List of Sql Server Interview Questions part 2
In this section you can read some more sql server interview Questions and Answer :
What do you mean by COLLATION?
Collation is basically the sort order.
There are three types of sort order
Dictionary case sensitive, Dictonary - case insensitive and Binary.
What is a Join in SQL Server?
Join actually puts data from two or more tables into a single result set.
Can you explain the types of Joins that we can have with Sql Server?
There are three types of joins: Inner Join, Outer Join, Cross Join
When do you use SQL Profiler? -
SQL Profiler utility allows us to basically track connections to the SQL Server and also determine activities such as which SQL Scripts are running, failed jobs etc..
What is a Linked Server?
Linked Servers is a concept in SQL Server by which we can add other SQL Server to a Group and query both the SQL Server dbs using T-SQL Statements.
Can you link only other SQL Servers or any database servers such as Oracle?
We can link any server provided we have the OLE-DB provider from Microsoft to allow a link. For Oracle we have a OLE-DB provider for oracle that microsoft provides to add it as a linked server to the sql server group.
Which stored procedure will you be running to add a linked server?
sp_addlinkedserver, sp_addlinkedsrvlogin
What are the OS services that the SQL Server installation adds?
MS SQL SERVER SERVICE, SQL AGENT SERVICE, DTC (Distribution transac co-ordinator)
Can you explain the role of each service?
SQL SERVER - is for running the databases SQL AGENT - is for automation such as Jobs, DB Maintanance, Backups
DTC - Is for linking and connecting to other SQL Servers
How do you troubleshoot SQL Server if its running very slow?
First check the processor and memory usage to see that processor is not above 80% utilization and memory not above 40-45% utilization then check the disk utilization using Performance Monitor, Secondly, use SQL Profiler to check for the users and current SQL activities and jobs running which might be a problem. Third would be to run UPDATE_STATISTICS command to update the indexes
Lets say due to N/W or Security issues client is not able to connect to server or vice versa. How do you troubleshoot?
First I will look to ensure that port settings are proper on server and client Network utility for connections. ODBC is properly configured at client end for connection ——Makepipe & readpipe are utilities to check for connection. Makepipe is run on Server and readpipe on client to check for any connection issues.
What are the authentication modes in SQL Server?
Windows mode and mixed mode (SQL & Windows).
Where do you think the users names and passwords will be stored in sql server?
They get stored in master db in the sysxlogins table.
What is log shipping? Can we do logshipping with SQL Server 7.0
Logshipping is a new feature of SQL Server 2000. We should have two SQL Server - Enterprise Editions. From Enterprise Manager we can configure the logshipping. In logshipping the transactional log file from one server is automatically updated into the backup database on the other server. If one server fails, the other server will have the same db and we can use this as the DR (disaster recovery) plan.
Let us say the SQL Server crashed and you are rebuilding the databases including the master database what procedure to you follow?
For restoring the master db we have to stop the SQL Server first and then from command line we can type SQLSERVER –m which will basically bring it into the maintenance mode after which we can restore the master db.
What is BCP? When do we use it?
BulkCopy is a tool used to copy huge amount of data from tables and views. But it won’t copy the structures of the same.
What should we do to copy the tables, schema and views from one SQL Server to another?
We have to write some DTS packages for it.