Wednesday 20 April 2016

What is the worst thing happened to you as an oracle DBA and how you solve it ?



The question is 'what's the worst' not 'what disasters have you experienced'.

If you've not had a disaster, feel lucky. But in DBA terms, one year of experience is practically nothing (especially as most of that time will almost certainly be 'shadowed' by a more senior DBA).

Golden Note : You say the truth "Nothing" and  the interviewer will think you are just there to bring coffees and update your facebook profile during the whole day!  

The Question is a trap and it's not easy to answer. It will measure how you handle pressure, how you take responsibilities, how fast you can react.

I do not recommend you to create a fictional story. I believe honesty is golden. On the other hand, if you said "nothing", in the rest of your interview, you should point your strengths about these areas. You may talk about how you worked under pressure, how you fixed problems in a timely-manner,  etc.

I would have thought that the worst possible case is database toast due to a media failure with multiple backup failures resulting in an inability to recover the database from any means at all. A long-running logical corruption would be probably my second 'choice', though...


As you reach higher, get deeper knowledge there are chances that you may blunder in your job and db may be completely lost for ever, but at that level there are chances you will meet those fellows who have also encountered the same scene and may resolve the issue.

 A person who is having 1 or 2 year experience can't damage the db at that level which cann't be recovered, even due to his ignorance because ignorance and intention can be judged.  What he/she can blunder something dropped table, wrong comited data; something which can be recovered by either backup or simply re-installation of software on the cost of some data loss.

While at higher level, DBA may use underscore parameter, some block level investigation, some misconfiguration with dictionary objects which may means ORA-600, 4031 and now Only Oracle Support is the way to get back db.

Last Thing :

The worse case is dealing with an unknown problem - where Metalink and Google do not turn up a single reference or hint as to what the cause is. And then, after a lot sweat and effort and frustration discovering the problem lower down, in the o/s, hardware, storage system, or network infrastructure.

Pro Tip :

Problems are good teachers. So why not create your own using a test instance? There's a lot you can play with, destroy and try to fix, using your own test instance. Kind of like training hard and fighting easy (an old infantry motto) - rather pick up practical skills and knowledge like that.

Just try to understand the basics and the importance of features...learn as much as possible and try to test....scratch, build..... This experience gives your idea to answer such type of questions.


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See Also : Most Useful Tips for DBA Interview

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