Many of us have a tendency of checking emails the moment we reach office but instead we should set a time aside for reverting to emails with a calm mind as email handling takes approx. 10-15% of the work day.

Any overloaded mailbox is frustrating but handling emails inadequately would waste a lot of work time. Email is usually also considered as a distraction because many of us have a habit of checking any email pop-up immediately and sometimes clicking into the inbox in order to check whether connectivity to network .

There are many email management best practices for making productive and effective reverts. But before applying any best practice you should ask yourself some sort of questions like:

• How much time do you spend daily on reverting emails?
• What type of emails do you actually receive?
• Do I need to revert all the emails?
• Which email is my first priority?
• Do I use sub folders or keep all emails in 1 folder only?

Make sure you have answers of above questions before applying any tips for effective inbox management. Here I am going to explain some of the outlook email management best practices that you can use to manage emails effectively. These email inbox management tips will simplify your day to day reply mail management or customer email management. Some people use email management softwares or email management tools to manage their inbox effectively. You can also go for some option.

Microsoft Outlook Email Management Best Practices

Find the list of points that you can use to manage your email inbox effectively.

1) Reply Mail Management: You can block your calendar for approx. 30-60 min for reverting on emails or for reply mail management and prioritize reverts basis email importance. You can also further categorize them in order to identify that which is to be reverted today or it is to be kept in follow-up. For this you can use the “flags” along with a set time notification for reminder.

2) Create Templates: We have a habit of typing emails but instead we can draft sample email responses as most of the queries received would be similar and using this template would save our time. You can also customize these templates basis the email requirement.

3) Read Pertinent Emails: If you receive 60 emails a day you are not required to read all of them as they might also include some advertising / information emails, group mailbox responses etc. You can just move them to the relevant folder and address them whenever required. This will reduce the number of emails available in the Inbox Folder.

4) Know What to Reply: Sometimes we receive lengthy emails which more or less look like an essay and most of us have a habit of reverting in the similar fashion. We should always focus into making our email content short and to the point. You can consider this point as a subpart of reply mail management.

5) Alternate Tools:  For short messages you can use alternate tools for communicating within the organization like skype etc. and avoid writing emails.

6) Email Header: This is something which should be clearly looked into whenever any email gets triggered into your mailbox. Most of the time the email is intended to someone who is marked in “To” and all marked in “CC” are just for information. You can ignore emails wherein you are marked in CC as that is just for information and no action is usually required on them. Even you can apply a rule to move all such emails in to a folder by applying below step by step process.

Tips: How to set rules for automatically transferring emails to a folder whenever in “CC” in MS Outlook?

1. Click at Home tab and go to its Ribbon area.
2. Click at Rules option
3. Select Create Rule
4. Here, you will get another window, here select Advanced options
5. Now Clink on where my name in CC
6. Select Next
7. Select folder where it is to be moved
8. Finish

7) Acknowledge emails: Whenever you receive any email and if you think this might take more than 1 day to revert, just send a small email acknowledgement to the sender. This is to notify the sender that you are working on the email and it might take a specific time for closure. This will avoid further email reminders on the subject.

8) Folders: Inbox zero is a very famous term which helps us minimizing the email count in the mailbox. You can have separate & specific folders for transferring emails for future reference. “Rules” option can be used for automatic transfer of emails to the specific mailbox folder. Read below tips to transfer emails to a specific folder automatically in Outlook.

Tips: How to transfer emails to specific folders automatically in MS Outlook?

1. Click on Home tab of Outlook and go to its Ribbon
2. Click on Rules
3. Select “Create Rule…” option
4. Select From, display New item , move item to folder
5. Click OK

9) Subject Line: Use similar subject line to track emails faster in your mailbox as tracking long email threads with different subject lines makes mail management more challenging.

10) Out-of-office replies: This is the most significant feature which you can use whenever you are on leave, left early for the day or in training and would not be able to revert to the sender instantly. By using this “OOO” feature you would be able to notify the sender about your availability and managing email response. Have a look at below tips to configure out of office in your outlook.

Tips: How to set “OOO” for specific time in MS Outlook? 

1. Click at File tab.
2. Then click at Automatic Replies (Out of Office)
3. Choose second option “Send Automatic Replies”
4. Click at the checkbox option “Only send during this time range”
5. Select Date & Time
6. Edit the content
7. Click ok

11) Email Answering: Every email which triggers the mailbox should be either answered, forwarded, archived or deleted. This will reduce the count of emails which are to be handled. You can also request for email delivery at a specific time but your outlook should be running during that time.

Tips: How to set delay delivery in MS Outlook?

1. Open New Email
2. Click on Options tab.
3. choose Delay delivery option.
4. Update details in the compose message window

12) Different Signatures: You can have different signatures for different set of replies sent to specific people. This will save time of drafting signatures.

Tips: How to manage signatures in MS Outlook?

1. Click at File tab of MS outlook.
2. Click at the Options
3. Another window will appear on your screen. Now click at Mail tab from left side pane.
4. Now click at Signatures tab from right side pane.
5. Click New to create signature
6. Click ok
7. Edit signature content
8. Click save

13) Use Voting Option: We usually sent a lot of emails wherein we have to collate responses in yes/no, true/false etc., so instead of doing manual work we can use the voting option available in outlook

Tips: How to set voting option in MS Outlook? 

1. Open new email
2. Click at Options
3. Now again click at Use voting options to select voting option.
4. Customize if required
5. Send email

Here, I have explained best way to manage emails in outlook. I hope you like this article. Please follow our Facebook page and Twitter handle to get latest updates.

Read More:

• 4 Areas you can focus to boost your Self Confidence
• How to Prepare for a Job Interview?
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Presales Interview Questions

1. Define Executive Summary in a RFP: What points you cover in this section? What is the word limit to it?

Tips: It is brief descriptions of the problem /objective and how our organization can help you achieve you goal and get rid of your problem, it will give background information, brief analysis and main conclusions. it is most important part of the RFP and will cover gist of the document. 

You generally get this information by sales lead, Account manager, Business manager or all of them contribute their share in making it impactful. We generally concise the word limit to 500 max. 

2. Define your Approach/Methodology in a RFP.

Tips: It’s solution Architect’s choice which approach he will follow considering the scope of work. I follow an approach that has entire scope of work followed by solution of every specification with its requirements. We generally include Project Timelines along with every phase or milestones based on different frameworks like waterfall, Lean, SCRUM etc.

For e.g. I generally include below workflow on high level.

• Requirements
• Solution
• Timelines
• Assumptions and Dependencies
• Cost
• Deliverables

3. What all tools you use for costing? Can you give example of any costing you have done in last few deals?

Tips: Generally Microsoft Excel is used for costing but in many organization they have excel based tools  to fix the contingency , margin , other cost  associated with finance to pop out the final pricing.  

4. SDLC – Which one is better Iterative/Waterfall/Lean/Scrum?

Tips: For proposing a tentative timelines, phases and project delivery, Solution Architects always follow an Agile framework in their solution approach. Majorly these frameworks are designed for application development but these days SA’s use these models largely in managing any projects.

Waterfall Framework –  It is traditional approach in which you follow step by step in phases. First complete one phase before moving on to the next phase.

Lean Framework – In this model we follow features/Stages as milestone in project. We plan, build, test and deploy one feature before you do it for next feature.

Scrum Framework – In Scrum Model we need to plan, build, test and Deploy on delivering fully-tested, independent, valuable, small features /stages. 

5. What is your contribution in any RFP?

Tips: Generally, Solution Architects work on many section like:

• Requirement response/ Solution
• Scope of work
• Solution Approach
• Risk and Mitigation
• Governance Model
• Assumptions
• Cost
• Pricing
• Service Levels Assumptions (SLA)

 My contribution for any RFP cover all these areas.

Suggestion: Tell specific contributions that you generally do it for RFPs in your organisation. 

6. Please explain how will you propose ROI in RFP for infrastructure outsourcing?

Tips: ROI means Return on Investment. It is a term that is used to measure performance and cost.  As I have mentioned in all my articles, Solution Architect needs to have a blend of technical and sales skills so that they can work a solution and showcase ROI to the client. It’s all about how you can convince the CTO/CEO and other stakeholders to invest in your project.  We can achieve ROI by re-architecting or redesigning your existing solution that will reduce the existing human’s efforts, Time, and TCO. Let’s take an example.

For example: Suppose we have 1000 database server that needs to be refreshed with new hardware because they are approaching end of life. We can propose database consolidation, Cloud or SaaS to reduce the number of servers from 1000 to 500 based on their potential candidature to qualify for consolidation. Further we can apply Automation to reduce the repetitive tasks that will reduce the total human effort. This way customer need to invest in on-premise to cloud migration with some  one time cost and within 6 months there will be visible ROI in monthly maintenance of services because we have already reduced total no of servers.

7. Explain Onsite Offshore Model in IT industry?

Tips: The Onshore /offshore model is based on client requirement and SA proposed solution. This model is a mixture of onsite, offsite resources. The blend of onsite-offsite of resources provide the cost-effectiveness of the offshore model along with client representation at the onshore. The onsite resources fill in the crucial communication gaps and safeguard projects’ escalations if any.  The hybrid Onsite-offshore model, are very cost effective and popular in IT industry.

8. Please elaborate “Table of contents” for any RFP?

Tips: For any RFI and RFP document building” Table of content” is one of the most important part. It’s always a discrete approach followed by solution architect how he or she prefer to design their response. However, in some cases client RFI and RFP clearly state the response document and strictly define the format, table of content and response which has to be followed by SA’s.

In general Table of content covers the following area:

• Executive Summary
• Company Portfolio
• Competitive Advantage
• Requirement response/ Solution
• Scope of work
• Solution Approach
• Risk and Mitigation
• Governance Model
• Assumptions
• Cost
• Pricing
• Service Levels Assumptions (SLA)
• Appendix

9. Have you been part of Bid Complexity process? What’s was your role?

Tips: It is a team work, all organization spends lots of their energy in Analyzing the contract, the bid process, the margins, the profit and how they have competitive advantage with other bidders. The process is complex as a SA pays a pivotal role and providing optimum price for the contract. The Bid optimization covers rigorous efforts between margins and actual cost and the specified work.

Suggestions: Being in solution architect role I would discuss pricing with all stakeholders (Delivery, Sales , Bid manager , SA’s and Technical Architects )“How can we be more competitive with Margins” and based on our analysis we conclude or bid. Below are the questions which we discuss:

• Are we getting reasonable profit post being competitive?
• If being competitive and we lost money on the initial contract can we assume high possibility of getting follow on work with considerable amount of profit?
• If being into Business (initial contract) with no margin will increase our chances to eliminate other bidders from any associated contract?
• To bid or Not to bid? How it changes the probability of getting future deals?

10. How will you differentiate between Team Structure and Governance Model?

Tips: 

Team Structure – In Organization employees are structured in different projects and category. The set of employees who will work on project together are essentially called as a Team. Based on their respective responsibilities the Team is structured to perform individual task.

Governance Model – Governance Model define power and its accountability in governing or management roles in an organization. The Model designate operatives who will set rules, procedures, and other informational guidelines. In addition, governance frameworks define, guide, and provide for enforcement of these processes.

11. Difference between Incident and Problem in terms of ITIL framework?

Tips: An Incident is an event which could lead disruption of the services or Business.

Any problem which occur during Business Hours is considered as an Incident (ITIL Def.). A problem is the original cause that leads to an incident. For e.g. A website URL is not reachable as Database is down. This issue will be raised as in incident as it has disrupted the Business.

The actual root cause of problem was space issue in database. A problem may be something that could lead to the same incident occurring again, or lead to another incident entirely. A problem is the original cause that leads to an incident. For e.g. During maintenance hours due to some problem database was down, but it did not cause any service disruption hence it was just a problem that needed to be fixed.

12. What is the difference between RFI and RFP?

Tips: Please read my attached article to learn about RFI and RFP.

• Difference between RFI and RFP

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Read More:

• Learn Presales Management in IT Solutions
• Is Presales a Good Career Opportunity in IT?
• Presales Interview Questions & Answers – Part 1

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The first thought which comes to the mind about interview is that on which side of the table are we going to be? Interview sessions are pretty hectic and painful for both candidate as well as the interviewer. But in general more pressure is on the candidate appearing for the job interview because this is the situation which is somewhat like a rapid Q & A round. We are judged on the basis of our answers to these questions. There is no second chance in interview and we cannot correct or modify our answers once said.

Preparation is 1^st and most important which a candidate should do whenever an interview call letter is received. Apart from curriculum preparation self-confidence, concentration and positive attitude are also similarly important. We can control our nervousness and give our best by focusing on interview, and avoiding the thought of other interviews and our fear of rejection.

Prepare for the Day

Normally there are a set of questions which everyone prepares for a job interview apart from their primary skill. These questions are like:

• Tell me something about yourself?
• Why do you want to join this company?
• Why do you think we should hire you?
• Describe your 2 strengths and weakness?
• What is your salary expectation?
• Any questions about the organization?

While everyone is busy preparing on the above questions, there are some small tips or points which a fresher usually misses while preparing for the D day.

1. Gather information about the company: This is the first and the most important point as this is the answer to the question “why do you want to join our company?” Whenever you appear for an interview you should know everything about the company like its history, products, function areas, market share, competitors, top management and employee reviews e.t.c. You can easily find this information on the internet or you can contact people in your network for gathering information.
2. Reach the venue on time: By reaching on time you reflect your quality of being punctual. Interviewers like candidate who are punctual and not those who report late for interviews and then give excuses of traffic jams and not being familiar with the locality e.t.c
3. Appearance: Your appearance should be professional and not casual as your first impression is the last one. Following are few points which require focus :
   1. Your outfit
   2. Your face expression
   3. Folder to carry resumes and certificates/documents e.t.c
4. Be confident: Most of us are in a habit of answering every question asked by the interviewer whether we know the answer or not, but actually we should avoid this. Instead we should simply say a “No” to questions whose answers we do not know and answer confidently for rest.
5. Work on communication: We should practice our replies at home preferably in front of mirror and should work on our communication skills. Whatever we say should be clear enough because interviewers use this in judging the candidate’s nature and competencies. While describing we should use some key words which can bring out our skills and strengths e.t.c

All above points will apply when you are attending a face to face interview. But there are other forms of interviews also like telephonic, through Telepresence wherein you are not facing the interviewer directly and you are judged on whatever you say.

Telephonic Interview: This kind of interview is used as a first level of selection so it is very important that you should focus and prepare for this religiously

• Listen patiently and answer to only what is asked.
• Do not elaborate and try to be descriptive
• Ask for feedback

Telepresence Interview: This type of interview is organized when the interviewer and the candidate are in different locations and interviewer is not willing to pay the travel cost to the candidate.

• You should be dressed properly.
• Consider this as a face to face interview only and answer the questions as you would do in a formal interview.

Sample Interview Questions & How to Answer Them

Below are some sample answers to generally asked Job interview questions.

(a)Tell me something about yourself: While asking this question interviewer wants to know about you as a person, so while answering you should be sure of what you are answering is correct and actual. You should not start your answer with “I am xxxx, have 2 sisters, parents e.t.c”. Instead your answer should start from your educational background, work experience, hobbies well supported with examples.

(b)Tell about your strengths and weakness: Most of the time the possible answer for strength is given as “I am good listener”, “I am positive” e.t.c. The answer should always focus around the requirements as mentioned in the job description.

Example: If you have come for a customer service interview so answer can be “I have good analytical skills which can be useful in resolving queries. I am a good listener and team player with good communication skills.”

For weakness the answer should not be like “I like completing work on time”, “I like stretching shifts” e.t.c. rather this question should be answered in a way wherein you can turn your negative aspect into positive.

Example:” I like completing my work before deadlines”. Hearing this answer the interviewer will think that if you are in a habit of completing work before time then you might make mistakes. So instead the answer should be “I like completing work before deadlines, but I divide my schedule in such a way that sufficient time is given for checking work.

(c) Where do you see yourself 5 years from now: This is a very tricky question and no one can answer this accurately. By asking this question the interviewer wants to know about your ambitions and whether you are serious about the job position or not. Most people respond by saying that “I want to be CEO or director of this company” which is not an intelligent answer.

Example: Answer can be “I want to see myself at a position in your company where I can grow and develop my skills which can further contribute towards personal and organizational growth”.

(d) Why do you think we should hire you: The interviewer wants to know about your skills of how better you can convince the interviewer to hire you? To answer this question you should be fully aware about the job responsibilities and company products.

Example: The answer can be “that my past job experience matches with the company profile and the responsibilities as mentioned for the new job.

(e) What are your salary expectations: The answer should not be accurate as 25 %, 30 % e.tc. After hearing this answer interviewer might feel that your focus of changing job is just monetary hike.

Example: Answer can be like “the market trend of salary hike for my position is between xx to yy and I am expecting a hike of XX % approximately. So would request you to give the best possible compensation for my skills and experience which match the current market trends also .

I hope you like this article. Please follow our Facebook page and Twitter handle to get latest updates.

Read More:

• SQL Server Interview Questions & Answers
• RedHat Linux Interview Questions & Answers
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• How to Improve your Self-Confidence to Crack a Job Interview?
• Visit this link to get more tips on Learning

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vRA Interview Questions

Question – What is XaaS and how can you use it with VRO?

Answer – This is a very open-ended query. Generally, XaaS (Anything as a service) uses VRO workflows and you can create XaaS catalogs via using existing workflows in VRO (say adding Microsoft AD based user to a group etc.) via VRA GUI web portal. However, the tracking of such requests does not take place. In order to do that, you need to create custom resources and if required custom actions and then use it via XaaS in order such requested items to be listed and tacked in request items.

Question – How is VRealize Automation licensed?

Answer – VRA comes with VRealize Suite and with Vcloud Suite. There are other products as well with these suites. Please go through VMWare licensing whitepaper for more details.

Question – What are system wide and tenant roles?

Answer – This can be asked as this is related to access to the environment and to make it secure how you can use the roles to provide access. There are 2 system wide roles (System admin and Iaas admin). There are multiple tenant roles such as tenant admin, fabric administrator, infrastructure architect, software architect, application architect, BG manager, BG support user, approval administrator etc. Please view all the tenant roles and responsibilities for more details.

Question – How can you integrate different products with VRA?

Answer – The basic logic is you can integrate either via VRA or via VRO. For example, VCenter, Hyper V, NSX, IPAM tools, Storage can be integrated in this way.

Question – How do you integrate public cloud environment with VRA?

Answer – AWS can be integrated via VRA->infrastructure->Add endpoint page and Azure can be integrated with VRA->Administrator->VRO endpoint path. On top of that you must install AWS, Azure or related plugin in VRO separately to use via XaaS blueprints.

Question – What is the role of vRA guest agents? How do you use it in provisioning a VM?

Answer – We can use vRA guest agent to make the following customizations on deployed machines:

• Change the IP address
• Add or format drives
• Run security scripts
• Initialize another agent, for example Puppet or Chef

Follow link for getting in depth information. Further on this page there are links for Windows and Linux machines as well.

Question – What are software components in VRA? How can you use them?

Answer – Software components are basically components that you can create and then place on top of the parent blueprint. Software component can be a component for installing, configuring apache on a blueprint. Software components can also be like installing and configuring java, mongodB, IIS web server roles on windows BP etc. Logic is that in a composite blueprint first catalog for OS is deployed, then software component is deployed and then the VM request is termed as successful. In case there is a composite blueprint with say 3-4 software components are on top of it. Even if the one software component fails during the provision, entire request fails and the provisioned VM is deleted.

Question – What is the use of VRealize Business product? How do you use it with VRA?

Answer – VRB (vRealize Business) is used for pricing and charging of VMs, operational analysis, consumption, doing cost comparisons with public clouds, doing capacity planning, what if analysis for migrations as well.

You can integrate VRB with VRA and from VRA GUI, you can see the business management tab. VRB is a separate appliance that needs to be deployed before integrating with VRB.

Question – What are Custom resources and actions?

Answer – This is a wide topic and below links would be helpful to understand this concept. Creating XaaS Blueprints and resource actions. If you follow this you can further links for creating custom resources, custom actions, mapping custom resources to actions, some examples as well.

Question – What are the specific roles associated with VRealize Business Management?

Answer – There are 3 roles required for admin/BG manager to be able to use Business Management tab in VRA.

1. Business Management Administrator
2. Business Management Controller
3. Business Management Read Only

Related Articles

• How to Create T-Shirt Size Blueprint in vRealize Automation?
• How to Create Blueprint to Provide Appropriate Rights to New Users
• vRealize Automation Interview Questions and Answers – Part 1

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Related Articles:

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• SQL Server DBA Interview Questions & Answers
• SQL Server Backup & Recovery Interview Questions & Answers
• SQL Server Architecture Interview Questions & Answers
• Index Rebuild vs Index Reorganize Operation

SQL Server Interview Questions & Answers on Indexes

Question – How data stores in Indexes?

Answer – Data stores in indexes or in tables on a series of 8 kb data pages. Indexes Data on these data pages are organized in a B-Tree structure that supports fast retrieval of the rows, based on their index key values. Each page in an index B-tree is called an index node. The top node of the B-tree is called the root node. The bottom level of nodes in the index is called the leaf nodes. The leaf nodes of a nonclustered index is made up of index pages instead of data pages whereas in a clustered index, the leaf nodes contain the data pages.

Question – What is Fill Factor and what should be the perfect value for it?

Answer – A fill factor value determines the percentage of space on each leaf-level page to be filled with data, reserving the remainder on each page as free space for future growth. Fill factor values 0 and 100 are the same in all respects. The fill-factor option is provided for fine-tuning index data storage and performance. Although, there is no defined value that we can say is perfect value for fill factor. You can set it to somewhere around 80% and monitor fragmentation over time. Then, you can tweak its value up or down depending on how fragmented the indexes get. Read more about fill factor and its best value.

Question – Explain Page Split and whether it is good for SQL Server or bad?

Answer – Whenever you update existing rows with the data that is bigger in size to save on their data page then Page Split operation occur to make space for this new update. Page split reduces performance so we can say page split is not at all a good thing for our database.

Question – How page split is bad for performance?

Answer – Page split is a resource intensive operation and causes fragmentation that leads to deficient performance in terms of increased I/O operations. We should take it seriously if there are frequent page splits occur and consider reducing its occurrences

Question – What is Difference between clustered and nonclustered Indexes?

Answer – Clustered indexes sort and store the data rows in the table or view based on their key values. There can be only one clustered index per table, because the data rows themselves can be sorted in only one order.

Nonclustered indexes have the same B-tree structure as clustered indexes. The data rows of the underlying table are not sorted and stored in order based on their non clustered keys. The leaf layer of a nonclustered index is made up of index pages instead of data pages. You can create up to 999 nonclustered indexes on a table. 

Question – Does indexes always improve database performance?

Answer – NO, sometimes indexes can reduce your database performance if you are running a bulk data upload or your application has a nature of frequent data Insert operations. Indexes are very useful if you are accessing or reading the data.

Question – What is filter index?

Answer –  An optimized nonclustered index, especially suited to cover queries that select from a well-defined subset of data. It uses a filter predicate to index a portion of rows in the table. A well-designed filtered index can improve query performance, reduce index maintenance costs, and reduce index storage costs compared with full-table indexes.  

Question – What is covering index?

Answer – A covering index is one which can satisfy all requested columns in a query without performing a further lookup into the clustered index.

Question – Explain column store index?

Answer – An in-memory columnstore index stores and manages data by using column-based data storage and column-based query processing.

Columnstore indexes work well for data warehousing workloads that primarily perform bulk loads and read-only queries. 

Question – Why can’t a table have more than one clustered indexes?

Answer – Clustered indexes sort and store the data rows in the table or view based on their key values so you can’t store data in table based on two index key that’s why you can create only one cluster index on a table.

Question -What is Heap and when it is useful from clustered table?

Answer – Heap is a table without having cluster indexes. Heaps are generally useful if you are running huge bulk data load or frequent DML operations.

Question – How do you find about missing indexes that you need to create to improve database performance?

Answer – We can run SQL Server database Tuning Advisor that will suggests us about all the missing indexes that we should create to improve db performance. We can also use DMVs related to missing indexes sys.dm_db_missing_index_details, sys.dm_db_missing_index_groups and sys.dm_db_missing_index_columns to get these details.

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SQL Server Backup & Recovery Interview Questions

Question- What is Minimal Logging and how is it different from Full Logging?

Answer- Minimal logging involves logging only information that is required to recover the transaction without supporting point-in-time recovery. Under the full recovery model, all bulk operations are fully logged. However, you can minimize logging for a set of bulk operations by switching the database to the bulk-logged recovery model temporarily for bulk operations.

Minimal logging is more efficient than full logging, and it reduces the possibility of a large-scale bulk operation filling the available transaction log space during a bulk transaction. However, if the database is damaged or lost when minimal logging is in effect, you cannot recover the database to the point of failure.

Question- Can you name few operations that logs Minimally during bulk-recovery model?

Answer- The following operations, which are fully logged under the full recovery model, are minimally logged under bulk-logged recovery model:

1. Bulk import operations (bcp, BULK INSERT, and INSERT… SELECT).
2. SELECT INTO operations
3. CREATE INDEX operations
4. ALTER INDEX REBUILD or DBCC DBREINDEX operations.
5. DROP INDEX new heap rebuild

Question- If I change my database recovery model from FULL to SIMPLE, does transactions will be logged in to log file?

Answer- Yes, Transactions will be logged in SIMPLE recovery model as well. The difference is all logged transactions will be cleared during checkpoint operation in this recovery model. Read more about Checkpoint operations & SQL Server Recovery Models.

Question- If yes in above question then how is SIMPLE RECOVERY Model different from FULL Recovery Model?

Answer- All logged transactions will be cleared during checkpoint operation and transaction log backup is not allowed so point-in-time recovery is not possible in SIMPLE recovery model. Whereas transaction backup is allowed in full recovery model and point-in-time recovery is also supported. Logs got cleared only after taking log backup or switching the recovery model to SIMPLE.

Question- Can we achieve point-in-time recovery in Bulk-logged Recovery Model?

Answer- Yes, if there is no bulk operation performed on your database and you have all log backups. Point-in-time recovery is not possible if your recovery point falls falls in-between any bulk operations. .

Question- How differential backup works? or

How differential backup captures only updated data since full backup in its dump file?

Answer- Differential Changed Map is a page type that stores information about extents that have changed since the last full backup. Database engine reads just the DCM pages to determine which extents have been modified and captures those extents in differential backup file.

Question- Why cannot we serve copy-only backup  as a differential base or differential backup?

Answer- The differential changed map page is not updated by a copy-only backup. Therefore, a copy-only backup cannot serve as a differential base or differential backup. A copy-only backup does not affect subsequent differential backups.

Question- Why a database log file is growing like anything that is running in SIMPLE Recovery Model?

Answer- It means some transactions are active and running on your database.  As we know logs are captured in simple recovery model as well so that active transaction is getting logged there. The inactive portion in log file clears during checkpoint operation.

Question- Can we restore a database till the specific time?

Answer- Yes, if database is running in full recovery model and database has log backups till that specific time. We can use STOPAT clause to recover till a specific time.

Question- Suppose we are running Daily full backup at 8PM in night and every half an hour transaction log backup. Now your database is crashed at 3.41PM. How will you recover your database to the point it was crashed?

Answer- Below steps we will perform in a sequence manner to recover this database to the point it was crashed.

• First we will run tail log backup to capture all transactions that are not captured in previous log backups at the point database was crashed.
• Restore last night Full backup with NORECOVERY that was taken at 8PM.
• Apply all transaction log backup since last night full backup with norecovery.
• Apply tail log backup on the database with recovery and with STOPAT parameter. 

Question- Take the same scenario as above, now you found that there is one log file let’s say at 2 PM got corrupted and not restorable. What will be the impact on your database recovery?

Answer-  We cannot recover this database till that point it was crashed and we would have last data till 1.30PM considering log backup runs on every half an hour.

Question- Suppose we are running Weekly Sunday full backup at 8PM, daily differential backup at 10PM and every half an hour transaction log backup. Now your database is crashed on Saturday 3.11PM. What would be your fastest way to recover this database in point in time?

Answer-  We will perform below steps to recover this database in point-in-time:

1. Try to run tail log backup at the point database was crashed.
2. Restore latest Weekly Sunday Full backup with NORECOVERY that was taken at 8PM.
3. Restore Friday night differential backup with NORECOVERY that was taken at 10PM.
4. Apply all transaction log backup since Friday differential backup with norecovery.
5. Apply tail log backup on the database with recovery and with STOPAT parameter. 

Question- In addition to above question, suppose you came to know that Friday night differential backup was corrupted then what would be your strategy to recovery the database in point-in time?

Answer- We will perform below steps to recover this database in point-in-time:

1. Try to run tail log backup at the point database was crashed.
2. Restore latest Weekly Sunday Full backup with NORECOVERY that was taken at 8PM.
3. Restore Thursday night differential backup with NORECOVERY that was taken at 10PM.
4. Apply all transaction log backup since Thursday night differential backup with norecovery.
5. Apply tail log backup on the database with recovery and with STOPAT parameter. 

Question- Suppose you came to know that differential backups ran on Monday and Wednesday are corrupted and you have only Tuesday and Thursday differential backups along with full backup and all log backups. Explain your sequence to restore the database?

Answer- We will follow same sequence that we follow in previous question. We will apply weekly full backup then Thursday differential backup along with all transaction log backups.

Question- How will you restore tempdb?

Answer- We should not restore tempdb as it’s a temporary database and created everytime we restart SQL Server service.

Question- What is COPY_ONLY full backup and how it is different from regular full backups?

Answer- Difference between regular full and copy-only full backup is that copy-only full backup does not break the differential chain. Neither of them breaks the log chain as neither of them truncates the log file. A copy-only backup cannot serve as a differential base or differential backup and does not affect the differential base.

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Read More Interview Q&A:

• SQL Server Interview Q&A on Alwayson Availability Group
• SQL Server Interview Q&A on Indexes

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SQL Server DBA Interview Questions and Answers

Question- What is your troubleshooting strategy? Suppose a user reported an issue, how will you start to fix the issue?

Answer- A good troubleshooters are those who understand the in-depth information about the product\features where issue arises. To fix any issue, we should follow below points.

1. First we should understand the issue/error codes, ask questions to the user about when and how they get error.
2. If we are not getting anything from step 2,  we need to read error log file, Job history log, and Event log files based on the nature of the issue.
3. Look into SQL Server transactions and analyze the wait types and other parameters like CPU, IO, Memory if it is related to performance issue.
4. If we are still not getting any solution, try to search the error on social sites or take help from your seniors because you are not the only one who has received this error.

Question- Tell me in which sequence SQL Server databases come ONLINE after starting or restarting a SQL Server Instance.

Answer- There is no defined sequence for user databases to come online. Although, below is the sequence in which system databases come online. User databases can come online anytime after master database become accessible.

1. Master
2. MSDB
3. ResourceDB (Although this database is not visible in SSMS)
4. Model
5. Tempdb

Question- What should be the optimum AutoGrowth size for SQL Server databases?

Answer- Optimum Autogrowth size of any database file is based on the data growth. We should analyze the data growth and set autogrowth size accordingly. Ideally, Microsoft suggests to keep one-eighth of the size of data file. Read attached article to Understand database Autogrowth in SQL Server.

Question- How will you check the total number of autogrowth events occurred on your database?

Answer- You can get it by running Disk Usage dashboard report of any database. There is a section of all autogrowth and auto shrink events occurred on the database. Have a look in the attached article where i have shown this dashboard report to see number of autogrowth events for a database.

Question-What will be the impact on database if you have default value of Autogrowth or you keep small value of autogrowth size?

Answer- If we go with default value of Autogrowth or any amount that is less in size and not per your database growth pattern will lead to the performance issue. Read attached article to know why performance issue will be occurred if you have inappropriate value set to autogrowth.

Questions- What is compatibility level and how it impacts SQL Server?

Answer- Compatibility level shows the SQL Server version on which your database is running. This is used to support the backward compatibility. You can run your databases to the lower version of SQL Server having higher version of SQL Server installed on your machine by setting compatibility level of the corresponding SQL Server version.

Question- What do you think, should we enable Auto_Shrink option for a database?

Answer- We should never enable database auto shrink property for any database. Read this article to understand why we should not enable auto shrink for any database.

Question- What would be your options if your database files are full with maximum disk capacity?

Answer- We have below options in case disk space is full where data files are placed.

1. Add Additional Disk Space to the same drive.
2. Add additional data file to the different disk where you have enough space or you can add new disk as well to create this data file.
3. Move the data file to another drive that has enough space.
4. Delete\Purge unused data from your database to make some space.

We can choose any option depending on the requirement.

 Question- What will you do if your log file drive is full during data load?

Answer- We have below options in case you are in middle of data load.

1. Run Transaction log backup frequently.
2. Add another log file in another disk where is enough space to grow the log.
3. You can enable Auto shrink during data load if you are running with SIMPLE recovery model.

Question – How many SQL Server Instances we can install on a cluster Instance?

Answer- We can install 25 instance on clustered environment and maximum 50 instances on standalone instances.

Question- What is the difference between updating statistics using sp_updatestats and UPDATE STATISTICS?

Answer- sp_updatestats updates only the statistics that require updating based on the rowmodctr information in the sys.sysindexes catalog view, thus avoiding unnecessary updates of statistics on unchanged rows.

While going with UPDATE STATISTICS you have quite lot of options to use for stats update. This command scan all tables and data based on your scan value during updating statistics. This can take lot of time and performed intensive IO operations.

Question- Do we need to update Statistics after index rebuild operation?

Answer- No, Update stats is not required after index rebuild operations because statistics got updated during index rebuild operation.

Read More SQL Server DBA Interview Questions:

• SQL Server Interview Q&A on Alwayson Availability Group
• SQL Server Backup & Recovery Interview Questions
• SQL Server Interview Questions & Answers on Indexes
• SQL Server Architecture Interview Questions & Answers

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SQL Server Interview Questions & Answers – Basics & Architecture

Question – What is Page and how many types of pages are in SQL Server?

Answer – Page is the fundamental unit of data storage in SQL Server. The size of Page is 8kb. Below is the type of pages available in SQL Server

1. Data
2. Index
3. Text/Image
4. Global Allocation Map
5. Shared Global Allocation Map
6. Page Free Space
7. Index Allocation Map
8. Bulk Changed Map
9. Differential Changed Map

Read Pages & Extent section of the attached article “Understanding Data files, Pages & Extents“ to learn more about all page types.

Question – What is an Extent?

Answer – Extents are a collection of eight physically contiguous pages and are used to efficiently manage the pages. All pages are stored in extents. There are two types of extents.

• Uniform extents
• Mixed extents

All eight pages belongs to same object in Uniform extents Whereas in Mixed extents, pages belongs to two or more objects. Each of the eight pages can be owned by a different object.

Question –Does log files write their logs in Pages?

Answer – No, Log files do not have any pages because they don’t store any data. Log files store a series of log records to maintain data integrity & point in time recovery.

Question – What is filegroups and their benefits?

Answer – File Group is the logical unit that works as a container for data files. We can place multiple data files in to a filegroup. Filegroups are very helpful in below cases:

1. If you have big database and you want to reduce the recovery time in case of any failure. You can plan filegroup backups that can be used for partial restores and data will be accessible while corresponding filegroup will be restored. Even you can run backup of an individual filegroup only.
2. You can segregate your critical data into separate filegroup and non-critical data into another filegroup. You can also place them on separate drives/RAIDs to reduce DISK IO.
3. Another advantage is that you can keep your filegroup in to read only mode. If you don’t want to run any DML statement on some of the tables, you can place all those tables into separate file group and change that file group into read only mode.

 Question – How many types of filegroup available in SQL Server and Log files belong to which file group?

Answer – There are two types of filegroup.

1. Primary Filegroup
2. Secondary Filegroup

A database will have only one Primary Filegroup and can have as much as 32767 secondary filegroups. When we create a database primary filegroup created automatically. Primary data file will be part of primary filegroup. You can add maximum 32767 data files in a single filegroup.

Log files does not belong to any filegroup.

Question–What is database files and how many types of database files are there in SQL Server Database?

Answer – Database files are the physical files that are created on OS drives when you create a SQL Server Database. These files are used to store actual data and log records of the transactions. There are two types of database files.

• Data File
• Log File

Data files further categorized into two types.

• Primary Data File
• Secondary Data File

Read below articles to get more information about database files.

• Understanding Data Files in SQL Server
• Understanding Transaction Log File in SQL Server
• What is Virtual Log Files in SQL Server?

Question – How SQL Server stores logs in transaction log file?

Answer – SQL Server stores logs serially in transaction log file.  Transaction log is a string of log records. Each log record is identified by a log sequence number (LSN). Each new log record is written with the incremental LSN that means a new log record will be assigned a LSN that is higher than the LSN of the record before it. Read attached article to Understand SQL Server Transaction Log Architecture that will help you to understand this topic.

Question – What is virtual log file?

Answer- Each transaction log file internally divided into several virtual log files. Virtual log files have no fixed size, and there is no fixed number of virtual log files for a physical log file.

Question – How do you get total no of virtual log files in a transaction log file?

The new DMF sys.dm_db_log_info introduced in SQL Server 2017 that will returns Virtual Log File information of the transaction log files.  If we will specify NULL or DEFAULT value, it will return VLF information of the current database. The built-in function DB_ID can also be specified to get details of a particular database. The sys.dm_db_log_info DMF replaces the DBCC LOGINFO statement from earlier versions. Read attached article to get that. Read attached article where I have described how to get total no of virtual log files in a transaction log file in detail.

Question – By default, your log file belongs to which filegroup?

Answer- Log files do not belong to any file group.

Question – Do you think multiple log files are useful in SQL Server?

Answer- Yes, it will be helpful in case you are dealing with space issues. You can add additional log files in another drive if you stuck by spaces issue in log file/drive during data load/Import. You can also create additional log file in to another drive if you are frequently facing space issue and cannot extent the existing log file drive.

Question – Explain Checkpoint operation in SQL Server?

Answer – A checkpoint writes the current in-memory modified pages (known as dirty pages) and transaction log information from memory to disk in data files. Read more about Checkpoint in attached article.

Question – How many types of checkpoint SQL Server Supports?

Answer – There are four types of checkpoint SQL Server supports.

1. Automatic Checkpoint
2. Indirect Checkpoint
3. Manual Checkpoint
4. Internal Checkpoint

I have explained Checkpoint Types in attached article. Please have a look on this to get more details.

Question – What is Instant File Initialization and its benefits?

Answer – SQL Server has a feature called Instant file initialization that allows fast data file allocations of the all data file operations. Instant file initialization reclaims used disk space without filling that space with zeros.Have a look at the attached article to Understand Instant File Initialization & How to enable it on SQL Server.

Question – How do you know that Instant File Initialization is enabled on your SQL Server Instance?

Answer- You can see the SQL Server error log file. When SQL Server starts, it captures this information whether Instant File Initialization is enabled for this instance or not. I have explained this also in above attached article.

Read More SQL Server Interview Questions

• SQL Server Interview Q&A on Alwayson Availability Group
• SQL Server DBA Interview Questions & Answers
• SQL Server Backup & Recovery Interview Questions
• SQL Server Interview Questions & Answers on Indexes

I hope these interview questions & answers will help you cracking your interviews. Please follow our facebook page and Twitter handle to get latest updates.

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