How do you spell S-Q-L?
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I just reread the article to start off my morning with a few laughs and I was wondering about this...
Q: What is the model DB?
A: It isn’t used at all. I usually delete it.
...I didn't know this was even doable...?!?!
**ASCII stupid question, get a stupid ANSI !!!** -
I mean, let's face it: These kinds of questions are sensationalist. Most people who get into an interview situation ARE ABSOLUTELY QUALIFIED FOR THE JOB. Period. No one would waste their time interviewing unqualified candidates. By the time they get into the interview room, the only question is whether they have the right personality to mesh well with the team.
I cannot disagree enough. So many people have 6years SQL on their cv... turns out they have written a small sql select * once every couple of years. Sure maybe they are there just to make the other candidate look good, but...
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I went into books online for SQL Server 2000. Entered a search of the Entire Collection for SEM. No hits. How can this be? So I tried EM which I have seen as a more common acronymn and found that it means "Expectation-Maximization". Ok, the point is this one got too carried away.
However, if you have someone who is a senior DBA they should know at least Clustered Index, Fill Factor, SP_LOCK, etc. Anyone who does not know these items should not be doing more than...oh, I don't know what they can do as a DBA. Backups?
Still, be sure that you are educating people...not calling them idiots (unless your name is Joe Celko). All you are going to do is alienate yourself and your opinion will be lost.
Cheers,
Ben
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Firstly, I am a web developer who has inherited the job of also administering the SQL Server instance and (Physical) server.
I know, pretty well SQL, but pretty much next to nill with regards to administering a database.
I can create a database, tables, index, triggers, maintenance plans etc, good ol' point and click Microsoft and the EM are your best friends in this regard... but I certainly don't pretend for a minute to full understand what is going on... I just know to get results X,Y and Z and I need to do these three things in this window (or that one...) of the EM.
So for the purposes of education, my only question is, what are the answers to your questions? I probably only know the answer to about 40% of them. I am more than happy to look for the answers too, but simply keying in what I think are the keywords into the BOM search isn't going to guarantee that I end up reading about what's related to your questions.
Gavin Baumanis
Smith and Wesson. The original point and click device.
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You know, I've come to the conclusion over the past cpl weeks of interviewing candidates, that asking 'how would you rate your SQL Server skills, out of 10?' gives a wonderful, almost INVERSE indicator of the actual skill of the respondant.
Anyone claiming to be a 8 or 9/10 clearly hasn't yet understood all the intricacies and massive body-of-knowledge SQL Server hides from lay-users. Somebody claiming to be a 'maybe a 6 or a 7...there's a lot in there...' is more promising as at least they know there's so much still to learn/lookup.
Below a 5 just shows a supreme lack of confidence again, so they're back with the 8's and 9's in the 'no hire' pile if SQL Proficiency is required for a role.
Next time you're hiring, try asking this question, see if our results are similar?
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good christmas... i have been a SQL DBA for all of three weeks now and knew the answer to most of the questions.
god save the queen
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Hilarious/Scary! But what a boost for my self confidence!
As a Norwegian, I was thrown a bit off by the references to lotion, Kleenex and Spotlight, though. 🙂
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You are right the hiring managers can be idiots. This story reminded me of an interview I took just after graduating from college. I was asked a question by 1 member of the group interviewing me, I answered it and then the "manager" asked me the same damn question only worded different. I paused for a moment and looked around at the group and didn't see any reaction in anybodys faces so I proceeded to answer the question again. I got the job but after 3 1/2 years I couldn't stand working for a manager who knew all the buzz words, but nothing else.
I've been on the other end too though, and have been asked a question about something I knew but it just wouldn't come out at that moment.
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I've only been working with SQL for a little over a year and I knew half of the answers. I'm also my company's network admin and help desk for about 200 users so I don't get to spend much time doing DBA work.
Sometimes when you hire you just don't get what you pay for.
And remember...it's all about the data!
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This is a very interesting thread, but I don't see the relevance of some of the questions, like:
How much memory does SQL use on startup?
I've never had to share an SQL Server with something else, and I rarely start them up. On the other hand, I'm very interested to know what someone thinks of NULLS, referential integrity, where should business rules be stored, mud tables, when to use cursors, when to use views, and so on. These questions may not always have a right answer (though some I think do) but they will go a long way to determine fit in the organization.
I did once, however, had a interviewee who told me he had a lot of experience with SQL triggers. When I asked him to describe one of his triggers and what it did, he said that he wrote a program that, when the button was pressed, "triggered" the database to do something.
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>> How much memory does SQL use on startup? <<
I disagree about the relevance of this q. This knowledge is not only useful but vital for a senior DBA. Otherwise, in the wrong situation, the system could end up repeatedly allocating / deallocating pages and page thrashing. That's a sure recipe for dismal performance.
SQL DBA,SQL Server MVP(07, 08, 09) "It's a dog-eat-dog world, and I'm wearing Milk-Bone underwear." "Norm", on "Cheers". Also from "Cheers", from "Carla": "You need to know 3 things about Tortelli men: Tortelli men draw women like flies; Tortelli men treat women like flies; Tortelli men's brains are in their flies".
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What does the actual performance have to do with the memory usage on startup? What would be the "wrong situation", as you put it? That the server is underpowered? I've needed to know a lot of things in my DBA life, but have never needed to know that.
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One example using fixed memory allocationnon a cluster and the two nodes do not have the same amount of memory. The A node has 4 gb and the B node has 2.5 gb. SQL server is a fixed allocation of 3 gb with the /3GB switch in the boot.ini. try failing over this cluster from A node to B node. This is not a test but an actual support situation that I ran into and had to fix. So YES, knowing how much memory SQL Serve uses on startup is a very relevant question in production support.
RegardsRudy KomacsarSenior Database Administrator"Ave Caesar! - Morituri te salutamus."
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No, "wrong situation" refers primarily to an application being added to the server. And not necessarily a full-blown business app either.
Say, instead, Java applets are added to the server. Java applets require a JVM. A JVM uses a relatively large amount of RAM.
Or say a (large) virus checker is put on the server [not preferred on a SQL Server, but some companies demand it on *every* server]. Or a larger e-mail client. Or a combination of them and perhaps others, such as Winzip, etc..
If you don't understand how SQL's memory allocation works, you probably will not investigate more fully to determine if the other memory usage exceeds SQL's nominal allowance for other uses. Maybe it's OK, but maybe not. The key is that the DBA needs basic understanding to even realize that it needs checked.
SQL DBA,SQL Server MVP(07, 08, 09) "It's a dog-eat-dog world, and I'm wearing Milk-Bone underwear." "Norm", on "Cheers". Also from "Cheers", from "Carla": "You need to know 3 things about Tortelli men: Tortelli men draw women like flies; Tortelli men treat women like flies; Tortelli men's brains are in their flies".
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Ditto on the ego boost LOL
I think I might have fell off my chair laughing
I'm ready for an interview now
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