The interview process can be quite stressful.

Here is the first part of a two part

series on helping you answer those tough questions that you might experience in
your quest for an Oracle DBA position. I actually wrote this article a long time
ago but it is amazing how many questions I still get every week from this one.
Stay tunned for Part II next week. Technical - Oracle This is the part you have
all been waiting on. Please if you have just skipped to this section, go back to
the personal section and read it. There is much to be gained by the personal
section and conveying to your interviewer who you are and how you tick from day to
day. Also, the answers I am giving here are off the cuff and are not intended to
be the definitive answer to these questions. There are many aspects to these
questions that just cannot be answered here and honestly, you will not have time
to explain any of these questions fully in the interview process. It is up to you
to make sure your interviewer understands that you understand the question and
have given enough information that they know you understand the concept. 1.
Explain the difference between a hot backup and a cold backup and the benefits
associated with each. A hot backup is basically taking a backup of the database
while it is still up and running and it must be in archive log mode. A cold backup
is taking a backup of the database while it is shut down and does not require
being in archive log mode. The benefit of taking a hot backup is that the database
is still available for use while the backup is occurring and you can recover the
database to any point in time. The benefit of taking a cold backup is that it is
typically easier to administer the backup and recovery process. In addition, since
you are taking cold backups the database does not require being in archive log
mode and thus there will be a slight performance gain as the database is not
cutting archive logs to disk. 2. You have just had to restore from backup and do
not have any control files. How would you go about bringing up this database? I
would create a text based backup control file, stipulating where on disk all the
data files where and then issue the recover command with the using backup control
file clause. 3. How do you switch from an init.ora file to a spfile? Issue the
create spfile from pfile command. 4. Explain the difference between a data block,
an extent and a segment. A data block is the smallest unit of logical storage for
a database object. As objects grow they take chunks of additional storage that are
composed of contiguous data blocks. These groupings of contiguous data blocks are
called extents. All the extents that an object takes when grouped together are
considered the segment of the database object. 5. Give two examples of how you
might determine the structure of the table DEPT. Use the describe command or use
the dbms_metadata.get_ddl package. 6. Where would you look for errors from the
database engine? In the alert log. 7. Compare and contrast TRUNCATE and DELETE for
a table. Both the truncate and delete command have the desired outcome of getting
rid of all the rows in a table. The difference between the two is that the
truncate command is a DDL operation and just moves the high water mark and
produces a now rollback. The delete command, on the other hand, is a DML
operation, which will produce a rollback and thus take longer to complete. 8. Give
the reasoning behind using an index. Faster access to data blocks in a table. 9.
Give the two types of tables involved in producing a star schema and the type of
data they hold. Fact tables and dimension tables. A fact table contains
measurements while dimension tables will contain data that will help describe the
fact tables. 10. . What type of index should you use on a fact table? A Bitmap
index. 11. Give two examples of referential integrity constraints. A primary key
and a foreign key. 12. A table is classified as a parent table and you want to
drop and re-create it. How would you do this without affecting the children
tables? Disable the foreign key constraint to the parent, drop the table, re-
create the table, enable the foreign key constraint. 13. Explain the difference
between ARCHIVELOG mode and NOARCHIVELOG mode and the benefits and disadvantages
to each. ARCHIVELOG mode is a mode that you can put the database in for creating a
backup of all transactions that have occurred in the database so that you can
recover to any point in time. NOARCHIVELOG mode is basically the absence of
ARCHIVELOG mode and has the disadvantage of not being able to recover to any point
in time. NOARCHIVELOG mode does have the advantage of not having to write
transactions to an archive log and thus increases the performance of the database
slightly. 14. What command would you use to create a backup control file? Alter
database backup control file to trace. 15. Give the stages of instance startup to
a usable state where normal users may access it. STARTUP NOMOUNT - Instance
startup STARTUP MOUNT - The database is mounted STARTUP OPEN - The database is
opened 16. What column differentiates the V$ views to the GV$ views and how? The
INST_ID column which indicates the instance in a RAC environment the information
came from. 17. How would you go about generating an EXPLAIN plan? Create a plan
table with utlxplan.sql. Use the explain plan set statement_id = 'tst1' into
plan_table for a SQL statement Look at the explain plan with utlxplp.sql or
utlxpls.sql 18. How would you go about increasing the buffer cache hit ratio? Use
the buffer cache advisory over a given workload and then query the
v$db_cache_advice table. If a change was necessary then I would use the alter
system set db_cache_size command. 19. Explain an ORA-01555 You get this error when
you get a snapshot too old within rollback. It can usually be solved by increasing
the undo retention or increasing the size of rollbacks. You should also look at
the logic involved in the application getting the error message. 20. Explain the
difference between $ORACLE_HOME and $ORACLE_BASE. ORACLE_BASE is the root
directory for oracle. ORACLE_HOME located beneath ORACLE_BASE is where the oracle
products reside. Well, we have gone through the first 25 questions as I would
answer them during an interview. Please feel free to add your personal experiences
to the answers as it will always improve the process and add your particular
touch. As always remember these are "core" DBA questions and not necessarily
related to the Oracle options that you may encounter in some interviews. Take a
close look at the requirements for any job and try to come up with questions that
the interviewer may ask. Next time we will tackle the rest of the questions. Until
then, good luck with the process.