April 20, 2019 at 2:02 pm
Hi,
I am applying for the position of SQL DBA with 3years of experience.
I need few details regarding project description:
Thanks in advance guys.
April 20, 2019 at 2:59 pm
Welcome to SQL Server Central.
Those look like interview questions. You should be answering those question first, not us (random strangers from the internet). If people from SSC answer the questions for you you won't be getting the job on your own merit but on someone elses; and then you aren't qualified for the role in my view if you can't get the job without help from someone else (not to be rude).
Why don't you tell us what you believe the answers to those questions are (some are rather open ended, and some I don't even think are relevant in my opinion). Once you've given the answers you believe are correct then you and the other users here can discuss your answers and put input into them. You will learn far more from that.
Thom~
Excuse my typos and sometimes awful grammar. My fingers work faster than my brain does.
Larnu.uk
April 20, 2019 at 3:55 pm
Hi Thom,
These are the answers i know (if i am wrong correct me)
1.around 10 members work in a dba team.
2.All of these concepts are enough i feel.
3.Day to day activities include backup,restoring databases,monitoring jobs,checking errors and resolving them.
4.size of dtabase=6gb ( Max size of database=10gb for 2016),number of tables = 90 tables
5. 4 servers(max 50)
6.bmc remedy
7.CPU management using activity monitor,DMV's,sp_who2(recommend me other than this whatelse is used)
8.Dba's gives user permissions to developers(other than this what work goes on inside)
9.I have done project with 6gb data,90 tables and 4 servers.
These are the answers i know. please add in ur experience and tell me anything i need to add and focus on the concepts to crack my interview.
April 20, 2019 at 5:35 pm
Hi, I am applying for the position of SQL DBA with 3years of experience. I need few details regarding project description:
- How many people in dba team work?
- Common responsibilities of DBA with 3yrs of experience.(backup,restore,performance tuning,giving user permissions,deadlock management,long running queries,using DMV's,CPU,i/o management,replication,clustering,alwayson)--are these concepts enough?
- Day to day activities of DBA?
- size of database(s),number of tables dba handle?
- how many server usually handled by dba?
- third party tools used(like BMC Remedy)?
- how CPU,i/o management handled?
- how do dba's assist developers?
- Any realtime project done by dba with explanation would be helpful for me
Thanks in advance guys.
Heh... Dude! By applying for such a position, you're inherently claiming that you actually have 3 years of experience as a DBA. As Thom said so nicely, you're the one that should be telling us the answers to those questions.
If you can't actually answer those questions on your own, just wait 'til you get to the technical questions. Of course, you're lying from the git because you don't actually know the answers to the questions you asked. You're asking people to give you the information so you can fake it.
Answer honestly... it'll go a long way especially if you somehow manage to pass the interview.
--Jeff Moden
Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.
April 21, 2019 at 3:45 pm
Changing my previous answer here because the post immediately above my previous one wasn't available (it was 2 hour earlier so not sure why it didn't show up) when I first started typing my reply and didn't check for other replies after posting.
I think that the best advice would be "absolute honesty". When you answer questions on an interview, if you provide answers given by others, then you won't be able to support your position when they ask follow-up questions.
With that in mind, look at your response to #9 and understand that a lot of people have Non-Clustered Indexes larger than the biggest database that you've worked with. The way to preface such a thing is when they ask for you (normally done at first in the interview) to tell them about yourself is to include that fact but in a disarming way. Explain that you've "only" had the opportunity to work with smaller databases of 6-10 GB (you might even want to add in a little "joke" of "You folks probably have some Non-Clustered Indexes larger than that and that's a part of the reason why I'm applying for this postion" to help demonstrate that you know what you're getting into and that you ARE absolutely honest.
You also mention "performance tuning" in your question #2. You should be seriously prepared to explain what your involvement is there and exactly what you look for and the tools you use to find performance problems, how you use the execution plan to help you figure things out, and have a couple of examples of how your performance tuning paid off.
For #3, be prepared to have deep discussions on backups and restores and identify why you've had to do restores in the past. If you've not had to do any actual restores, tell them that. You also might want to practice doing some before you get to the interview. Yeah... it's that important.
For #8, if you think that a DBA's involvement with Developers is only giving permissions (probably because of your current job), there's a whole lot more. DBA's should also be able to help Developers and Planners with design and questions that they might otherwise turn to a forum for.
The bottom line is that you've stated a lot of things in your original post and if you really want to impress folks, be prepared to provide and support thoughtful answers for all of what you've mentioned. Like how DO you monitor jobs? How DO you monitor that backups actually worked? How DO you test backups to ensure that restores will actually work? What DO you know about "Disaster Recovery"? Which DMVs do you actually use and why? How have you actually fixed problems you've found? How do you learn new things? Are you actively involved in teaching yourself new things? How do you solve issues that you know nothing about? What exactly was your involvement on the project for your response to #9?
And even though it's not for a Developer position, if you don't know about indexes, index maintenance, who Ola Hallengren is, joins, or how to avoid recursive CTEs, Cursors, and While Loops, you might want to spend some time studying. Remember, if you mention something like the "Tally" table, be prepared to talk about it because it has a whole lot to do with "performance tuning".
You should also lookup the company and study a bit about what they do and who some of the key players are so that you also understand what the purpose and use of the databases might be. When appropriate, you might use some reference to what you've found so they know that you were interested in the position well enough to spend some time researching the company.
And, to say it again and above all, be absolutely honest. Don't try to bullshit your way through anything (a good interviewer will shred you if you do and you won't even know it happened.). If you don't know or haven't done something they ask, say so! If you know of other things that might apply to the problem and can speculate on a solution, tell them what you might try or how you'd get the knowledge to began an attack such a problem
Good luck with your application and the interview.
--Jeff Moden
Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.
April 22, 2019 at 5:22 am
Hi Jeff Maden,
Thank you for taking time and explain things. I will try my best and study the concepts needed.
April 22, 2019 at 1:08 pm
It looks like you could use some more study & knowledge in this area. Let me make a few suggestions.
Hi Thom, These are the answers i know (if i am wrong correct me) 1.around 10 members work in a dba team.
Well, that's completely dependent on the organization. There's not a right number here.
2.All of these concepts are enough i feel.
This is a very wide range of concepts. What I don't see is disaster recovery. I'd say this is the single most important task you have. Also missing from the list is deployments. Change is constant and you need to know how to manage this from the db side of things.
3.Day to day activities include backup,restoring databases,monitoring jobs,checking errors and resolving them.
4.size of dtabase=6gb ( Max size of database=10gb for 2016),number of tables = 90 tables
5. 4 servers(max 50)
And this is all about your experience and knowledge. So, just answer the questions as you have. What have you done? What have you worked with? Jeff's comments here are hyper-important. Be honest.
6.bmc remedy
Never heard of it. However, I'd suggest you do some searches to get an understanding of the third party tool market. Start with the owners of this web site as an example (my employers by the way).
7.CPU management using activity monitor,DMV's,sp_who2(recommend me other than this whatelse is used)
And here is where we need to spend a lot of time learning. sp_who2 is VERY old school. The DMVs, yes, but which ones and for what data. Also, Query Store, Extended Events, Perfmon, must be added to the list of core knowledge. These are your information gathering and troubleshooting tools. You need to get this part right. This is another place where 3rd party vendors help enormously. However, I strongly recommend you learn this stuff, not just rely on the vendor (even if it's us).
8.Dba's gives user permissions to developers(other than this what work goes on inside)
And review code and set up automated deployments and work on DevOps and deploy to production and... lots of other stuff. Depending on the organization, you should be heavily embedded with what the developers are doing. You're the recipient of it after all, so might as well help to make it right and safe.
9.I have done project with 6gb data,90 tables and 4 servers. These are the answers i know. please add in ur experience and tell me anything i need to add and focus on the concepts to crack my interview.
I hope that's a little bit helpful.
I also hope the formatting works.
"The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood"
- Theodore Roosevelt
Author of:
SQL Server Execution Plans
SQL Server Query Performance Tuning
April 22, 2019 at 1:44 pm
Hi Jeff Maden, Thank you for taking time and explain things. I will try my best and study the concepts needed.
You could at least apply enough attention to detail to spell my 5 letter last name correctly. Simple mistakes like that will kill you both on your resume and during the interview.
--Jeff Moden
Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.
April 23, 2019 at 3:24 am
Hi,
My apologies for that JEFF MODEN. I will take care of it in future.
Thank you.
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