No comments about IBM DB2 9 New Features.

5 comments about DB2(R) for z/OS(R) Version 8 DBA Certification Guide (IBM Press Series--Information Management).

1. This is an excellent book that gives an overall picture of what to expect for the z/OS 702 Examination. The certification portions have all been covered well. Except for a few typos in a few places, this book is an excellent material and is a handy book for a DBA. I certainly recommend it to anyone wishing to pursue DB2 702 certification.



2. Besides getting you ready for the certification examination this book is an excellent reference source and covers some material far better than other similar books on the market. If you only want to buy a few books on this subject, start with this one. You may find you don't need any others.



3. This book is great for DB2 beginners. It has right structure, covers material in sequential order and does not talk much about insignificant matters just to increase the volume, like many other books do. In my view, only one but significant flaw doesn't allow me to call this book exellent - lots of errors and typos in the examples. They are mostly insignificant but very confusing for a novice. I hope the author sorts them out in the second edition which this book definitely deserves.



4. It doesnt give you the indepth details for the 702 certification... All topics are covered as an overview



5. This book is quite possibly the worst written technical book I have read in my 18 year career. It seems as if the driest and dullest portions of the DB2 manuals have been extracted and collected together and called a book; without any regard to editing or amending with graphics.
   
   The material in the book may well cover the necessary topics for the certification test, but the stamina necessary to read it makes this choice clearly a poor one. You would be much better off reading Craig Mullins' latest DB2 Developer's Guide and portions of the DB2 Administration Guide to in preparation for the exams.
   
   I give this book 2 stars only because the material covered seems to closely match what is on the test. Extracting the information from this book, however, is another matter.

5 comments about DB2 9 for Developers.

1. Mr. Gunning's expertise provided the information I needed about the newest version of DB2. Service Oriented Architecture, in Chapter 6, and XML, in Chapter 9, were clearly written and understandable.



2. This book is a must have for anyone who develops application code or administers DB2 databases on the windows/unix/linux platform.
   
   The chapter on understand the DB2 optimizer is required reading because it provides deep insight into how DB2 will go about getting the data out of your relational database. Understanding this is fundamental for performance in your application.
   
   The chapters on monitoring and peformance tuning are also very insightful and relay the authors years of experience in a very straight forward manner. Using the methods described in this book makes it easy to put procedures in place to track the performance of your database over time, and to spot problems before they start.
   
   This book is a "must have".



3. I bought this book because I needed to get up to speed real fast on using the new XML data type and Developer Workbench, and Chapter 2, 3, 4, and 5 contained everything I needed to get started. I also liked the Chapter on the Optimizer and Monitoring and Performance. A good reference.



4. Mr. Gunning has done it again!
   Having studied under Phil Gunning and knowing the dept of his expertise this book brought to life real world experiences in a classroom like setting. As a DBA I found the Chapter#8 on "Tuning Buffer Pools" and Chapter #9 "The Optimizer" to be of great help to me personally. This book is a great reference material for any DBA faced with the challenge of daily performance. I was excited to read Mr. Gunning's explanation of the `Utilities" incorporated in DB2 V9. I would recommend this book for any DBA or DBM who needs an in-depth understanding of developing and monitoring DB2 V9.
   DeWayne Stansell DBA



5. This is a great book for developers because covers pureXML and other features and great to for DBAs the chapter on monitoring is a must have when you are in trouble with your database
   
   Just keep in mind that this book is focues on the LUW(Linux, Unix and Windows) version of DB2, I say this because a friend of mine bought for using with z/OS by mistake.

5 comments about Business Intelligence for the Enterprise (IBM DB2 Certification Guides).

1. ......

   If you:

   - are tired of the increasingly unintelligible hype around corporate IT

   - need to get your feet on the ground about how to apply IT for creating business value

   - want to understand business intelligence for what it can really do for your organization (as opposed to what the product vendors tell you)

   then read this book.

   I've been in the software industry for twenty years, and this is one of those rare, honest books that speaks from long experience and with a welcome disregard for technical faddism and ivory tower theory.

   This book is needed because the idea of "information at your fingertips" at most companies is still just that: only an idea. Instead, most organizations still operate inefficiently and clumsily from "islands" of information scattered about in everything from spreadsheets to CRM systems to mainframe COBOL programs whose authors have long since retired.

   Even companies that have spents millions of dollars to correct this state of affairs have failed. Why?

   This book is about making information available across the board, why you would want to, and how to give your technology of choice "traction" and an impact on the bottom line.

   This is done from two perspectives: the technical and the human side.

   The author is refreshingly frank in describing corporate IT disasters, and does an excellent job of exposing the human side of where they go wrong down in the trenches. Anyone who has been anywhere near an overbudget, underperforming, or ultimately worthless IT project (this should include most people in corporate IT by now) will read with a smile of recognition. Others should read before you spend: there is a lot of money and heartache to be saved. By demonstrating in everyday language that the hardest part to manage is human expectations, Biere performs a real service to the industry that is usually neglected, and gives managers, end users, and even vendors much insight on where to be proactive.

   But this is not a collection of anecdotes. CIOs, CEOs, IT professionals, and beginners will gain a lot from the industry retrospectives, overviews of categories of tools, and the workbook approach for grasping the human side and the technical side at once. The author provides thinking and homework that MUST be done before even considering an expenditure, and asks the questions that even the most expensive consultants won't ask for you.

   Because the author is with IBM, you might expect the book to promote IBM products. Not so. Mr. Biere manages to name almost no products, and yet covers the tools available comprehensively.

   And college computer science professors: put this book in your curricula -- give your students a healthy dose of the "real world" before sending them out into it.

   Well done, Biere.




2. The tji-Boston reviewer is dead-on correct that this is a frank discussion about BI. Biere will help you to think about BI, and he will help you to think clearly.

   Business Intelligence for the Enterprise is written for the customer. The author is a sales guy, who works for a vendor (IBM - Good Grief!), AND he has written a book for the customer. Why?

   He is obviously interested in seeing Enterprise BI succeed.

   This book will help you think through sales hype, and move closer to success. In a certain sense, it is a book written to help business people like you deal with sales people like Mike Biere. Ironic? Yes. And no.

   A perspective like this doesn't come from being slick and clever (goodness knows there is an endless array of slick and clever sales people.) Rather, it comes from making a mature commitment to one's working life, which Biere has obviously done.

   It is as important for the C-level IT professionals to read as it is for their C-level bosses and colleagues. Needless(?) to say it is also an important read for those who are going to do the actual work of implementing the BI strategy.

   Read this book, but only if you are willing to spend some time thinking....




3. The author is an IBM veteran who spent more than 20 years in the sales and product support divisions, except for a short period in a company specialized in Data Warehousing, so he naturally puts in this book a lot of his experiences and he also describes the history of BI in terms of architectures and technologies.
   
   I had the impression that the target audience is mainly made by managers involved in BI projects, on either sides (vendors, consulting companies, customers).
   
   One obvious comment from an Italian like me is that, like with many other books written in the US, the average size of the projects described in this book is rather large compared to what we are used to, and could only be applied to a handful of companies here in Italy.
   
   The best feature of the book is the large number of real life examples that it contains. This can be a real help for a manager of a company who doesn't know the risks connected with BI projects and wants to learn from the many (and sometimes very costly) errors made by other people and companies in similar situations.
   
   Under this aspect the book contains a lot of common sense and is a good reading, but don't look in it for innovative contents or for clear explanations of key technologies, buzzwords and project methodologies.
   
   In most cases the book is limited to describe different situations (usually problematic), and to give some advise, without really delving into technical details.
   
   Often I saw the author asking himself several questions about the typical problems that are encountered in a BI project, but then I couldn't find the answers.
   
   Although there are no references to specific products, in more than one occasion it seems that the fact that the author comes from IBM comes to the surface, like when he prefers the "single provider" approach versus the "best of breed" (Chap. 4), or when he talks about the qualities of the mainframe as opposed to distributed environments (chap 7).
   
   In conclusion, is this book worth reading? I have to say that whenever I read a book about BI and Data Warehousing I can't avoid comparing it with the books from Mr Kimball, which I consider the absolute reference in the field. This might not be fair, but it makes sense, since our time is limited, to read only those books that add something new to what we already know.
   
   In this case the answer is yes, but only for a specific target, i.e. managers of companies who are about to start their first BI project. The rest of the project team would probably find most of the information in this book not very useful.



4. I think most IT people would agree that technology efforts, especially those in the area of BI, are first and foremost people efforts. This book focuses on the cultural and social aspects of BI, which are the bedrock for starting and finishing a perpetually useful initiative. This is highly recommended reading for anyone, regardless of experience, who wonders how so many BI projects can fail, and how to help make their own projects succeed.



5. This book has issues.
   
   1. Some items discussed are really dated. It should be updated with newer BI strategies, and cover more dashboard and WEB 2.0 technologies.
   2. The author is very knowledgeable and lays out complex topics in easy to understand parts, so it is even more important to allow for an update.
   3. Being used as textbook as it was in a course in BI recently, there should be more examples and online source material available.
   4. More Agile development should be included.
   5. Again, the book has huge potential and only falls short in a few places, but does a great job in covering the complexity of BI in easy to understand ways. I would consider this a great book for reference and should be included in any BI library or resource lists.

1 comments about Aston Martin DB2, DB2/4 & DB3 In Detail: 1950-59 (In Detail).

1. Very rare DB2's photo, it is a beautiful.
   Vintage Aston's super book.
   Very nice !

No comments about Official Introduction to DB2 for z/OS (paperback), The (2nd Edition).

No comments about DB2 9 for Linux, UNIX, and Windows Advanced Database Administration Certification: Certification Study Guide.

No comments about DB2 9 for Linux, UNIX, and Windows Database Administration Upgrade: Certification Study Guide.

5 comments about DB2 Fundamentals Certification for Dummies.

1. This book made passing Exam 512 fairly easy. Books & classes from IBM do not focus on passing the exams, but this book does. During 10 yrs. of UNIX sys. admin. I'd done almost no database work. I passed Exam 512 after 3 weeks of concentrated effort. Week 1 - 2 classes: DB2 UDB Family Fundamentals (2 days) & DB2 UDB SQL Workshop (2 days). Weeks 2 & 3 - Read "DB2 Fundamentals Certification for Dummies" cover to cover. I answered every end of chap. question, did every lab and took the practice exams on the CD. I'd never sat for a certification test and this book made me very comfortable with the process. I passed Exam 513 three weeks later using a 4 day class, DB2 UDB Admin. Workshop, and "All-In-One DB2 Admininistration Exam Guide" in the same fashion. I highly recommend this book for passing Exam 512. I would not recommend it as a reference for DBAs.



2. This book comes with CD which has hundreds of practice questions...It helped me in passing my exam 700 easily. Although it didn't cover new features, this book and Cd helped me in passing my exam. Db2 exam 700 certification guide by Roger sanders is also good.



3. I truly got my money's worth from this book...I passed 2 exams based on this book's study guides and practice tests. Especially wonderful tips are included for areas they like to pose 'trick' questions on to make sure you know the difference between ORDER by and GROUP by, for example. Those tips were right on the money. It made it easy for me to refresh my skills and very confortable with what the tests were like, so that did not add to my nervousness. It is true they don't have the most up-to-date information....they should keep it up and come up with the new version 8 features, and a book for the Advanced tests.



4. You cannot afford not to buy this book for your 512. A must have. Make sure you read everything, the author has extracted all the goodies from the exam and put it into this brief book.

   Excellent for 512 and helpful for 513. Sample questions are a joke compare to the real one.

   EQ




5. This is a title that's desperately needed, but it's November 2005 and DB2 is bordering on version 8.3 or 9.1 already. Where's the update? I know, I know. People say 8.2 isn't THAT different. I disagree, especially if I'm going to shell out $30 shipped.

2 comments about DB2 9 for Linux, UNIX, and Windows: DBA Guide, Reference, and Exam Prep (6th Edition).

1. Excellent Book!!! This is comprehensive book of DB2 9 it was written using a easy language with examples and pictures.



2. This book features all the information you need to complete the certification exams together with your experience and a DB2 copy.
   Many people that I know read and study this book, and on the day before the exams read the DevelopeWorks' tutorial as flash cards..
   This book together with a free DB2 copy (DB2 Express-C) are what you need to pass the exams.
   
   If you are not interested in the certification, this book is still for you if you need a great reference book or complete guide for DBAs.
   
   If you are a self made DBA may be astonhised/surprised after you read the book, because of some many new details or best practices you will find.
   
   If you are a total beginner, pick this book together with the Understanding DB2: Learning Visually with Examples and you are all set to go.