HCL Interview Questions ( F2F 1st round)

First Tell me abt your self experiences and your education background.....
1.what is use of SQL browser service ? if Sql browser is down will sql server run ?
2.How many authentication modes in SQL Server ? and whom we give Windows authentication
and to whom we give SQL Authentication ?
3.How to restrict Wintel admins to access SQL Server ?
(My client is saying only SQL team should have access no one else especially Wintel/Windows
Admins bcz there is a chance of misusing/removing any logins/DB's by wintel admins )
4. How many types of backups?
5.When we create a DB what are the files will be created ?
6. can we add more than one log file and mdf file to database ?
7. what is the use of MSDB system database ?
8. what is the differences bw SQL server 2000 and 2005 ?
9. when you upgrade SQL server from 2000 to 2005 what is the process/ steps you followed ?
10. Client raised P1(high priority) incident that one of the application is running very slowly how
will you identify the reason (or) where you see the logs and how to solve that issue?
(Here there are no transactions locked on this application ?
11. How/where will you identify the Tcp/Ip network error for failed backup job ?
12. when you are applying service packs on Cluster what are the steps/process you followed ?
13. How load balancing works in Clustering when Instance1 is installed in NodeA and Instance2 is
installed in NodeB ?
14. Do you know how to rebuild indexes ?
15. How Query optimization will works ?
16. Do you know about SQL Express ? and SSIS ?
17. what is the Incident management and problem management ?

SQL DBA interview questions+ HCL + 2nd round

1.

What is the difference between sys.databases and sysdatabases

2.

How can we know linked servers information?Ans: select * from sys.servers

3.

How to know all databases info that are in box? Ans: select * from sysdatabases

4.

Are we run query on mirror server?

5.

Are we run query on secondary server of log shipping?

6.

What is default port for sqlserver? 1433(tcp/Ip), UDP:1434

7.

What is dynamic port in sqlserver?

8.

How to set default backup directory path?

9.

How to add full text service after installation?

10. How to find orphan logins?

11. What is quorum?
12. What is the advantage of active & active two node clustering?
13. What are the reasons when a particular user account is not working?
14. What are the reasons for connection is slow?
15. What is the default time for remote connections? 600
16. What is auditing?
17. Which server role is assigned for backup? ANS: DB_BACKUPOPERATOR
18. I have 30GB Ram, How can we configure for production environment? Ans: Depends SLA
19. What are problems that you faced for log shipping?
20. What is the distribution database?
21. What does distribution database contains is it contains data?
22. What is fill factor?
23. How to shrink database? What are the steps?
24. How to move temp data base?
25. What are suggestible raid levels for mdf and log files?mdf-raid1, log raid5
26. How many temp dbs are recommended as per Microsoft standards?
27. Have you used profiler?
28. Is it possible to save profiler data into table? Yes, in text file aslo

29. What are table partitions?

30. What is schema binding?
31. Can I create index on table partitions?
32. Can I get error while index is rebuilt?
33. I have 4 databases, in that having 4 users, those 4 users are mapped with some server roles, and
those 4 users are there in one database. If I am deleting that major db, is remaining db users are
working or not? Yes, they have access with reaming dbs. Those are called orphan logins
34. How to take resource data base backup?
Backing up the Resource database
Since the Resource database is not available from the SQL Server tools, we cannot perform a backup
similar to how we do it with the other databases. You can backup the database using the following
options:
1. You can use a simple xcopy command to copy from the source location to a destination where you
keep your daily database backups. Use the -Y option to suppress the prompt to confirm if you want to
overwrite the file. You can create a scheduled task to do this on a daily basis. If you want to keep
multiple copies of the database files, you can create an automated script to rename them after the copy
process.
xcopy :\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL.1\MSSQL\Data\mssqlsystemresource.mdf /Y
xcopy :\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL.1\MSSQL\Data\mssqlsystemresource.ldf /Y

You can use your file-based backup utilities such as NTBackup, IBM Tivoli Storage Manager, Symantec
BackupExec, etc.
Restoring the Resource database
It is important to document the location of your master database as part of your disaster recovery
process. In previous versions of SQL Server, all we need to do to restore the server instance is to worry
about the masterdatabase.
After a SQL Server 2005 instance has been rebuilt a restore of the master database will be done, the
Resourcedatabase files should go along with it should a WITH MOVE option be required. This means that
if the old location of themaster database will be different from the one after the restore, the Resource
database files should already be there prior to restoring the master database. This is very critical if a
hardware failure occurred and you need to move the system databases on a different drive during the
server instance rebuild.
To restore the Resource database, just copy the database files to the location of the master database
files. If you have an older version of the Resource database, it is important to re-apply any subsequent
updates. This is why the recommended approach is to simply do a daily backup of these files.

TCS:
What is default schema in sqlserver 2005?
Ans: DBO
How to access table from different server, what is the syntax and all?
Ans: Select * from Linkedservername.Databasename.dbo.Tablename
What is mirroring?
What is Checkpoint?
Ans: When we done operation on SQL SERVER that is not committed directly to the database. All
operation must be logged in to Buffer pages then go to Transaction Log files after that they should be
done on to the main database. Checkpoint are the point which alert Sql Server to save all the data to
main database if no check point is there then log files get full we can use Checkpoint command to
commit all data in the SQL SERVER. When we stop the SQL Server it will take long time because
Checkpoint is also fired.
What are linked servers?
What is an index?
What are the different types of backups?
What is u r backup strategy?
How to access u r server?
What are the critical services that are running in iis ?

SQL DBA interview questions+ IBM

1.

What are tools that are used for backup and ticketing?

a.

Lite speed, BMC Remedy

2.

How to restore lite speed backup into sqlserver, is it possible to restore directly?

a.

That is not possible, because media type should be same

3.

What is the difference between User and login?

a.

User is data base level and login is server level

4.

How to add drive for cluster?

a.

Go to cluadmin

b. Choose groups from left side

c.

Right click on add

d. Choose drive which we want to add for existing cluster

5.

What is heart beat?

6.

What are problems that you face for log shipping?

a.

Establish network tunnel

b. Reduce transaction backup time from 30 min to 15 min

7.

What is your backup strategy?

8.

What are the major differences between 2000 and 2005 in terms of security?

a.

Owner = Schema, hard to remove old users at times in 2000

b. Schema is separate. Better granularity in easily controlling security. Logins can be authenticated by
certificates. In 2005
c.

In 2000 there is no concept of synonyms, in 2005 it is introduced

d. In 2000 there in policy based management, in 2008 its there

9.

What are the steps for restoring data base?

a.

Go through the restore wizard in sql server management studio

10. How to find deadlocks and how to resolve that?

a.

Just switch on the trace for 1204, 1222, 3605

b. ex:DBCC Traceon(1204,1222,3505,-1)
11. How to move logfile location from once drive to another drive?
a.

By attach and detach

12. My log file is full how to solve it?

a.

By apply the shrink command

b. Or by applying truncate command

13. Can you tell some regular use of DBCC Commands?
a.

Dbcc checkdb()

b. Dbcc showcontig()
c.

Dbcc dbreindex()

d. Dbcc sqlperf()

e.

Dbcc traceon()

f.

Dbcc traceoff()

g. Dbcc shrinkdatabase()
h.

Dbcc shrinkfile()

i.

Dbcc help()

j.

Dbcc ind()

k.

Dbcc checkident()

l.

Dbcc showfilestats()

m. Dbcc inputbuffer()
n.

Dbcc outputbuffer()

o. Dbcc log()
p. Dbcc page(wowzzy,1,945894,3)check page is corrupted or not
14. What is importance of dbcc showcontig()?

SQL DBA interview questions+ CSC

CSC:
1.

What is backup strategy?

2.

How to rename SQL Server?

sp_dropserver
GO
sp_addserver , local
GO
Remote Logins - If the computer has any remote logins, running sp_dropserver might generate an error
similar to the following:
Copy
Server: Msg 15190, Level 16, State 1, Procedure sp_dropserver, Line 44
There are still remote logins for the server 'SERVER1'.
To resolve the error, you must drop remote logins for this server.

To drop remote logins

For a default instance, run the following procedure:

Copy
sp_dropremotelogin old_name
GO

For a named instance, run the following procedure:

Copy
sp_dropremotelogin 'old_name\instancename'
GO

3.

How to trouble shoot temp db?

4.

How to solve connection issue?

5. How to solve recovery status issue, if my db box has 100 databases, In that only one db has go to
suspect mode? How to solve?
6.

IS Full text search service comes as default service?

7.

How to find fragmentation level by using command prompt?

8.

What are maintenance plans that you executed?

9.

What type of alerting system that you configured for your sql server box?

10. What is your database size?

11. How to solve Log file growing issue?
12. Is it possible to take back up from primary server what was participated in log shipping?
13. What is end point in mirroring?
14. What are the security concerns that you execute while we configure mirroring?