SCBCD, any book?

[Sumit Amar]

Hi folks!
I trying to prepare for SCBCD, Is there any specific OR relevant book available that would satisfy the exam objectives?
Which book(s) , have been used by existing test takers?
Thanks a million

[Rob Jefson]

Based on the pioneers' advice in this forum I'm studying exclusively the 2.0 spec. I do have Ed Roman's 'Mastering EJBs (2nd ed.)' and the O'Reilly book by Monson-Haefel and both of these have been highly recommended here on javaranch.

[Sivasundaram Umapathy]

EJB 2.0 spec has everything required for the exam.Nothing is out of this document.I used only that and managed the exam well
Siva

[Dave Cronin]

The EJB spec is really important for the exam, some of the material in the spec is not covered well in any book. Not all of the spec is relevant though, since some of the spec is for container vendors only, so it is worth checking the exam objectives too. You would have to be brave to only study the spec I think.
The books Mastering EJB by Ed Roman and the Enterprise JavaBeans by Monson-Haefel are worth studying, as they are easier to read than the spec, and will help in understanding. The Monson-Haefel books is more in-depth in some areas, and is especially useful for container-managed relationships and EJB QL. (It does have a large number of typos to watch out for though.) And then there is the Sun J2EE tutorial, which does a very good job of explaining EJB concepts.
Kathy Sierra's new EJB cert prep book looks like it will be extremely helpful, so it is worth downloading the preview chapters as mentioned in other posts.

[Gustavo Torreti]

EJB 2.0 spec is a must.
Kathy's book will bring a lot of helpful information and tips on learning and preparing for the exam.

[Sumit Amar]

Thanks a lot buds!

[Rob Jefson]

While I'm very pleased with the spec's readibility I think Dave (who posted above) may be right that the info is better digested when presented in a fuller context like that provided by the Monson-Haefel or Ed Roman book. I've worked with session ejb's but have done nothing with entity beans so I'm retreating to Monson-Haefel for a proper grounding. Then I'll read through the exam objectives and go through the spec in a more focused manner. I read Ed Roman's book for the SCEA objective exam (which focused on higher level knowledge than is needed here) and know that's a good book too.

[Valentin Crettaz]

Make sure you check out the web page for Kathy and Bert's book "Head First EJB" at http://www.wickedlysmart.com/HeadFirst/HeadFirstEJB/HeadFirstEJBIndex.html
The book should be out of press in August... more or less at the same time as the SCBCD exam is finalized...