Introduction

Last month I wrote an article on the questions I find most useful

for interviewing a SQL Server developer. In this article, I'll cover the
top 10 interview questions for SQL Server DBAs.

What purpose does the model database

serve?
The model database, as its name implies, serves as the model (or
template) for all databases created on the same instance. If the
model database is modified, all subsequent databases created on
that instance will pick up those changes, but earlier created
databases will not. Note that TEMPDB is also created from model
every time SQL Server starts up.

How do you trace the traffic hitting a SQL

Server?
SQL profiler is the SQL Server utility you can use to trace the traffic
on the SQL Server instance. Traces can be filtered to narrow down
the transactions that are captured and reducing the overhead
incurred for the trace. The trace files can be searched, saved off, and
even replayed to facilitate troubleshooting.

What types of replication are supported

in SQL Server?
SQL Server has three types of replication: Snapshot, Merge, and
Transaction. Snapshot replication creates a snapshot of the data
(point-in-time picture of the data) to deliver to the subscribers. This
is a good type to use when the data changes infrequently, there is a
small amount of data to replicate, or large changes occur over a
small period of time.

Merge replication uses a snapshot to seed the replication. Changes

on both sides of the publication are tracked so the subscriber can
synchronize with the publisher when connected. A typical use for this
type of replication is in a client and server scenario. A server would
act as a central repository and multiple clients would independently
update their copies of the data until connected. At which time, they
would all send up their modifications to the central store.

Transaction replication also begins with a snapshot only this time

changes are tracked as transactions (as the name implies). Changes
are replicated from publisher to subscriber the same as they occurred
on the publisher, in the same order as they occurred, and in near
real time. This type of replication is useful when the subscriber needs
to know every change that occurred to the data (not point-in-time),
when the change volume is high, and when the subscriber needs
near real-time access to the changes.

Why would you use SQL Agent?

SQL Agent is the job scheduling mechanism in SQL Server. Jobs can
be scheduled to run at a set time or when a specific event occurs.
Jobs can also be executed on demand. SQL Agent is most often used
to schedule administrative jobs such as backups.

What happens on checkpoint?

Checkpoints, whether scheduled or manually executed, cause the
transaction log to be truncated up to the beginning of the oldest open
transaction (the active portion of the log). That is, the dirty pages
from the buffer cache are written to disk. Storing committed
transactions in the cache provides a performance gain for SQL
Server. However, you do not want the transaction log to get too big
because it might consume too many resources and, should your
database fail, take too long to process to recover the database.

One important thing to note here is that SQL Server can only
truncate up to the oldest open transaction. Therefore, if you are not
seeing the expected relief from a checkpoint, it could very well be
that someone forgot to commit or rollback their transaction. It is very
important to finalize all transactions as soon as possible.

What is DBCC?
DBCC statements are Database Console Commands and come in four
flavors: Maintenance, Informational, Validation, and Miscellaneous.
Maintenance commands are those commands that allow the DBA to
perform maintenance activities on the database such as shrinking a
file. Informational commands provide feedback regarding the
database such as providing information about the procedure cache.
Validation commands include commands that validate the database
such as the ever-popular CHECKDB. Finally, miscellaneous
commands are those that obviously don't fit in the other three
categories. This includes statements like DBCC HELP, which provides
the syntax for a given DBCC command.

How can you control the amount of free

space in your index pages?
You can set the fill factor on your indexes. This tells SQL Server how
much free space to leave in the index pages when re-indexing. The
performance benefit here is fewer page splits (where SQL Server has
to copy rows from one index page to another to make room for an
inserted row) because there is room for growth built in to the index.

Why would you call Update Statistics?

Update Statistics is used to force a recalculation of query
optimization statistics for a table or indexed view. Query optimization
statistics are automatically recomputed, but in some cases, a query
may benefit from updating those statistics more frequently. Beware
though that re-computing the query statistics causes queries to be
recompiled. This may or may not negate all performance gains you
might have achieved by calling update statistics. In fact, it could
have a negative impact on performance depending on the
characteristics of the system.

What is a correlated sub-query?

A correlated sub-query is a nested query that is linked to the outer
query. For instance, say I wanted to find all the employees who have
not entered their time for the week. I could query the Employee table
to get their first and last name, but I need to look at the TimeEntry
table to see if they've entered their time or not. I can't do a straight
join here because I'm looking for the absence of time data, so I'll do
a correlated sub-query similar to this:
SELECT FirstName, LastName

FROM EMPLOYEE e

WHERE NOT EXISTS (SELECT 1 FROM TimeEntry te

WHERE te.EmpID = e.EmpID

AND te.WeekID = 35)

Notice that the inner query relates to the outer query on the
employee ID, thus making it a correlated sub-query. The inner query
will be evaluated once per outer query row.

What authentication modes does SQL

Server support?
SQL Server supports Windows Authentication, SQL Server
Authentication, and mixed-mode. Mixed-mode allows you to use both
Windows Authentication and SQL Server Authentication to log into
your SQL Server. It's important to note that if you use Windows
Authentication, you will not be able to log in as sa

What is normalization? Explain different levels of normalization?

Check out the article Q100139 from Microsoft knowledge base and of course,
there's much more information available in the net. It'll be a good idea to get a hold
of any RDBMS fundamentals text book, especially the one by C. J. Date. Most of the
times, it will be okay if you can explain till third normal form.

What is denormalization and when would you go for it?

As the name indicates, denormalization is the reverse process of normalization. It's

the controlled introduction of redundancy in to the database design. It helps
improve the query performance as the number of joins could be reduced.

How do you implement one-to-one, one-to-many and many-to-many

relationships while designing tables?

One-to-One relationship can be implemented as a single table and rarely as two

tables with primary and foreign key relationships.
One-to-Many relationships are implemented by splitting the data into two tables
with primary key and foreign key relationships.
Many-to-Many relationships are implemented using a junction table with the keys
from both the tables forming the composite primary key of the junction table.
It will be a good idea to read up a database designing fundamentals text book.

What's the difference between a primary key and a unique key?

Both primary key and unique enforce uniqueness of the column on which they are
defined. But by default primary key creates a clustered index on the column, where
are unique creates a nonclustered index by default. Another major difference is
that, primary key doesn't allow NULLs, but unique key allows one NULL only.

What are user defined datatypes and when you should go for them?

User defined datatypes let you extend the base SQL Server datatypes by providing
a descriptive name, and format to the database. Take for example, in your
database, there is a column called Flight_Num which appears in many tables. In all
these tables it should be varchar(8). In this case you could create a user defined
datatype called Flight_num_type of varchar(8) and use it across all your tables.

See sp_addtype, sp_droptype in books online.

What is bit datatype and what's the information that can be stored inside
a bit column?

Bit datatype is used to store boolean information like 1 or 0 (true or false). Untill
SQL Server 6.5 bit datatype could hold either a 1 or 0 and there was no support for
NULL. But from SQL Server 7.0 onwards, bit datatype can represent a third state,
which is NULL.

Define candidate key, alternate key, composite key.

A candidate key is one that can identify each row of a table uniquely. Generally a
candidate key becomes the primary key of the table. If the table has more than one
candidate key, one of them will become the primary key, and the rest are called
alternate keys.

A key formed by combining at least two or more columns is called composite key.

What are defaults? Is there a column to which a default can't be bound?

A default is a value that will be used by a column, if no value is supplied to that

column while inserting data. IDENTITY columns and timestamp columns can't have
defaults bound to them. See CREATE DEFUALT in books online.

Back to top

SQL Server (top)

architecture
What is a transaction and what are ACID properties?

A transaction is a logical unit of work in which, all the steps must be performed or
none. ACID stands for Atomicity, Consistency, Isolation, Durability. These are the
properties of a transaction. For more information and explanation of these
properties, see SQL Server books online or any RDBMS fundamentals text book.

Explain different isolation levels

An isolation level determines the degree of isolation of data between concurrent

transactions. The default SQL Server isolation level is Read Committed. Here are
the other isolation levels (in the ascending order of isolation): Read Uncommitted,
Read Committed, Repeatable Read, Serializable. See SQL Server books online for
an explanation of the isolation levels. Be sure to read about SET TRANSACTION
ISOLATION LEVEL, which lets you customize the isolation level at the connection
level.

CREATE INDEX myIndex ON myTable(myColumn)

What type of Index will get created after executing the above statement?

Non-clustered index. Important thing to note: By default a clustered index gets

created on the primary key, unless specified otherwise.

What's the maximum size of a row?

8060 bytes. Don't be surprised with questions like 'what is the maximum number of
columns per table'. Check out SQL Server books online for the page titled:
"Maximum Capacity Specifications".

Explain Active/Active and Active/Passive cluster configurations

Hopefully you have experience setting up cluster servers. But if you don't, at least
be familiar with the way clustering works and the two clusterning configurations
Active/Active and Active/Passive. SQL Server books online has enough information
on this topic and there is a good white paper available on Microsoft site.

Explain the architecture of SQL Server

This is a very important question and you better be able to answer it if consider
yourself a DBA. SQL Server books online is the best place to read about SQL Server
architecture. Read up the chapter dedicated to SQL Server Architecture.
What is lock escalation?

Lock escalation is the process of converting a lot of low level locks (like row locks,
page locks) into higher level locks (like table locks). Every lock is a memory
structure too many locks would mean, more memory being occupied by locks. To
prevent this from happening, SQL Server escalates the many fine-grain locks to
fewer coarse-grain locks. Lock escalation threshold was definable in SQL Server 6.5,
but from SQL Server 7.0 onwards it's dynamically managed by SQL Server.

What's the difference between DELETE TABLE and TRUNCATE TABLE

commands?

DELETE TABLE is a logged operation, so the deletion of each row gets logged in the
transaction log, which makes it slow. TRUNCATE TABLE also deletes all the rows in
a table, but it won't log the deletion of each row, instead it logs the deallocation of
the data pages of the table, which makes it faster. Of course, TRUNCATE TABLE can
be rolled back.

Explain the storage models of OLAP

Check out MOLAP, ROLAP and HOLAP in SQL Server books online for more
infomation.

What are the new features introduced in SQL Server 2000 (or the latest
release of SQL Server at the time of your interview)? What changed
between the previous version of SQL Server and the current version?

This question is generally asked to see how current is your knowledge. Generally
there is a section in the beginning of the books online titled "What's New", which
has all such information. Of course, reading just that is not enough, you should
have tried those things to better answer the questions. Also check out the section
titled "Backward Compatibility" in books online which talks about the changes that
have taken place in the new version.

What are constraints? Explain different types of constraints.

Constraints enable the RDBMS enforce the integrity of the database automatically,
without needing you to create triggers, rule or defaults.

Types of constraints: NOT NULL, CHECK, UNIQUE, PRIMARY KEY, FOREIGN KEY

For an explanation of these constraints see books online for the pages titled:
"Constraints" and "CREATE TABLE", "ALTER TABLE"

Whar is an index? What are the types of indexes? How many clustered
indexes can be created on a table? I create a separate index on each
column of a table. what are the advantages and disadvantages of this
approach?
Indexes in SQL Server are similar to the indexes in books. They help SQL Server
retrieve the data quicker.

Indexes are of two types. Clustered indexes and non-clustered indexes. When you
craete a clustered index on a table, all the rows in the table are stored in the order
of the clustered index key. So, there can be only one clustered index per table.
Non-clustered indexes have their own storage separate from the table data
storage. Non-clustered indexes are stored as B-tree structures (so do clustered
indexes), with the leaf level nodes having the index key and it's row locater. The
row located could be the RID or the Clustered index key, depending up on the
absence or presence of clustered index on the table.

If you create an index on each column of a table, it improves the query

performance, as the query optimizer can choose from all the existing indexes to
come up with an efficient execution plan. At the same t ime, data modification
operations (such as INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE) will become slow, as every time data
changes in the table, all the indexes need to be updated. Another disadvantage is
that, indexes need disk space, the more indexes you have, more disk space is used.

Back to top

Database (top)
administration

What is RAID and what are different types of RAID configurations?

RAID stands for Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks, used to provide fault
tolerance to database servers. There are six RAID levels 0 through 5 offering
different levels of performance, fault tolerance. MSDN has some information about
RAID levels and for detailed information, check out the RAID advisory board's
homepage

What are the steps you will take to improve performance of a poor
performing query?

This is a very open ended question and there could be a lot of reasons behind the
poor performance of a query. But some general issues that you could talk about
would be: No indexes, table scans, missing or out of date statistics, blocking,
excess recompilations of stored procedures, procedures and triggers without SET
NOCOUNT ON, poorly written query with unnecessarily complicated joins, too much
normalization, excess usage of cursors and temporary tables.

Some of the tools/ways that help you troubleshooting performance problems are:
SET SHOWPLAN_ALL ON, SET SHOWPLAN_TEXT ON, SET STATISTICS IO ON, SQL
Server Profiler, Windows NT /2000 Performance monitor, Graphical execution plan
in Query Analyzer.

Download the white paper on performance tuning SQL Server from Microsoft web
site. Don't forget to check out sql-server-performance.com

What are the steps you will take, if you are tasked with securing an SQL
Server?

Again this is another open ended question. Here are some things you could talk
about: Preferring NT authentication, using server, databse and application roles to
control access to the data, securing the physical database files using NTFS
permissions, using an unguessable SA password, restricting physical access to the
SQL Server, renaming the Administrator account on the SQL Server computer,
disabling the Guest account, enabling auditing, using multiprotocol encryption,
setting up SSL, setting up firewalls, isolating SQL Server from the web server etc.

Read the white paper on SQL Server security from Microsoft website. Also check
out My SQL Server security best practices

What is a deadlock and what is a live lock? How will you go about
resolving deadlocks?

Deadlock is a situation when two processes, each having a lock on one piece of
data, attempt to acquire a lock on the other's piece. Each process would wait
indefinitely for the other to release the lock, unless one of the user processes is
terminated. SQL Server detects deadlocks and terminates one user's process.

A livelock is one, where a request for an exclusive lock is repeatedly denied

because a series of overlapping shared locks keeps interfering. SQL Server detects
the situation after four denials and refuses further shared locks. A livelock also
occurs when read transactions monopolize a table or page, forcing a write
transaction to wait indefinitely.

Check out SET DEADLOCK_PRIORITY and "Minimizing Deadlocks" in SQL Server

books online. Also check out the article Q169960 from Microsoft knowledge base.

What is blocking and how would you troubleshoot it?

Blocking happens when one connection from an application holds a lock and a
second connection requires a conflicting lock type. This forces the second
connection to wait, blocked on the first.

Read up the following topics in SQL Server books online: Understanding and
avoiding blocking, Coding efficient transactions.

Explain CREATE DATABASE syntax

Many of us are used to craeting databases from the Enterprise Manager or by just
issuing the command: CREATE DATABAE MyDB. But what if you have to create a
database with two filegroups, one on drive C and the other on drive D with log on
drive E with an initial size of 600 MB and with a growth factor of 15%? That's why
being a DBA you should be familiar with the CREATE DATABASE syntax. Check out
SQL Server books online for more information.

How to restart SQL Server in single user mode? How to start SQL Server in
minimal configuration mode?

SQL Server can be started from command line, using the SQLSERVR.EXE. This EXE
has some very important parameters with which a DBA should be familiar with. -m
is used for starting SQL Server in single user mode and -f is used to start the SQL
Server in minimal confuguration mode. Check out SQL Server books online for more
parameters and their explanations.

As a part of your job, what are the DBCC commands that you commonly
use for database maintenance?

DBCC CHECKDB, DBCC CHECKTABLE, DBCC CHECKCATALOG, DBCC CHECKALLOC,

DBCC SHOWCONTIG, DBCC SHRINKDATABASE, DBCC SHRINKFILE etc. But there are
a whole load of DBCC commands which are very useful for DBAs. Check out SQL
Server books online for more information.

What are statistics, under what circumstances they go out of date, how do
you update them?

Statistics determine the selectivity of the indexes. If an indexed column has unique
values then the selectivity of that index is more, as opposed to an index with non-
unique values. Query optimizer uses these indexes in determining whether to
choose an index or not while executing a query.

Some situations under which you should update statistics:

1) If there is significant change in the key values in the index
2) If a large amount of data in an indexed column has been added, changed, or
removed (that is, if the distribution of key values has changed), or the table has
been truncated using the TRUNCATE TABLE statement and then repopulated
3) Database is upgraded from a previous version

Look up SQL Server books online for the following commands: UPDATE STATISTICS,
STATS_DATE, DBCC SHOW_STATISTICS, CREATE STATISTICS, DROP STATISTICS,
sp_autostats, sp_createstats, sp_updatestats

What are the different ways of moving data/databases between servers

and databases in SQL Server?

There are lots of options available, you have to choose your option depending upon
your requirements. Some of the options you have are: BACKUP/RESTORE,
dettaching and attaching databases, replication, DTS, BCP, logshipping,
INSERT...SELECT, SELECT...INTO, creating INSERT scripts to generate data.

Explian different types of BACKUPs avaialabe in SQL Server? Given a

particular scenario, how would you go about choosing a backup plan?
Types of backups you can create in SQL Sever 7.0+ are Full database backup,
differential database backup, transaction log backup, filegroup backup. Check out
the BACKUP and RESTORE commands in SQL Server books online. Be prepared to
write the commands in your interview. Books online also has information on
detailed backup/restore architecture and when one should go for a particular kind
of backup.

What is database replicaion? What are the different types of replication

you can set up in SQL Server?

Replication is the process of copying/moving data between databases on the same

or different servers. SQL Server supports the following types of replication
scenarios:

• Snapshot replication
• Transactional replication (with immediate updating subscribers,
with queued updating subscribers)
• Merge replication

See SQL Server books online for indepth coverage on replication. Be prepared to
explain how different replication agents function, what are the main system tables
used in replication etc.

How to determine the service pack currently installed on SQL Server?

The global variable @@Version stores the build number of the sqlservr.exe, which
is used to determine the service pack installed. To know more about this process
visit SQL Server service packs and versions.

Back to top

Database (top)
programming

What are cursors? Explain different types of cursors. What are the
disadvantages of cursors? How can you avoid cursors?

Cursors allow row-by-row prcessing of the resultsets.

Types of cursors: Static, Dynamic, Forward-only, Keyset-driven. See books online

for more information.

Disadvantages of cursors: Each time you fetch a row from the cursor, it results in a
network roundtrip, where as a normal SELECT query makes only one rowundtrip,
however large the resultset is. Cursors are also costly because they require more
resources and temporary storage (results in more IO operations). Furthere, there
are restrictions on the SELECT statements that can be used with some types of
cursors.

Most of the times, set based operations can be used instead of cursors. Here is an
example:

If you have to give a flat hike to your employees using the following criteria:

Salary between 30000 and 40000 -- 5000 hike

Salary between 40000 and 55000 -- 7000 hike
Salary between 55000 and 65000 -- 9000 hike

In this situation many developers tend to use a cursor, determine each employee's
salary and update his salary according to the above formula. But the same can be
achieved by multiple update statements or can be combined in a single UPDATE
statement as shown below:

UPDATE tbl_emp SET salary =

CASE WHEN salary BETWEEN 30000 AND 40000 THEN salary + 5000
WHEN salary BETWEEN 40000 AND 55000 THEN salary + 7000
WHEN salary BETWEEN 55000 AND 65000 THEN salary + 10000
END

Another situation in which developers tend to use cursors: You need to call a stored
procedure when a column in a particular row meets certain condition. You don't
have to use cursors for this. This can be achieved using WHILE loop, as long as
there is a unique key to identify each row. For examples of using WHILE loop for
row by row processing, check out the 'My code library' section of my site
or search for WHILE.

Write down the general syntax for a SELECT statements covering all the
options.

Here's the basic syntax: (Also checkout SELECT in books online for advanced
syntax).

SELECT select_list
[INTO new_table_]
FROM table_source
[WHERE search_condition]
[GROUP BY group_by_expression]
[HAVING search_condition]
[ORDER BY order_expression [ASC | DESC] ]

What is a join and explain different types of joins.

Joins are used in queries to explain how different tables are related. Joins also let
you select data from a table depending upon data from another table.
Types of joins: INNER JOINs, OUTER JOINs, CROSS JOINs. OUTER JOINs are further
classified as LEFT OUTER JOINS, RIGHT OUTER JOINS and FULL OUTER JOINS.

For more information see pages from books online titled: "Join Fundamentals" and
"Using Joins".

Can you have a nested transaction?

Yes, very much. Check out BEGIN TRAN, COMMIT, ROLLBACK, SAVE TRAN and
@@TRANCOUNT

What is an extended stored procedure? Can you instantiate a COM object

by using T-SQL?

An extended stored procedure is a function within a DLL (written in a programming

language like C, C++ using Open Data Services (ODS) API) that can be called from
T-SQL, just the way we call normal stored procedures using the EXEC statement.
See books online to learn how to create extended stored procedures and how to
add them to SQL Server.

Yes, you can instantiate a COM (written in languages like VB, VC++) object from T-
SQL by using sp_OACreate stored procedure. Also see books online for
sp_OAMethod, sp_OAGetProperty, sp_OASetProperty, sp_OADestroy. For an
example of creating a COM object in VB and calling it from T-SQL, see 'My code
library' section of this site.

What is the system function to get the current user's user id?

USER_ID(). Also check out other system functions like USER_NAME(), SYSTEM_USER,
SESSION_USER, CURRENT_USER, USER, SUSER_SID(), HOST_NAME().

What are triggers? How many triggers you can have on a table? How to
invoke a trigger on demand?

Triggers are special kind of stored procedures that get executed automatically
when an INSERT, UPDATE or DELETE operation takes place on a table.

In SQL Server 6.5 you could define only 3 triggers per table, one for INSERT, one for
UPDATE and one for DELETE. From SQL Server 7.0 onwards, this restriction is gone,
and you could create multiple triggers per each action. But in 7.0 there's no way to
control the order in which the triggers fire. In SQL Server 2000 you could specify
which trigger fires first or fires last using sp_settriggerorder

Triggers can't be invoked on demand. They get triggered only when an associated
action (INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE) happens on the table on which they are defined.

Triggers are generally used to implement business rules, auditing. Triggers can also
be used to extend the referential integrity checks, but wherever possible, use
constraints for this purpose, instead of triggers, as constraints are much faster.

Till SQL Server 7.0, triggers fire only after the data modification operation happens.
So in a way, they are called post triggers. But in SQL Server 2000 you could create
pre triggers also. Search SQL Server 2000 books online for INSTEAD OF triggers.

Also check out books online for 'inserted table', 'deleted table' and
COLUMNS_UPDATED()

There is a trigger defined for INSERT operations on a table, in an OLTP

system. The trigger is written to instantiate a COM object and pass the
newly insterted rows to it for some custom processing. What do you think
of this implementation? Can this be implemented better?

Instantiating COM objects is a time consuming process and since you are doing it
from within a trigger, it slows down the data insertion process. Same is the case
with sending emails from triggers. This scenario can be better implemented by
logging all the necessary data into a separate table, and have a job which
periodically checks this table and does the needful.

What is a self join? Explain it with an example.

Self join is just like any other join, except that two instances of the same table will
be joined in the query. Here is an example: Employees table which contains rows
for normal employees as well as managers. So, to find out the managers of all the
employees, you need a self join.

CREATE TABLE emp

(
empid int,
mgrid int,
empname char(10)
)

INSERT emp SELECT 1,2,'Vyas'

INSERT emp SELECT 2,3,'Mohan'
INSERT emp SELECT 3,NULL,'Shobha'
INSERT emp SELECT 4,2,'Shridhar'
INSERT emp SELECT 5,2,'Sourabh'

SELECT t1.empname [Employee], t2.empname [Manager]

FROM emp t1, emp t2
WHERE t1.mgrid = t2.empid

Here's an advanced query using a LEFT OUTER JOIN that even returns the
employees without managers (super bosses)

SELECT t1.empname [Employee], COALESCE(t2.empname, 'No manager')

[Manager]
FROM emp t1
LEFT OUTER JOIN
emp t2
ON
t1.mgrid = t2.empid