Re: Case study for interviewing Oracle DBA

One of the things to remember about Case studies is that the candidate going through it will only know about it at the interview time.

Whereas the interview panel would have spent time on the study before and hence would know (lot) more. This should not lead to misjudging the candidate.    

I have seen panelists work on interview questions, case studies for days (which they themselves would not have been able to answer if they were asked the questions in an interview) to ask candidates and reject candidates who are better than some of the panelists!    

My 2 cents. Thanks.

On Fri, 25 Feb 2005 15:45:52 -0800, Thomas Day <tomday2_at_gmail.com> wrote:
> I suspect that a junior DBA should be tested more on what they would
> NOT do, rather than what they would do.
>
> #1 - in my experience, is never delete a file. Always rename it. If
> the database breaks you have a chance to name it back and try to
> recover. If the database is working fine 24 hours later then you can
> delete it.
>
> #2 - Monitor statistics over time. That way you can see trends
> developing and plan a strategy for a fix insteading of waiting for
> some crucial threashold to be reached and then trying to fix it in
> panic mode.
>
> You might has him/her when would you delete the SYSTEM tablespace. If
> they come up with some BS answer try to keep a straight face.
>
> Do they make a destinction between an instance and a database? A
> non-DBA rarely makes that destinction. You might ask them how they
> would make a cold backup of an instance (if you have persistant RAM it
> just might be possible).
>
> Can they identify the difference between a logical volumn and a
> physical device when it comes to distributing tablespaces? Does
> Oracle access an index and it's table simultaneously or serially?
>
> What's the best RAID for a database --- a decision support database
> and an on-line transaction support database?
>
> What's the maximum number of extents that a segment should have?
>
> Does the person know the difference between Oracle myths and Oracle reality?
>
> I've had these case study tests thrown at me and frankly I don't think
> much of them. There's never enough information to do more than make a
> very generalized recommendation. In the real world these questions
> are answered by business and financial policies rather than best DBA
> practices.
>
> Mostly you'll want to hire someone who will think and then think again
> before they put their fingers on the keyboard.
> --
> http://www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l
>

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