Database Administration Flashcards
7 cards from real CTE practice questions. Tap to flip, then mark Knew It or Still Learning — missed cards come back until you master them.
Read the first 7 Database Administration flashcards as text
A telecom carrier's OLTP database must be separated from its analytics workload. Which architecture pattern BEST addresses this?
Answer: Implement a data warehouse with ETL pipelines feeding from the OLTP system
A data warehouse with ETL pipelines isolates analytics queries from OLTP operations, preventing resource contention.
Which normal form eliminates transitive dependencies in a telecom subscriber database schema?
Answer: Third Normal Form (3NF)
Third Normal Form (3NF) requires that non-key attributes depend only on the primary key, eliminating transitive dependencies.
In a high-availability telecom database cluster, what is the purpose of a 'witness' or 'arbiter' node?
Answer: To provide a tiebreaker vote during failover to prevent split-brain scenarios
A witness/arbiter node provides an odd quorum vote to prevent split-brain, ensuring only one node assumes the primary role during failover.
A DBA discovers that a long-running report query on the telecom billing database is blocking other transactions. Which action is MOST appropriate?
Answer: Move the report query to a read replica or reporting database
Routing report queries to a read replica isolates analytics workloads from OLTP transactions, eliminating blocking.
Which SQL command is used to reclaim storage and update statistics after a large batch delete of expired CDR records in a telecom database?
Answer: VACUUM or REORGANIZE INDEX (database-specific)
VACUUM (PostgreSQL) or REORGANIZE INDEX (SQL Server) reclaims fragmented space and updates statistics after large data deletions.
In telecom database security, what is the principle of 'least privilege' as applied to database user accounts?
Answer: Database accounts should be granted only the permissions required to perform their specific function
Least privilege minimizes security risk by granting accounts only the exact permissions needed for their designated function, limiting breach impact.
What is the purpose of a materialized view in a telecom reporting database?
Answer: To store precomputed query results that can be refreshed periodically for fast reporting
Materialized views persist precomputed results to disk, enabling fast reporting queries without recalculating complex aggregations each time.