Headquartered in Austin, Texas, Oracle is one of America’s biggest multinational computer technology corporations. Oracle sells cloud engineered systems, database software and technology, and enterprise software products, its own brands of database management systems in particular.
As far as revenue and market capitalization are concerned, Oracle is the second largest software company. The company is also known for developing and building tools for database development and systems of middle tier software, Human Capital Management (HCM) software, enterprise resource planning (ERP) software, customer relationship management (CRM) software , supply chain management (SCM) software and enterprise performance management (EPM) software.
The company’s amazing work culture and its principles are one of the major reasons which has led to the increase of popularity of Oracle (along with its high quality products of course) in the IT industry. As a software developer, one always wants to have a good work-life balance and Oracle is well known for the same.
Find out more about the Software Career Opportunities at Oracle.
Now that we know a bit about the work culture at Oracle, I am sure that you are tempted to interview at Oracle and take a job! Their hiring process is a crucial part of their culture as they care deeply about their teams and the people who make them up. Building a more representative and inclusive workplace is the motive of Oracle’s hiring team, and that begins with hiring highly skilled people from various backgrounds. According to the Oracle’s hiring team, in order to truly build for everyone, a diversity of perspectives and experiences, and a fair hiring process is the first step in getting there. Let us learn more about how the hiring process at Oracle looks like:-
List the various components of the physical database structure of an Oracle database.
The different components of the physical database structure of an Oracle database are listed down below:-
The Oracle database has been developed using which language?
The C language was used to develop the Oracle database.
What do you understand about the logical storage structure of Oracle? List the main components of the logical database structure in the Oracle database.
The Oracle Database allocates logical space for all data in the database in addition to the physical files. The logical units of database space allocation are data blocks, extents, segments, and tablespaces. At a physical level, the data is stored in data files on a disk. The data in the data files are stored in operating system blocks.
There are two main components in the logical database structure in the Oracle database:-
Define a tablespace in context with the Oracle database.
The Logical Storage Unit of an Oracle database is called a tablespace. It is nothing but a set of related logical structures. Tablespace groups relate the logical structures of the database together. Logically, the data is stored in the tablespaces in Oracle and physically, the data is stored in the datafiles associated with the respective tablespaces.
List the default tablespaces of Oracle.
The default tablespaces of Oracle are as follows:-
What is the fundamental difference between an online and an offline tablespace?
If a tablespace is offline, we cannot access data stored in it. In contrast to that, if a tablespace is online, the data of the tablespace is available for reading as well as writing.
Define a SYSTEM tablespace. When it is created?
When any database is created in the Oracle database system, a SYSTEM tablespace is automatically generated. The Data dictionary tables for the entire database are present in The SYSTEM tablespace. It is important that the SYSTEM tablespace remains online always as it contains the data dictionary that must be available to Oracle.
Define an Oracle table.
An Oracle table is a basic unit of data storage in an Oracle database. Every accessible information of any user is present in rows and columns of an Oracle table.
Define a snapshot in the context of an Oracle database.
Oracle uses snapshots, which are also known as materialized views, in order to replicate data to the non-master sites in a replicated environment. Snapshots are also used to cache the "expensive" queries in a data warehouse environment. So in short, a snapshot is nothing but a copy of the target master table from a single point in time.
What do you understand by the RAW datatype?
The RAW datatype is used to store values in binary data format in an Oracle Database. The maximum size for a RAW datatype in a table is 32767 bytes.
What do you understand about the memory layers that are in the Oracle shared pool?
There are two memory layers in the Oracle shared pool:-
What do you understand by a save point in the Oracle database?
Savepoints can be used to break a transaction into smaller parts. It also allows the rolling back of a transaction. At any given time, at most five save points are allowed. Savepoints save our data, and therefore, whenever we encounter an error, we can roll back to the point where we had saved our SAVEPOINT.
Describe the various Oracle database objects in brief.
The description of various Oracle database objects is as follows:-
State the usage of the ANALYZE command in Oracle.
The ANALYZE command in Oracle can be used to perform a number of functions on indexes, tables, or clusters. Some of the use cases of the ANALYZE command in Oracle are as follows:-
Define hash clusters in Oracle.
A hash cluster provides an alternative to a non clustered table with an index or an index cluster. Using indexed tables or index clusters, the Oracle Database is able to locate the rows in a table using key values that the database stores in a separate index.
State the most common types of modules in Oracle forms.
The most common types of modules in Oracle forms are as follows :-
Define a synonym in the Oracle database and state its types.
Synonyms are defined as aliases for tables, views, sequences or program units. There are two types of synonyms in the Oracle database:-
Which data type in the Oracle database has a varying length binary string?
The BLOB data type in the Oracle database has a varying length binary string. It is used to store two gigabytes of memory and for it, the length needs to be specified in bytes. An example to illustrate the usage of the BLOB data type is given below:-
create table photos(name varchar(32) not null primary key, picture blob(10M));
select name,length(picture) from photos where name like '%logo%';
Describe Logical backup in Oracle.
The Logical backup mechanism is for reading a set of database records and writing them into a file. We can use an Export utility to take the backup while an Import utility can be used to recover from the backup.
What do you understand by recursive hints in Oracle.
We can define a recursive hint as to the number of times a dictionary table is continuously called by various processes. Recursive hints occur because of the small size of the data dictionary cache.
State the limitations of the CHECK constraint.
The biggest limitation of the CHECK constraint is as follows:- The condition needs to be a boolean expression that is being evaluated using the values in the row being inserted or updated. It can also not contain any subqueries whatsoever.
State the usage of the GRANT option in the IMP command.
The GRANT option in the IMP command can be used to import object grants.
State the usage of the ROWS option in the IMP command.
The ROWS option in the IMP command can be used to indicate whether the table rows should be imported or not.
State the usage of the IGNORE option in the IMP command.
The IGNORE option in the IMP command can be used to understand how object creation errors should be handled.
State the usage of the INDEXES option in the IMP command.
The INDEXES option in the IMP command can be used to determine whether indexes are imported or not.
Give an example to convert a date to a char in Oracle.
SELECT to_char(to_date('12-07-2021', 'DD-MM-YYYY'), 'YYYY-MM-DD') FROM dual;
As we can see from the above example, the to_char() function can be used to convert a date to char in Oracle.
Give an example to convert a string to a date in Oracle
SELECT to_date ('2021-07-12', 'YYYY/MM/DD') FROM dual;
As we can see from the above example, the to_date() function can be used to convert a string to a date in Oracle.
Which function can be used to find the current date and time of the operating system on which the Oracle database is running?
The SYSDATE() function can be used to find the current date and time of the operating system on which the Oracle database is running. The example given below shows how to do the same:-
SELECT TO_CHAR (SYSDATE, 'YYYY-MM-DD HH24:MI:SS') "Current Date:" FROM DUAL;
Explain actual parameters with an example.
Actual parameters are defined as the variables or expressions referenced in the parameter list of a subprogram. An example of a procedure call that lists two actual parameters named empNumber and amount is as follows:-
updateSalary(empNumber,amount);
Explain formal parameters with an example.
Formal parameters can be defined as variables declared in a subprogram specification and referenced in the subprogram body. An example of a procedure that declares two formal parameters named empID and amount: is as follows:-
PROCEDURE updateSalary(empID INTEGER, amount REAL) IS currentSalary REAL;
Write a query to find the average salary of employees from the Emp Oracle Table.
A query to find the average salary of employees from the Emp Oracle Table is given below:-
SELECT AVG(SALARY) FROM EMP GROUP BY SALARY;
Write a query to list the duplicate values in an Oracle table.
Written below is a query to list the duplicate values in an Oracle table:-
SELECT NAME, COUNT (NAME) FROM EMPLOYEE GROUP BY NAME HAVING COUNT (NAME) > 1;
Write a query to find out the student with the 2nd rank from the table STUDENTS_DETAILS.
Written below is a query to find out the student with the 2nd rank from the table STUDENTS_DETAILS:-
SELECT TOP 1 rank FROM (SELECT TOP 2 rank FROM STUDENT_DETAILS ORDER BY rank DESC) AS STUDENT ORDER BY rank ASC;
Illustrate the use of the TRANSLATE function with an example.
The TRANSLATE function of Oracle is used for replacing a sequence of characters in a string with some other set of characters. The TRANSLATE function replaces a single character at a time. Let us take a look at an example to translate the string "ROLL41" to "RAMM42" with the help of the TRANSLATE function.
TRANSLATE("ROLL41", "OL1", "AM2");
Illustrate the use of the REPLACE function with an example.
The REPLACE function of Oracle is used for replacing a sequence of characters in a string with some other set of characters. Let us take a look at an example to translate the string "R12S121" to "R34S341" with the help of the REPLACE function.
REPLACE("R12S121", "12", "34");
Note that every occurrence of the substring "12" is replaced by the substring "34".
Now that we know all about the hiring process of Oracle, here are a few tips which you can use to crack Oracle’s interview and get a job:-