Top 20 SQL Server Installations and Upgrades Interview Questions

SQL THE ONE

There are total 102 questions are answered under SQL Server Installation and Upgrade category in the book “SQL THE ONE”. In this chapter we’ll find questions and answers on SQL Server Licensing, Service Accounts, Network Protocols, Installations, Upgrades, Troubleshooting Scenarios, SQL Server components and capacity specifications. Below are the Top 20 SQL Server Installation and Upgrades Interview Questions:

1. Starting from SQL Server 7 to 2016, from which edition the licensing model has been changed?

2. Your customer sent you a request to suggest a service account for production SQL Server installation. How do you suggest the correct service account for SQL Server?

3. What are the different releases of SQL Server? We usually talk about RTM, RC, SP, CU etc. right, what are the different releases of a SQL Server product and what do you know about them?

4. How to get the port number where the SQL Server instance is listening?

5. What are the log files generated while Installing\Upgrading\Applying (packages) SQL Server on Windows machine?

6. What are the things involved in installing SQL Server 2008 R2/2012/2014/2016?

7. What are the differences and advantages between In-Place Upgrade and Side-By-Side Upgrade?

8. Did you observe any change in slipstream between SQL Server 2008/R2 and 2012 versions?

9. Can you quickly tell me few things which should not be missed after migrating SQL Server to newer version?

10. Have you ever applied Cumulative Update on SQL Server? If yes there is a known problem with CU updates do you know that?

11. When you upgrade a SQL Server, the upgrade wizard seems to stop responding and fails sometimes. Why?

12. What are the different tools available while upgrading SQL Server?

13. What is the sequence to install service packs or hotfixes on an instance of SQL Server that is part of Log Shipping/Database Mirroring/Replication/Failover Clustering / Always On environment?

14. Since you are an experienced DBA you might have seen the issue “SQL Server service is not starting” right? Can you describe the top 3 common reasons that cause SQL Server service failure?

15. From your experience can you describe the top reasons that cause SQL Server installation failures?

16. Have you ever come across with the problem “.MSP or .MSI files are missing” while installing or patching a SQL Server? What are these files?

17. What is the most critical issue you faced while installing SQL Server 2012? You can tell me the recent one.

18. Can you describe any strange issue that you faced while installing SQL Server?

19. We have upgraded databases from SQL Server 2005 to SQL Server 2014 and now the upgrade hits the production. Unfortunately a part of application is not supporting SQL Server 2014. Do we need to Rollback entire process to SQL 2005? Is that the only solution? If it is the only way! Since the databases at production transactions are being running and the data has been updated. How do you handle this?

20. What is the change you most liked in SQL Server 2016 installation procedure?

Summary:

These Top 20 SQL Server Installation and Upgrades Interview Questions are the sample questions randomly collected from the book “SQL THE ONE”.

Please share your feedback and comments on below comments section or reach me on sqltheone@gmail.com. We wish you all the best for the next interview.

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