Questions in Part 1 are done by me:

------------------------------------Instructions:
Write the answers below the questions,
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------PART 1:
1) What is the importance of redo log files ?
2) What are the contents of a Control File ?
3) Why is the difference between Direct Path Export and Conventional Path Export
?
4) Questions are asked about parameters in export, like : consistent = y , ( wha
t is the purpose of it ) ?
5) What is the use of the parameter "maxtrans" . Is it used at block level, exte
nt level or segment level ?
6) Which parameter do you use to read multiple blocks in one go (DB_MULTIBLOCK_R
EAD_COUNT)
7) Difference & when to use first_rows & all_rows parameter, while using an opti
mizer
8) What are the types of recovery one can perform ?
9) How can one implicitly disconnect a user from the database , who is idle for
a long time ? ( Using Profiles )
11) Which parameter can be used to enable checkpointing at regular intervals (fa
st_start_mttr_target)?
12. What are the background process that start when you give a startup command a
nd what is their signifance.
A. Read on smon, pmon, ckpt, arch process in detail
13. What the day to day Activities you do in your job.
A. Talk about Alert Handling, Backup Auditing, Database Refreshes, Schema Refres
hes, Code Deployment.
14. What backups do you use. Online or Offline.
A. Tell them you use both, online and offlien. Read about the Hot Backup mechani
sm.
15. What are your database versions and what are your databases sizes.
A. You can tell them are currently supporting 8.1.7.4, 9.2.0.4 and 9.2.0.6 versi
on of databases. Tell them you support in total 15 databases out of which 6 are
production. They are 2 dba's to take care of these 16 instances. Size of the dat
abases range from 5 GB to 120 GB.
16. How can you see the source code of the package?
A. Tell them by querying the dba_source
17. What is Cost Based Optimizer. How can you gather statistics on a table.

18. What is SCN.

19. What is checkpointing. What happens when a user issues a commit statement.
20. What are the components of SGA
A. Talk about Shared Pool, Library Cache, Dictionary Cache, Java Pool, PGA, UGA.
Read their defination in detail.
21. How do you increase the size of a tablespace.
22. What is the difference between locally managed tablespace and dictionary man
aged tablespaces.
23. What is the diff between Rollack Segments and Undo Management. What is undo_
retention signify.?
24. What is OFA(Oracle Optimal Flexible Archetecture).?
25. What is snap shot too old error and what do you do to get rid of it.?
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------PART 2:
1) How can you gather statistics on a table?
How can you enable a trace for a session?
What is the difference between the SQL*Loader and IMPORT utilities?
2) Name two files used for network connection to a database.
3) What are the different tablespaces in database?
4) How can you drop an index?
5) How to drop the column in a table?
6) How to take the export and import of users level?
7) What are the new parameters in imp?
8) If the application is running very slow, at what points you need to go about
the database in order to improve the performance? Specifically on Application Tu
ning?
9) How to clone the database?
10) What are LGWR, SMON, PMON, DBWR? Explain in details?
11) What exactly happens when a user issues an UPDATE statement? When an UPDATE
statement is very slow, what will you do?
12) What are the various hit ratios in SGA? How to monitor them?
13) What privileges are needed to connect to a database?
14) Explain what an Oracle snapshot is.
15) What is a partitioned table?
16) When will SNAPSHOT TOO OLD error occur?
17) What is the difference between logical backup and physical backup?
18) How to export Oracle tablespace?
19) What is DIRECT=Y option in export?
20) How to take hot backup?
21) What is TRANSACTION TABLE in rollback segment?
22) What is the simplest way to collect database statistics?
23) How to generate trace file? What are the different tkprof options?
24) What is the difference between rule based optimization and cost based optimi
zation?
25) When will you use NESTED LOOP join and SORT MERGE join?
26) What is the difference between CHAINED ROW and MIGRATED ROW?
27) How do you solve Rollback segment contention?

28) What for OPTIMAL (rollback segment) size? And tell me the syntax how will yo
u define it?
29) Describe the exp, imp utility parameters and syntax?
30) What are the different export options?
31) If the application is running very slow, at what points do you need to go ab
out the database in order to improve the performance?
32) What are the parameters you need to look at in output file (tkprof)? How to
identify that the given SQL statement is bad by looking into the tkprof output f
ile?
33) Explain the definition of a "star schema."
34) Explain what a bitmapped index is, what it's applications would be, and why
it's useful.
35) Describe the procedure for moving a datafile from one disk to another. Show
actual SQL used for this procedure.
36) Explain the difference between a "hot" and a "cold" backup. What is involved
with executing a "hot" backup?
37) Explain the differences between logical and physical database backups. What
are the benefits and penalties of each?
38) If an underlying filesystem uses a blocksize of 2K, what would the optimal b
locksize be for the STORAGE clause in a CREATE TABLESPACE statement?
39) What variables in the "init.ora" file affect the amount of RAM needed for th
e SGA?
40) What is the SQL statement necessary to delete a user named "joe" and everyth
ing that he owns in a database?
41) If you were connected to a database, TEST01, as the SYS user, what would be
a SQL statement that you could use to show the members of all of TEST01's redo l
og groups?
42) If you had a tablespace, TEST_TABLESPACE, which consists of three files: TES
T01.dbf, TEST02.dbf, and TEST03.dbf, and someone accidentally used the Unix comm
and "rm" to delete the file TEST02.dbf, what else would you need
in order to recover all the data that was present in TEST_TABLESPACE at the time
that TEST02.dbf was deleted?
43) You notice the machine that is running a database called TEST01 is running a
bout 95-100% idle. You have about 30-45 users trying to connect to TEST01, and t
hey are complaining that the database is slow to respond, or doesn't respond at
all. Where do you being your diagnosis, and what steps do you take to resolve th
e problem?
44) How would you get the Oracle server to show you its plan for a given SQL sta
tement?
45) Schema A has some objects and created one procedure and granted to Schema B.
Schema B has the same objects like schema A. Schema B executed the procedure li
ke inserting some records. In this case where the data will be stored whether in
Schema A or Schema B?
46) What is mutated trigger, is it the problem of locks. In single user mode we
got mutated error, as a DBA how you will resolve it?
47) In exception handling we have some NOT_FOUND and OTHERS. In inner layer we h
ave some NOT_FOUND and OTHERS. While executing which one whether outer layer or
inner layer will check first?
48) Dual table explain. Is any data internally storing in dual table. Lot of use
rs are accessing select sysdate from dual and they getting some millisecond diff
erences. If we execute SELECT SYSDATE FROM EMP; what error will we get. Why?
49) How do you increase the performance of %LIKE operator?
51) If the SQL * Plus hangs for a long time, what is the reason?
52) All the users are complaining that their application is hanging. How you wil
l resolve this situation in OLTP?
53) How to check to memory gap once the SGA is started in Restricted mode?
54) In which situation whether peak time or off peak time you will execute the A
NALYZE TABLE command. Why?
55) If the large table contains thousands of records and the application is acce
ssing 35% of the table which method to use: index searching or full table scan?

56) What is bulk SQL?

57) If the entire disk is corrupted how will you and what are the steps to recov
er the database?
58) You have just had to restore from backup and do not have any control files.
How would you go about bringing up this database?
59) How do you switch from an init.ora file to a spfile?
60) Explain the difference between a data block, an extent and a segment.
61) Give two examples of how you might determine the structure of the table DEPT
.
62) Where would you look for errors from the database engine?
63) Compare and contrast TRUNCATE and DELETE for a table.
64) Give the reasoning behind using an index.
65) Give the two types of tables involved in producing a star schema and the typ
e of data they hold.
66) What type of index should you use on a fact table?
67) Give two examples of referential integrity constraints.
68) A table is classified as a parent table and you want to drop and re-create i
t. How would you do this without affecting the children tables?
69) Explain the difference between ARCHIVELOG mode and NOARCHIVELOG mode and the
benefits and disadvantages to each.
70) What command would you use to create a backup control file?
71) Give the stages of instance startup to a usable state where normal users may
access it.
72) What column differentiates the V$ views to the GV$ views and how?
73) How would you go about generating an EXPLAIN plan?
74) How would you go about increasing the buffer cache hit ratio?
75) Explain an ORA-01555
76) Explain the difference between $ORACLE_HOME and $ORACLE_BASE.
77) How would you determine the time zone under which a database was operating?
78) Explain the use of setting GLOBAL_NAMES equal to TRUE.
79) Explain the difference between a FUNCTION, PROCEDURE and PACKAGE.
80) Explain the use of table functions.
81) Name three advisory statistics you can collect.
82) Where in the Oracle directory tree structure are audit traces placed?
83) Explain materialized views and how they are used.
84) When a user process fails, what background process cleans up after it?
85) What background process refreshes materialized views?
86) How would you determine what sessions are connected and what resources they
are waiting for?
87) Describe what redo logs are.
88) How would you force a log switch?
89) Give two methods you could use to determine what DDL changes have been made.
90) What does coalescing a tablespace do?
91) What is the difference between a TEMPORARY tablespace and a PERMANENT tables
pace?
92) Name a tablespace automatically created when you create a database.
93) How do you add a data file to a tablespace?
94) How do you resize a data file?
95) What view would you use to look at the size of a data file?
96) What view would you use to determine free space in a tablespace?
97) How would you determine who has added a row to a table?
98) How can you rebuild an index?
99) Explain what partitioning is and what its benefit is.
100) You have just compiled a PL/SQL package but got errors, how would you view
the errors?

Solaris Questions

1) How do you see the freespace on the mount points.

2) How to find the running processes?
3) How can you list all the background processes?
5) What command(s) will show you the amount of available swap space available on
a system?
12) What does the "dbshut" script do?
13) What is the purpose of the file "/var/opt/oracle/oratab" ?
15) How do you list the files in an UNIX directory while also showing hidden fil
es?
16) How do you execute a UNIX command in the background?
17) What UNIX command will control the default file permissions when files are c
reated?
18) Explain the read, write, and execute permissions on a UNIX directory.
19) What is the difference between a soft link and a hard link?
20) Give the command to display space usage on the UNIX file system.
22) Explain briefly how you will install Oracle on Unix.
23) TOp command and its usage.
24) Crontab(Unix cron) and its usage.