Database Interview Questions - Part 8
What are the purposes
of information systems planning?
Why is the enterprise data model developed before the process model?
Why is the selection and evaluation process important for DBMS?
What are some complexities in the selection and evaluation process for a
complex product
like a DBMS?
What are the steps in the selection and evaluation process?
How is the Analytic Hierarchy Process used in the selection and evaluation
process?
What responsibilities does the database administrator have in the selection
and evaluation
process?
What responsibilities does the data administrator have in the selection and
evaluation
process?
What are the responsibilities of database administrators for transaction
processing?
What are the responsibilities of database administrators for managing data
warehouses?
What are the responsibilities of database administrators for managing
databases in
distributed environments?
What are the responsibilities of database administrators for managing object
databases?
What is the appeal of optimistic concurrency control approaches? Why might
optimistic
concurrency control approaches not be used even if they provide better
expected performance?
What is the difference between volatile and nonvolatile storage?
What are the effects of local, system, and device failures on active and past
transactions?
Why is force writing the most fundamental tool of recovery management?
What kind of redundant data is stored in a log? Why is management of the log
critical to
recovery?
What is the checkpoint interval? What is the trade-off in determining the
checkpoint
interval?
What processing occurs at checkpoint time?
What restart work is necessary for a media failure?
What restart work is necessary for local and system failures under the
immediate update
approach?
What restart work is necessary for local and system failures under the
deferred update
approach?
What is a transaction boundary? Why can an inappropriate choice for
transaction boundary
lead to poor performance?
What criteria should be used in selecting a transaction boundary?
Why must constraints such as the debit–credit constraint be enforced as part
of a
transaction rather than between transactions?
What is the difference between system-independent and system-dependent hot
spots? Why is it
useful to identify hot spots?
What are the three choices for transaction boundary of a hierarchical form?
How can deadlock possibility be influenced by the choice of a transaction
boundary?
What is the purpose of the SQL isolation levels?
How do the isolation levels achieve more concurrent access?
What isolation level can be dangerous and why?
What SQL statements and clauses involve constraint timing specification?
What is the role of the DBA in specifying of constraint timing?
What is the role of the transaction designer in specifying of constraint
timing?
What is the purpose of a save point?
What is a workflow and how is it related to database transactions?
What are the differences between human-oriented and computer-oriented
workflows?
What role does transaction management play in workflow management?
What are limitations of transaction management to support workflows?
Why are operational databases not particularly suited for decision support
applications?
How is a data warehouse different from a data mart?
When is the three-tier data warehouse architecture more appropriate than the
two-tier data
warehouse architecture?
What are the components of an enterprise data model?
What are some causes for failures in data warehouse projects?
Does a bottom-up data warehouse architecture use an enterprise data model?
What is an oper mart?
What are the advantages of multidimensional representation over relational
representation
for data used for decision support?
Why a dimension may have multiple hierarchies?
What are the advantages of using time-series data in a cell instead of time as
a dimension?
How is slicing a data cube different from dicing?
What are the differences between drilling down a data cube and slicing or
dicing it?
How is a pivot operation useful for multidimensional databases?
What is the significance of sparsity in a data cube?
What is a star schema?
What are the differences between fact tables and dimension tables?
How does a snowflake schema differ from a star schema?
What is a constellation schema?
What is the purpose of the Oracle CREATE DIMENSION statement?
What is the purpose of the SQL CUBE operator?
What is the purpose of the SQL ROLLUP operator?
What is the purpose of the SQL GROUPING SETS operator?
What are some of the variations of the CUBE, ROLLUP, and GROUPING SETS
operators?
Why are materialized views important for data warehouses but not important for
operational
databases?
What materialization properties does Oracle 9i provide for materialized views?
What is the significance of indexing fact and dimension tables in a data
warehouse?
What are the pros and cons of a MOLAP storage engine?
What are the pros and cons of a ROLAP storage engine?
What are the pros and cons of a HOLAP storage engine?
What are some storage and optimization techniques used in ROLAP engines?
What is cooperative change data?
What is logged change data?
What is queryable change data?
What is snapshot change data?
What are the phases of data warehouse maintenance?
What are common data quality problems that should be resolved by the
preparation and
integration phases?
What is the benefit of using ETL tools in data warehouse maintenance?
What is valid time lag?
What is load time lag?
What is the primary objective in managing the refresh process for a data
warehouse?
What are three alternatives for preserving historical integrity in a data
warehouse?
What is the role of clients and servers in distributed processing?
What are the terms flexibility, interoperability, and scalability? How does
distributed
processing support interoperability, flexibility, and scalability?
What are some of the pitfalls of developing client–server systems?
How can a distributed database improve data control?
How can a distributed database reduce communication costs and improve
performance?
What are some of the pitfalls when developing distributed databases?
Why distributed processing is more mature and more widely implemented than
distributed
databases?
Why are division of processing and process management important in
client–server
architectures?
How two-tier architectures address division of processing and process
management?
How three-tier architectures address division of processing and process
management?
How multiple-tier architectures address division of processing and process
management?
What are some reasons to use a middleware server for Web database connectivity
instead of an
extended Web server?
How does client-side connectivity enhance server-side processing for database
connectivity?
What is a global request?
How does the integration level of the distributed DBMS affect the component
architecture?
When is a tightly integrated distributed DBMS appropriate? When is a loosely
integrated
distributed DBMS appropriate?
What are the differences in the schema architecture for tightly and loosely
integrated
distributed DBMS?
How is distributed database transparency related to data independence?
Is a higher level of distribution transparency always preferred?
What is a derived horizontal fragment and why is it useful? What is the
relationship of the
semi-join operator and derived horizontal fragmentation?
What is the larger difference in query formulation: (1) fragmentation
transparency to
location transparency or (2) location transparency to local mapping
transparency?
Why is fragment design and allocation a complex task?
Why is global query optimization important?
What are differences between global and local optimization in distributed
query processing?
Why are there multiple objectives in distributed query processing? Which
objective seems to
be more important?
What is a thin client? How does a thin client relate to division of processing
in
client–server architectures?
What are some reasons for choosing a two-tier architecture?
What are some reasons for choosing a three-tier architecture?
What are some reasons for choosing a multiple-tier architecture?
What is a software bus? How does a software bus differ from other kinds of
middleware such
as a transaction-processing monitor and message-oriented middleware?
Is a Web server middleware?
Why was XML developed?
Related
Database Interview Questions - Part 1
Database Interview Questions - Part 2
Database Interview Questions - Part 3
Database Interview Questions - Part 4
Database Interview Questions - Part 5
Database Interview Questions - Part 6
Database Interview Questions - Part 7
Database Interview Questions - Part 8
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