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About an year ago, I had posted SQL Server related Interview Questions and Answers. It was very well received in community. I have received many comments, suggestions and emails on this subject. I am planning to upgrade the Interview Questions and Answers and take it to next level.
Here, I need your help. Please your comments, suggestions, expectation or potential interview Question (along with answer) here. Your input will be very valuable. As time goes by we all learn and get better. There were few things missing at that time when those interview questions and answers were prepared, now is the time to complete the gap and make this interview questions more useful.
If you know all, this Question and Answers are not for you. This are for those who is eager to learn and need help in the area.
If you do not want to leave a comment, I suggest to send me email at pinal “at” SQLAuthority.com
Following is the reproduction of original consolidation post for quick reference.
SQL SERVER – 2008 – Interview Questions and Answers – Part 1
SQL SERVER – 2008 – Interview Questions and Answers – Part 2
SQL SERVER – 2008 – Interview Questions and Answers – Part 3
SQL SERVER – 2008 – Interview Questions and Answers – Part 4
SQL SERVER – 2008 – Interview Questions and Answers – Part 5
SQL SERVER – 2008 – Interview Questions and Answers – Part 6
SQL SERVER – 2008 – Interview Questions and Answers – Part 7
SQL SERVER – 2008 – Interview Questions and Answers – Part 8
Download SQL Server 2008 Interview Questions and Answers Complete List
Reference : Pinal Dave (https://blog.sqlauthority.com)
14 Comments. Leave new
Hi Pinal,
Absolutely, This is fantastic efforts and we are big fans of your interview questions and answers.
Is there any way you can help us with other technology.
Roshan
Pinal,
While posting potential Interview questions and answers may help some people, it really makes my job as a interviewer that much harder because I have to then determine if someone really knows their stuff, or they just memorized the questions and answers from a list. I have started using lists such as these to know what questions to avoid in interviews, or to tailor my follow up questions to ensure that a person actually knows what they are talking about and not regurgitating responses they studied online.
Hi Jonathan,
This is excellent response, in fact I have been discussing it with few people here.
Yeah I totally agree with you. If you have crossed SQL 101 there is no need to refer this questions at all. However, people any way search for them before going to interview and it is my attempt to them to find easy to single place, this way they can atleast read something and go to interview and instead of not read it and go.
When I wrote it I was new to this field, now I am seeking help of community to add more value and more details to this questions. This way, they have more knowledge when they appear for interview. Expert like you will right away figure out if candidate has enough knowledge or have memorized Q and A.
Kind Regards,
Pinal
Hi Jonathan,
Good point but there are plenty of interview Q and A online, what is really interesting is that Pinal’s Q and A are much standard them all of them and we are confident about his content.
I as interviewer use his Q and A to initially filter out bad candidates. If they do not know this Q and A, I will not spend my time with them any more.
Mark
Hello Pinal,
Your question sets are really helpful. I have gone through question sets for SQL Server 2005 and learn some new things which I was not aware of earlier. Thank you for that.
My question is, how should a person will start learning about performance tunning? Because the info present in a study guide or post doesn’t show up what exactly to be done. As i understand, this depends on a particular situation, is there any docs available through which a person can learn some more depth of the same.
Thanks.
Hi Jonathan,
Please take my comment as other side and as healthy comment. I see your point here, it is I am using it for my purpose.
Mark
Hi Mark,
Jonathan is my very good friend and very respected person in community. I think your comments are not against him, it is your story.
Those who are interested in can read his co-authored book here: https://blog.sqlauthority.com/2010/03/10/sqlauthority-book-review-professional-sql-server-2008-internals-and-troubleshooting/
Thanks for comments.
Kind Regards,
Pinal
Hi Pinal,
I have some questions in the SSIS area:
1. What type of configurations do you use in the SSIS package (Answer: XML based Config,SQL Server Config these are the tow most used).
2. What are the pros and cons of using one of the above methods.
3. When would you use Lookup task in Data Flow in SSIS (Any downside to using this task?) – When using large tables using lookup task can be an issue. If the person has really used it one should know the pros and cons.
Hope this helps…
1) How you will configure your server if you have given chance as administrator to put them in production?
2) Query taking 10 sec previously but now taking 2 sec. I want it back to 10 sec. how to achive?
3) How to open dts(created in sql 2000) in 2008?
few more to add but most of them are in or near to which already listed
Hi Ashish
May be you want to re-visit your second question. :)
If the query is taking 2 secs why would you want to make it wrost :)) LOL.
May be they want to create two positions.
Current situation:
Everything is Working fine.
Job Position 1:
Which can decrease performance and increase response time
Job Position 2:
To Perform Real DBA stuff…
~ Just for Fun.
question to check either you aware of frepoolchache dbcc command…..
Hi Pinal Sir,
This is actually a great book.
What I think is that these interview questions start from basics and then lead the readers directly on to the SQL 2008 Interview Questions. But in interview candidates are being asked for SQL 2005 questions also. Therefore I feel that if this book contains interview questions related to 2005 also in that case this book will become useful for everyone.
Hi Pinal,
I am facing a peculiar issue. Need your help urgently.
This is a unique scenario where a particular code works on one system and fails to behave the same way on another.
we implemented a DPV(Distributed partitioned View on SQL Server 2008 R2)
DPV is as follows:
CREATE VIEW [dbo].[V_TEST_FACT_TXN_STORE_SKU_DAY_NEW]
AS
SELECT *
FROM dbo.TEST_FACT_TXN_STORE_SKU_DAY
UNION ALL
SELECT *
FROM [INFO-DESK107].[adventureworkstargetdw].DBO.TEST_FACT_TXN_STORE_SKU_DAY_HT
The member tables (Both local and remote) have constraints on them as follows:
ALTER TABLE [dbo].[TEST_FACT_TXN_STORE_SKU_DAY_HT]
ADD CONSTRAINT CK_TRANS_DATE_HT
CHECK (TRANS_DATE = ‘2007-12-30 00:00:00.000’)
The 2 servers involved are Linked
Now when we query the View with a condition on the partition column then the query optimizer
checks the constraints of the member tables in the View and hits only that specific partition.
Eg:
1. select TRANS_DATE
from V_TEST_FACT_TXN_STORE_SKU_DAY
where
TRANS_DATE ‘2010-01-01 00:00:00.000’
3. select TRANS_DATE
from V_TEST_FACT_TXN_STORE_SKU_DAY
Now the query 1 hits only remote partition, 2 hits local partition and 3 hits both partition.
This sounds all perfect
But the problem lies here
On another identical system query 2 fails to hit only the local partition and hits all the partitions which is unexpected.
Both systems use same DDLs.
Linked server properties like Lazy schema validation have been checked to reproduc the same issue but its of no use.
Anyone faced similar issues before??
or is there any database, server or Linked server property which needs to be taken care of ..please let me know.