Specific tips for the exam 1Z0-0032:-

Although you are not expected to understand how to configure and make use of advanced Oracle Net features, you should be able to explain their function in an Oracle Net design. Such topics include the Oracle Internet Directory (OID, Oracle’s LDAP-compliant directory service), Oracle Names, Oracle Connection Manager, Oracle Advanced Security, the Oracle Net Application Proxy Kit, and Oracle Heterogeneous Services.

 
Do you understand the OSI model and how various Oracle Net software layers with different types of connections fit into this model? Expect several questions about this subject.

You must understand how to configure the two basic naming methods (name resolution methods) for Oracle Net: host naming and local naming.

You must know how to configure and tune an Oracle database instance to support shared server connections in addition to dedicated server connections. Make sure that you have a complete understanding of the benefits of an Oracle Shared Server (formerly called the multithreaded server or MTS with previous releases of Oracle), the process architecture used to support shared server connections (dispatcher, a pool of shared servers, virtual circuits, request and response queues, etc.), the specific path and steps that shared server connections, requests, and responses take in an Oracle Shared Server, etc.

Expect many questions that focus on offline redo log configuration. For example, you should understand how to configure both local and remote log archive destinations using the LOG_ARCHIVE_DEST_n,  LOG_ARCHIVE_DEST_STATE_n, LOG_ARCHIVE_DEST, LOG_ARCHIVE_DUPLEX_DEST, and LOG_ARCHIVE_FORMAT initialization parameters, the interaction of LOG_ARCHIVE_MIN_SUCCEED_DEST and the various log archive destination initialization parameters, and how to set the LOG_ARCHIVE_MAX_PROCESSES initialization parameter to start multiple Archiver (ARCn) background processes.

 
Spend an adequate amount of time practicing listener configuration, including the configuration of such listener features as dynamic service registration, static service registration, multiple listeners and connection load balancing, and manually editing listener.ora parameters. You should be intimately familiar  with the use of the Listener Control utility (lsnrctl).

Starting with Oracle9i, connection load balancing also supports dedicated server connections in addition to shared server connections. Additionally, Oracle Net no longer supports the IPX/SPX protocol.

Understand the importance of basic database backup and recovery principles, including such terms as mean time between failures (MTBF) and mean time to recover (MTTR), the types of problems that can necessitate a database recovery (for example, system crash, disk failure, user error), the redo (roll forward) and undo (roll backward) stages of database recovery, and the structures necessary for various types of database recovery (the database control file, online redo log groups, undo segments, database backups, offline redo log files).

You must understand how to back up and recover an Oracle database with and without the Recovery Manager (RMAN) utility; the latter option is known as user-managed backup and recovery.
Although most Oracle databases worth protecting operate with media recovery enabled (in ARCHIVELOG mode), an inordinate number of OCP exam questions focus on how to back up and recover databases that operate with media recovery disabled (in NOARCHIVELOG mode). Therefore, do not forget to spend some time learning about the procedures for dealing with databases that use NOARCHIVELOG mode. You should understand that to back up a NOARCHIVELOG mode database, you must take the database offline cleanly and back up all database files (data files and the control file); optionally, you can back up the database’s online redo log members. To recover a NOARCHIVELOG mode database, you can restore all database files (data files, the control file, and online redo log members), and then restart the database; alternatively, if you do not restore online log members because you did not back them up, you must startup a new instance, mount the database, use a RECOVER DATABASE UNTIL CANCEL command, and then use an ALTER DATABASE OPEN RESETLOGS command to clear the current online log members and start a new database incarnation. In either case, you lose all committed work that was performed since the backup used for the recovery.
(Note: This process is actually a database restore, not a database recovery.)

Make sure that you know how to perform a user-managed backup of an open database. For example, you should understand the significance of placing an online tablespace into backup mode (ALTER TABLESPACE … BEGIN BACKUP) before copying the tablespace’s data files, and what type of useful information that you can display when you query the V$BACKUP and V$DATAFILE_HEADER data dictionary views.

Make sure that you carefully understand other important issues that you will likely have to face in real-world situations. For example, when a disk drive is lost for an extended period of time, you should know how to restore lost database files to another disk and rename the files in the database control file using a command
such as ALTER DATABASE … RENAME FILE before recovering the database.