Re: Interview Question

Questions for prospective DBA's

1. Have you ever installed an Oracle Release.

    If yes, what versions, operating systems. Explain what problems     you encountered and how you went about solving them.

What you are looking for here is confirmation that the person has good problem solving skills. If they installed anything other than Personal Oracle 7 and had no problems then I would wonder???

2. Have you ever upgraded an Oracle Version

    If Yes, from what version to what version. What problems were     encountered, how did you fix them. Double bonus credit if they     mention doing cold backups and full exports before the upgrade.     Triple bonus points for mentioning the release notes!

Again we are looking for experience and problem solving skills. Most of us that have upgraded a version have had some problem. Double bonus points if they mention doing cold backups and full exports before the upgrade. Triple bonus points for mentioning the release notes!

3. Describe the types of oracle backups and generally when each would be

    used.

    hot, cold, export/import

a general description here gives you a warm and fuzzy that they under stand how backup/recovery works. Ask them to explain how the backup scenario at one of his previous jobs worked. Ask them to talk about any tools they have used to facillitate backups.

4. Have you ever had to recover a production database. If so how did you do it. If not I would have a trial scenario and ask how they would go about recovering.

5. Given the following scenario what would you do? "We have a instance that is "TOO SLOW" what would you do first to try to "FIX" this instance."

If they ask questions first, you may have a real winner? ie Is the application client/server? What kind of network? Is it using Motif? What kind of machine? Do we know which queries are executing slowly?

Most tuning books suggest that you first look at tuning sql queries! If your applicant starts here thats great. If the applicant displays general
knowledge of v$ tables and how to check sga, shared pool, and db block buffers and use of utlbstat/utlestat that would serve as an indication that the prospect has some idea of how performance tuning is done.

A good followup to this question is to ask? What is their favorite Tuning
Book? If they have one this is a good sign. If they don't they probably
haven't done much tuning.

Another good followup if it wasn't mentioned initially, is to ask about the use of utlbtat and utlestat. A totally blank look, could tell a lot.

6. Do they know what OFA means?

Hope this helps,

John Hough Received on Wed Jun 04 1997 - 00:00:00 CDT