Thia may actually take 2 hrs of a good discussion. I'd personally hire this guy if he answered 80% of these questions! "Bobak, Mark" <Mark.Bobak@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:I think one of the best ones is from Tom Kyte. Describe the various components that make up a database. Then, go into detail describing the various components that make up an instance. How do these components interact and work together? Anyone who can do a good job describing the databases (datafiles, redo, controlfiles) and the instance (various background processes and what they do, SGA, how it's divided up, etc) is going to have a pretty good knowledge of Oracle. If candidate survives that one, favorite questions seem to be: Describe a recent database corruption issue and how you recovered from = it. What's a nested loop join? Sort-merge join? Hash join? semi-join? anti-join? Self-join? outer join? Describe scenarios where it may or may not be appropriate to use a B*Tree or bitmap index. Describe your approach to tuning SQL. What tools do you use? How do you approach the problem? How can you measure the improvement that's been achieved? A user complains that the system is slow. What do you do? Where do you begin? There's some questions that ought to keep him busy for a while...;-) Good luck, -Mark > -----Original Message----- > From: oracle-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx > [mailto:oracle-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of Freeman, Donald > Sent: Wednesday, November 24, 2004 2:29 PM > To: Oracle-L (E-mail) > Subject: DBA Interview Questions >=20 >=20 > We have a position open suddenly and I'll be participating in =3D > interviewing my contract co-dba next week for a Oracle 9i=20 > data warehouse =3D > position. One of the resumes I read mentioned the applicant had =3D > experience in performance tuning by 'tuning buffer cache hit=20 > ratios' and =3D > that made me want to buckle down and ask a few appropriate questions. >=20 > I first plan to ask what a buffer cache hit ratio is and then what a = =3D > 10046 trace is: If they can explain how to use it and=20 > explain waits =3D > then I'll know I've got a winner. =3D20 >=20 > Whats the quickest way to find out if somebody knows something about = =3D > tuning? I'm just a novice myself and would like to be sure=20 > that the =3D > guy/gal we hire knows more than I do and can strengthen us in=20 > that area. =3D >=20 >=20 > The guy we interviewed today didn't know what system stats and =3D > histograms were and didn't know what RAC was. Hopefully we'll do =3D > better next week when we resume. If anybody is interested in these = =3D > kind of contract positions you have to get on the list with=20 > Deloitte and =3D > Touche. They are our primary contractors.=3D20 >=20 > Don Freeman > Database Administrator 1 > Pennsylvania Dept of Health > Bureau of Information Technology >=20 >=20 > -- > //www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l >=20 -- //www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? All your favorites on one personal page ? Try My Yahoo! -- //www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l