1. Why is a UNION ALL faster than a UNION?

The union operation, you will recall, brings two sets of data together. It will
*NOT* however produce duplicate or redundant rows. To perform this feat of magic
, a SORT operation is done on both tables. This is obviously computationally int
ensive, and uses significant memory as well. A UNION ALL conversely just dumps c
ollection of both sets together in random order, not worrying about duplicates.
2. What are some advantages to using Oracle's CREATE DATABASE statement to creat
e a new database manually?
â ¢ You can script the process to include it in a set of install scripts you deliver
with a product.
â ¢ You can put your create database script in CVS for version control, so as you ma
ke changes or adjustments to it, you can track them like you do changes to softw
are code.
â ¢ You can log the output and review it for errors.
â ¢ You learn more about the process of database creation, such as what options are
available and why.
3. What are three rules of thumb to create good passwords? How would a DBA enfor
ce those rules in Oracle? What business challenges might you encounter?
Typical password cracking software uses a dictionary in the local language, as w
ell as a list of proper names, and combinations thereof to attempt to guess unkn
own passwords. Since computers can churn through 10's of thousands of attempts q
uickly, this can be a very affective way to break into a database. A good passwo
rd therefore should not be a dictionary word, it should not be a proper name, bi
rthday, or other obvious guessable information. It should also be of sufficient
length, such as eight to ten characters, including upper and lowercase, special
characters, and even alternate characters if possible.
Oracle has a facility called password security profiles. When installed they can
enforce complexity, and length rules as well as other password related security
measures.
In the security arena, passwords can be made better, and it is a fairly solvable
problem. However, what about in the real-world? Often the biggest challenge is
in implementing a set of rules like this in the enterprise. There will likely be
a lot of resistance to this, as it creates additional hassles for users of the
system who may not be used to thinking about security seriously. Educating busin
ess folks about the real risks, by coming up with real stories of vulnerabilitie
s and break-ins you've encountered on the job, or those discussed on the interne
t goes a long way towards emphasizing what is at stake.
4. Describe the Oracle Wait Interface, how it works, and what it provides. What
are some limitations? What do the db_file_sequential_read and db_file_scattered_
read events indicate?
The Oracle Wait Interface refers to Oracle's data dictionary for managing wait e
vents. Selecting from tables such as v$system_event and v$session_event give you
event totals through the life of the database (or session). The former are tota
ls for the whole system, and latter on a per session basis. The event db_file_se
quential_read refers to single block reads, and table accesses by rowid. db_file
_scattered_read conversely refers to full table scans. It is so named because th
e blocks are read, and scattered into the buffer cache.
5. How do you return the top-N results of a query in Oracle? Why doesn't the obv
ious method work?
Most people think of using the ROWNUM pseudocolumn with ORDER BY. Unfortunately
the ROWNUM is determined *before* the ORDER BY so you don't get the results you
want. The answer is to use a subquery to do the ORDER BY first. For example to r
eturn the top-5 employees by salary:
SELECT * FROM (SELECT * FROM employees ORDER BY salary) WHERE ROWNUM < 5;
6. Can Oracle's Data Guard be used on Standard Edition, and if so how? How can y
ou test that the standby database is in sync?
Oracle's Data Guard technology is a layer of software and automation built on to
p of the standby database facility. In Oracle Standard Edition it is possible to
be a standby database, and update it *manually*. Roughly, put your production d
atabase in archivelog mode. Create a hotbackup of the database and move it to th
e standby machine. Then create a standby controlfile on the production machine,
and ship that file, along with all the archived redolog files to the standby ser
ver. Once you have all these files assembled, place them in their proper locatio
ns, recover the standby database, and you're ready to roll. From this point on,
you must manually ship, and manually apply those archived redologs to stay in sy
nc with production.
To test your standby database, make a change to a table on the production server
, and commit the change. Then manually switch a logfile so those changes are arc
hived. Manually ship the newest archived redolog file, and manually apply it on
the standby database. Then open your standby database in read-only mode, and sel
ect from your changed table to verify those changes are available. Once you're d
one, shutdown your standby and startup again in standby mode.
7. What is a database link? What is the difference between a public and a privat
e database link? What is a fixed user database link?
A database link allows you to make a connection with a remote database, Oracle o
r not, and query tables from it, even incorporating those accesses with joins to
local tables.
A private database link only works for, and is accessible to the user/schema tha
t owns it. A global one can be accessed by any user in the database.
A fixed user link specifies that you will connect to the remote db as one and on
ly one user that is defined in the link. Alternatively, a current user database
link will connect as the current user you are logged in as.