knowledge and practice for the exam. The practice options include the following:

• Exam Questions—These questions appear in the "Apply Your Knowledge" section at the end of each chapter. They allow you to quickly assess your comprehension of what you just read in the chapter. Answers to the questions are provided later in a separate section titled "Answers to Exam Questions."

• Practice Exam—A practice exam is included in the "Final Review" section for each exam (as discussed later).

• ExamGear—The ExamGear software included on the CD-ROM provides further practice questions.

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Note - ExamGear Software For a complete description of the ExamGear test engine, please see Appendix A, "What's on the CD-ROM."

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• Final Review—This part of the book provides you with three valuable tools for preparing for the exam, as follows:

• Fast Facts—This condensed version of the information contained in the book will prove extremely useful for last-minute review.

• Practice Exam—A full practice exam is included with questions written in styles similar to those used on the actual exam. Use the practice exam to assess your readiness for the real exam.

• Appendixes—The book contains valuable appendixes as well, including a glossary and a description of what is on the CD-ROM (Appendix A).

Thes...

Customer Reviews

Note to Author: Don't change the format of this book
The problem with most certification programs is that too many people look for a quick "cram for an exam" or a "brain dump" to get their certification. It has undervalued certification programs from Microsoft, Sun, and most computer vendors.

Dave's review below is a perfect example- he's looking for a "cram for an exam" with lots of visuals and pictures. Readers get disappointed when they pick up a real reference book, with text and command line examples, where they might actually "learn" something about managing a server from a console. I also don't think taking away the screen output generated by commands is a good idea. I need to see the command line as well as the output generated. Dave (a previous reviewer), maybe you should look at Wiley's "Teach Yourself Visually" series of books for a Solaris reference, but don't beat on this book for more graphics.

I DON'T WANT another one of those style books. I appreciate a good Solaris admin reference and appreciate the format that the author/publisher has used in this book. O'Reilly's sys admin books tend to follow the same type of format. The mix of graphics and textual output is perfect. As a Unix Administrator, you need to know command line stuff and not the GUI tools. You need LOTS of examples. You NEED to see the ouput generated by the use of specific command options. I don't want to wade through more pictures of directory hierarchies, or look at graphics of disk drive architecture, or read more on the history of Unix, etc. Who started this stuff in the Unix Admin books? There are other books for that. In a Unix Admin reference book, where we tend to perform tasks from ASCII terminals, telnet, VT100's etc., the screen output is necessary to learning the task at hand.

As you can see, I don't share Dave Mali's comments and think the format of this book is perfectly fine. I also don't feel it was full of errors- in fact, they are very low for a book of this size and style (errata was complete). (I hate when reviewers say a book is full of errors yet lack to point them out for the benefit of other readers).

I'm not one to typically write a review, but I plead to the publisher - DON'T CHANGE THE FORMAT OF THIS BOOK. This is my Opinion - I really don't know if this is the forum to bring it up. If not- it's ok to strike my review.

A "complete" reference for Solaris 10
I've finally found a Solaris 10 book that THOROUGHLY covers SMF and zones. Some of these Solaris 10 books claim to be "complete", and at best, only touch on these topics. The Calkins book covers all of the new Solaris 10 features in-depth, provides good examples, and makes it easy to understand. Not sure if I'm ready to get certified, but this book is complete enough to get the job done. I'm experienced on Solaris 8 and 9 and have been using this book to learn about the new features in Solaris 10. So far- it's been a great and thorough reference. I'm not sure where "Joe the Sysadmin" is coming from, but this book is 1000+ pages of concise, well presented, to the point information. Much like Calkins previous books.

Best Solaris 10 Exam Prep book; publisher should use better paper as this could be a useful reference book
I own this book and the Paul Sanghera book. This book is the best book for someone who already knows how to log onto & navigate any Unix. It is also the best book of the two. It won't bore you with excessive detail about things you should already know as a Unix end-user IT professional. It just focuses on things in Solaris that are different in other Unix & Windows OS's (volume & fs management, security, networking, etc.) If you don't know Unix at all, the Sanghera book will help somewhat here, but nothing is better than hands-on experience to become a user. In contrast, I think alot of sysadmin skills can be learned by reading an OS book if you know at least one OS really well, and this book fits the bill for that.

I'm usually a picture kind of guy...and I almost didn't buy it because the Sanghera book at first glance looks like it has more visuals. But the visuals in the Sanghera book are very basic (who needs a picture of a star-network v. a ring network?) I found that I really didn't need the visuals...the bulletized & enumerated lists are fine to learn from in Calkin's book.

This book can serve as a future sys admin reference to get an overview of a topic quickly. The Sanghera book would not serve the same purpose...it is too brief & basic to serve as a reference. While Sanghera's book has helped people pass the test in the low 70's (see reviews), I think if you study this book by Bill Calkin, I bet one could get a score in the 80's or even 90's.

I ding it one star because of the paper quality. Sanghera's book is printed on better paper. For $60, I think the paper quality should be better. It's really my only complaint about this book.
The paper quality is like a "JK Lassiter Tax Book for 2006" or "Sybex Press" book, not a Microsoft Press or Nutshell book.