Interviews are two way streets, sometime interviewer asks questions and sometime candidate asks questions. In a recent interview, I was asked by a candidate “How to Get Started with SQL Server 2016?”. I think it is a very good question. Let us discuss that today.
Does Dropping Primary Key Drop Non-Clustered Index on the Column? – Interview Question of the Week #085
Question: When we drop primary key on the column, does it automatically drop a non-clustered index on the same column (if created)?
Before we see answer of this question, I suggest you read following three blog posts, they discuss various similar aspects related to the primary key and clustered index.
How to Drop Clustered Index on Primary Key Column? – Interview Question of the Week #084
Question: How to drop clustered index, which is created on primary key?
Answer: If you thought the answer as simple as following script, you are wrong.
DROP INDEX PK_Table1_Col1
ON Table1
GO
Does Dropping Clustered Index Drop Primary Key on the Same Column? – Interview Question of the Week #083
Question: When we drop clustered index on the column, does it automatically drop primary key on the same column (if created)?
Does Dropping Primary Key Drop Clustered Index on the Same Column? – Interview Question of the Week #082
Question: When we drop primary key on the column, does it automatically drop a clustered index on the same column (if created)?
Answer: This is one of the most popular questions, whenever I ask this to any candidate, they usually give an answer in yes or no. However, if I ask them follow up question to confirm, I have noticed most of the time they change the reply or accept that they really do not know the answer. It is totally fine. As when I was beginning with SQL, I even did not know the answer of it. I learn doing various experiments and doing various interviews.
How to Find Outdated Statistics? – Interview Question of the Week #081
Recently in one of the webcast, while I was presenting about statistics and performance tuning, I was asked by one of the attendees that if there is anyway to find out all the outdated statistics based on the dates from the server. This is indeed a very interesting question and I will be happy to explain you here.
How to Change Fill Factor in SQL Server – Interview Question of the Week #080
It is surprising to see that lots of people do not know that SQL Server Fill Factor 0 (which is the default value when SQL Server is installed) is equal to value as 100.



