Ryan wrote: >you can pass it without having ever used RMAN. you can play with RMAN at >home on your PC to learn it. Its not like learning physics. You don't even >need a book. Just read the docs and just play with it. Not sure you need to >in order to pass the test, but alot of people use it, so its a good skill to >have. > > Well, I disagree that you can learn RMAN by playing with yourself at home. People usually don't have tape robots, LAN configurations and users. In addition to that, it isn't quite clear what is the meaning of the "learn RMAN" phrase. Doing backup is easy: 'run { allocate channel c device type disk format '....'; backup something; }' There are other less trivial things like cloning databases, creating standby databases etc. you cannot learn by the above method, because they are task specific and have specific requirements. If OCP is to convince me that the candidate "speaks RMAN", then your claim is outright disturbing. PS: --- For all those who find the opening sentence of this message inappropriate, please do not forget that English is not my native tongue and that I am utterly unaware of the alternate meaning of the phrase "playing with oneself". -- Mladen Gogala Oracle DBA Ext. 121 -- //www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l