Some random interview questions - how would you have answered?

Hi all, got an interview coming up next week, here's a few I've been asked in the past, just wanted to get some of my peers experiences!



1) What is the latest Service Pack for 2K? (4/5 I think) When SP3 comes out for 2K5, when would you apply it?;

2) Do you use SQL native backup or a 3rd party tool? What considerations did you have about Recovery Models?;

3) Which maintenance tasks do you have automated? Weekly, it seems to me a DBCC Checkdb is necessary, but what else? Also,
what daily maintenance do you have in place?

4) What input can you give on ongoing Windows 2K3 Cluster Management/Maintenance (this is a strange one, but true; I had always thought this was the exclusive province of the Windows Admin - apparently not!

5) How does ITIL benefit the department in general and databasing in particular? (My answer - more controlled, transparent changes detailing what is carried out by whom to affect what/whom)



Thanks,



Jaybee.

[quote user="jaybee"]
1) What is the latest Service Pack for 2K? (4/5 I think) When SP3 comes out for 2K5, when would you apply it?; [/quote]
SP4 + hotfix. SQL 2000 is almost out of support btw.
[quote user="jaybee"]
2) Do you use SQL native backup or a 3rd party tool? What considerations did you have about Recovery Models?; [/quote]
This is something you have to answer based on your experience.. because further questions might come up based on what you say..you should know the recovery models...
[quote user="jaybee"]
3) Which maintenance tasks do you have automated? Weekly, it seems to me a DBCC Checkdb is necessary, but what else? Also,
what daily maintenance do you have in place? [/quote]
again something you should answer from your experience.. usual stuff is reindexing, backups, any custom SSIS stuff.. etc.
[quote user="jaybee"]
4) What input can you give on ongoing Windows 2K3 Cluster Management/Maintenance (this is a strange one, but true; I had always thought this was the exclusive province of the Windows Admin - apparently not! [/quote]
have you worked with clustering? If not you better pass this..
[quote user="jaybee"]
5) How does ITIL benefit the department in general and databasing in particular? (My answer - more controlled, transparent changes detailing what is carried out by whom to affect what/whom) [/quote]
This is a topic in itself..ITL is a framework: get an overview here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITIL