Re: DBA Interview Questions

Don,

What if his/her answer concerning RAC was: "You probably don't need RAC. Most data warehouses aren't that high availability and state governments don't likely have the budgets to support the staff to manage all of that additional complexity." (unless you're talking about the state lottery, of course).

What if his answer to histograms was "They likely do more damage than good and I only use them where I'm sure they are appropriate - and in 10g I just let oracle gather them for skewonly" - and she/he kept a straight face.

I wonder what would happen if someone just quoted *Ag shells* in an interview - how far they would get. They might identify them as having "management material" written all over them.

I'd be interested if they paid overtime for monthly maintenance periods for rebuilding indexes.

Paul

On Wed, 24 Nov 2004 14:29:02 -0500, Freeman, Donald <dofreeman_at_state.pa.us> wrote:
> We have a position open suddenly and I'll be participating in =
> interviewing my contract co-dba next week for a Oracle 9i data warehouse =
> position. One of the resumes I read mentioned the applicant had =
> experience in performance tuning by 'tuning buffer cache hit ratios' and =
> that made me want to buckle down and ask a few appropriate questions.
>
> I first plan to ask what a buffer cache hit ratio is and then what a =
> 10046 trace is: If they can explain how to use it and explain waits =
> then I'll know I've got a winner. =20
>
> Whats the quickest way to find out if somebody knows something about =
> tuning? I'm just a novice myself and would like to be sure that the =
> guy/gal we hire knows more than I do and can strengthen us in that area. =
>
> The guy we interviewed today didn't know what system stats and =
> histograms were and didn't know what RAC was. Hopefully we'll do =
> better next week when we resume. If anybody is interested in these =
> kind of contract positions you have to get on the list with Deloitte and =
> Touche. They are our primary contractors.=20
>
> Don Freeman
> Database Administrator 1
> Pennsylvania Dept of Health
> Bureau of Information Technology
>
> --
> http://www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l
>

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