Are these too harsh ?

I'm currently assisting in the interviewing for a DBA - the company is not looking for an "Einstein", but also not a junior, just someone who can do the job adequately. I was asked to come up with a list of DBA questions, so I produced a set that was created for exactly the same purpose at a previous site. But so far, no one has explained more than about 60% to an acceptable degree.

So I'm looking for impartial opinions - are the following questions too hard ?

Ta
Connor

• What are the various shutdown modes for the database?
• Describe the basic mechanics of how hot backup works?
• Besides the overhead of copying the files to disk/tape, what other performance issues are relevant during a hot backup, namely, why do many sites try to keep the time spent in backup mode to a minimum?
• If I need to export a single 40G table, but only have 5 separate file system, each of only 10G, for the export file - what measures could you take?
• What is the standby database feature and how does it work?
• List the steps that Oracle goes through at database startup
• What is the difference between a latch and a lock? Give an example of use of each
• What is "spinning" as it pertains to a latch?
• What are the positives and negatives of a large database block size on indexes?
• What is the Oracle log buffer? Describe how Oracle uses latches as information is written into the log buffer
• What is a function-based index and where could it be used?
• What is the 8i feature "Native Dynamic SQL"?
• What is a locally managed tablespace and list some benefits
• How do I allow end-user queries against a standby database without damaging its ability to act as a standby?
• What are the significant features of "analytic functions" available from 8.1.6 onwards ?
• What does the "explain plan" command do
• On a Unix machine, you see an oracle process using all of the CPU. Assuming it is due to a poorly written SQL, describe how to determine the SQL that is causing the problem, starting with the Unix process ID.
• How would you determine the amount of I/O occurring on each datafile in the database ? If a great deal of this is occurring on the TEMP tablespace what is the likely cause ?
• Describe the three buffer pools (available in 8.0 and 8i) and their uses ?
• List the pros and cons of using bind variables
• You issue 'select count(*) from my_table;' and it takes a tremendously long time, but then return no rows. What could be causing this ?
• Describe the common RAID levels used for Oracle databases and how they typically pertain to performance
• Describe how you would determine whether an index requires rebuilding ?
• What are the advantages of creating code using packages over standalone PL/SQL procedures
• Describe how and why a PL/SQL module could be defined as an autonomous transaction
• Your database contains a view, which joins two tables. It is possible to insert, update, and delete rows from this view. - Describe two ways of implementing this.
• What is an inline view?

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Connor McDonald

http://www.oracledba.co.uk

"Some days you're the pigeon, some days you're the statue..."