ADAPTIVE SERVER ENTERPRISE 12.5 ADMINISTRATOR PROFESSIONAL CERTIFICATION:

Certification Exam Title: Sybase Certified Adaptive Server Administrator Professional (Version 12.5)
Passing Grade: 65%
Number of Multiple Choice Questions: 60
Exam Number: 510-022
Exam Duration: 90 Minutes

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS:

ANSWER: In the USA or Canada, please call Prometric to register by phone 800-792-EXAM or online at: https://www.2test.com.
If you are from a country other than the US or Canada, follow your normal registration procedures through your local exam center or your Prometric Regional Service Center. To find out about registration procedures for your region (select 'Sybase' from the 'Client/Program' drop-down box.)

ANSWER: The three ways we recommend are:

• Completely read and make sure you cover all parts of this exam study guide. Plan to spend a minimum of 80 hours preparing for the exam, in addition to your existing experience with Adaptive Server Enterprise. 
• At least twelve months of experience using the product, and take the following recommended courses. 
  Please check the schedule at: http://www.sybase.com/education
  
  • Advanced Administration and Troubleshooting for ASE (EDB650)
  • Troubleshooting ASE Data Structures (EDB555)
  • Performance and Tuning: Configuring ASE (EDB551)
     
• Practice Exams:
  The practice exams are an excellent resource for helping you test if you are indeed ready to take the exam and help you in areas where you need additional practice.  Visit our Online Skills Assessments and Certification Practice Exams

Rob Verschoor has published " The Complete Sybase ASE Quick Reference Guide", which contains a full list of ASE commands, functions and stored procedures in ASE 12.5. He also has published " Tips, Tricks & Recipes for Sybase ASE"

QUESTION: What is the format of this exam?

ANSWER: The exam will consist of 60 multiple-choice questions. Each candidate will have 90 minutes to complete the exam. The exam itself has no answers that are not 'real', e.g. any reference to system stored procedures names, which do not exist. It was written to test whether you have been using ASE 12.5.2 and are able to apply this knowledge.

ANSWER: Work with Adaptive Server Enterprise for at least eighteen months before taking this exam. If you have taken a corresponding course, review all of its pages, especially for the topics you have not already mastered. The study guidelines below cover all the topics included in the exam. Read through this list and circle the topics you are not familiar with. Read up on them in the product documentation. Find ways to use those aspects of Adaptive Server Enterprise you are not as familiar with; consider creating test cases.

ANSWER: There will be a total of 60 questions in this exam.The scoring grade is 65%.
You will need to answer a minimum of 39 questions correctly in order to pass this exam. 

ANSWER: Work with Adaptive Server Enterprise for at least eighteen months before taking this exam. If you have taken a corresponding course, review all of its pages, especially for the topics you have not already mastered. The study guidelines below cover all the topics included in the exam. Read through this list and circle the topics you are not familiar with. Read up on them in the product documentation. Find ways to use those aspects of Adaptive Server Enterprise you are not as familiar with; consider creating test cases.

QUESTION: Which version of Adaptive Server Enterprise should I study for this exam?

ANSWER: This exam is based on the Adaptive Server Enterprise 12.5.2 GA version. Any functionality that is new or changed in later releases (like the maintenance release and later) is not included in the exam.

 

ANSWER: All questions are multiple-choice questions. Do not spend too much time on any one question. Trust that the first answer that you thought of is likely to be the correct one. At the end of the exam you will be presented with a window with hyperlinks back to any questions you marked for 'review' or did not answer completely. With this in mind, choose an answer and if you are not sure, mark the question for 'review' (there is a button for this). Moving along this way you should have time at the end of the exam to go back and think again about these marked questions. 

 

STUDY GUIDELINES

Section 1 - DBCC for Checking Consistency (6 Questions - 10 %)

• List and explain the use of dbcc tools at your disposal
• Understand how to analyze database integrity using dbcc
• Be able to troubleshoot object consistency problems with dbcc commands
• Be able to describe strategies for checking database consistency without running a full suite of dbcc commands on a live database
• Understand the following dbcc commands:
  • checkstorage/checkverify
  • checkalloc/tablealloc
    checkdb/checktable
  • checkcatalog
• Understand how to fix allocation errors and inconsistent index and data pages with available dbcc commands

Section 2 - Data Cache Configuration and Tuning (6 Questions - 10 %)

•  
  • Know how to properly configure memory and choose appropriate cache strategies
  • Understand the benefits of named caches, large I/Os, and metadata caches
  • Know how to create, delete, and modify named caches
  • Know how to bind objects to named caches
  • Know how to configure metadata caches
  • Know how to create buffer pools to enable large I/Os
  • Understand how buffer pools are used by queries
  • Understand how to monitor and tune data cache structures
  • Know how to Set optimal I/O size
  • Know how to determine and set cache strategy
  • Understand how to configure cache partitioning
  • Understand how to monitor and tune asynchronous prefetch

Section 3 - Data Page Management andAllocation (15 Questions - 25 %)

• Describe roles played by allocation page, OAM page, and GAM page in managing allocation
• Describe how tables can grow and become fragmented
• Understand Structure of the following type of pages: Data, Log, Allocation, OAM and GAM
• Know which system tables are used in object allocation
• Understand how objects are allocated
• Understand what happens when tables grow in relationship to allocation
• Understand what occurs in relationship to system tables and internally when the 'disk init' command is invoked
• Understand what happens in relationship to system tables and on the allocation tables when the 'create database' command is invoked
• Describe how various commands use or modify management pages
• Explain fragments of a given database and database fragments on a given device
• Know which management pages contain inconsistencies, and discuss options and trade-offs in fixing these
• Be able to interpret data page header and row layouts

Section 4 - Optimizer Statistics (5 Questions - 8 %)

• Understand how optimizer statistics are stored in the server
• Be able to describe optimizer statistics and their purpose
• Understand the use of optdiag to view optimizer statistics
• Know the commands to manage optimizer statistics
• Know the different tools to confirm statistics are being kept up to date
• Identify upgrade issues with optimizer statistics

Section 5 - Troubleshooting Transaction Logs and Recovery (10 Questions - 17 %)

• Understand dbcc log
• Understand how to extend the master database when its log is full
• Understand logging
• Understand long-running transactions and their impact on logging
• Understand DBINFO
• Understand DBTABLE
• Understand how Log Records and Timestamps work
• Understand the Ckeckpoint process as it relates to Recovery
• Describe when the Adaptive Server recovery process occurs

Section 6 - Index Management (6 Questions - 10 %)

• Understand Index page layout and structure
• Understand allocation of non-clustered and clustered indexes
• Be able to describe index structure
• be able to interpret index page header and row data
• Understand index Page Search Algorithm
• Understand Allpages Clustered and Nonclustered Index Structures
• Understand DOL placement indexes 
• Understand garbage collection in indexes
• Troubleshoot index error conditions
• Understand what sp_fixindex does

Section 7 - Non-master and master device failures (6 Questions - 10 %)

• Understand how to troubleshoot a device offline error
• Understand how to restore a database with a fragment on a device that has failed
• Explain how devices and databases are restored
• Understand how to restore a master device with and without backups of the master database
• Understand how to recover from several distinct master device failure scenarios
• Understand the disk reinit and disk refit commands

Section 8 - ASE 12.5.1 and 12.5.2 New Advanced Admin Features (6 Questions - 10 %)

• Understand the new Dynamic Cache Management strategy
• Understand the use of index sampling for managing the index statistics
• Understand the new features of scalable Logging
• Understand the uses and implementation of the Multiple Tempdb feature
• Understand the newly introduced Job Scheduler & Automated DB Space management feature

For more information on the Sybase Certified Professional Program:
Send comments to Cert_Admin@sybase.com