ETL Data Warehouse SQL Testing Interview Questions and Answers

10/12/2016
ETLDatawarehouseSQLtestingInterviewQuestionsandAnswers
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ETL Data warehouse SQL testing

Interview Questions and Answers
Data warehousing concepts Interview

Questions:
What is a data warehouse?
A data warehouse is a database which,
1.Maintains history of data
2.Contains Integrated data (data from multiple business lines)
3.Contains Heterogeneous data (data from dierent source formats)
4.Contains Aggregated data
5.Allows only select to restrict data manipulation
6.Data will be stored in de-normalized format
Denition of a data warehouse:
1. Subject-oriented
2. Integrated
3. Non-volatile
4. Time-Variant
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Main Usage of a data warehouse:

1. Data Analysis
2. Decision Makings
3. Planning or Forecasting
What is a dimension?
A Dimension table is a table where it contains only non-quantifying
data and category of information which are key for analysis. A
dimension
table
contains
primary
key
and
non-quantifying
columns. If the primary key does not exist in source table then
surrogate key would exist.
What are the types of dimension?
Based on what type of data it stores there is two major types dimension
table,
1.Conrmed dimension
2.Junk dimension
Based on where its being derived there is one dimension category,
3.Degenerated dimension
Based on how frequently the data in the dimension can be divided into
2 types,
4.Rapidly Changing Dimension (RCD)
5.Slowly Changing Dimension (SCD)
What is a fact and what are the types of fact?
A fact is a column or attribute which can be quantiable or measurable
and will be used as key analysis factor. We can call it as a measure.
Types of Fact:
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1. Additive
2. Semi-additive
3. Non-additive
What does a fact table contain?
A table which contains facts is called fact table. Typically a fact table
has facts and foreign keys of dimension tables.
Fact table structure:
Foriegn_key1
Forign_keyN
Fact1
FactN
What are the types of a fact table?
Transactional
The fact table will contain datas in very detail level without any
rollup/aggregation the way how transactional database stores.
Accumulating
Accumulating refers storing multiple entries for a single record to
track the changes throughout the workow.
Periodic snapshot
The data will be extracted and loaded for a particular period of a time.
It describes what would be the state of the record in that specic
period.
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Factless fact table

When a fact table does not have any fact is called Factless fact table. It
hasonly foreign keys of dimension tables.
Why staging table is required?
1. To reduce the complexity of Job (It will be more complex when we
move directly from Source to Target)
2. To avoid the source database update.
3. To perform any calculations.
4. To perform data cleansing process as per business need.
5. When the data has been corrupted in Target after the load, we can
delete the corrupted data in Target database after that we can just
load the unloaded/deleted data alone into Target from staging
database.
What is a surrogate key?
In most of the table, the primary key will be loaded from source
schema, but some source table might not have a primary key in such
has by using sequence generator the primary key will be created,
such keys are called Surrogate key.
In terms of usage, there is no dierence between these two types of
keys. Both dier in the way of loading primary key loaded from
the source table, whereas surrogate key loaded by the sequence
generator.
OLTP vs DW database
Online Transactional Database

(OLTP)
Data warehouse database
Dedicated database available for

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specic subject area or business
Integrated from dierent business
application
applications
It does not keep history
It keeps history of data for analyzing

past performance
It allows user to perform thebelow

DML operations
It allows only Select for end users
(Select/Insert/Update/Delete)
The main purpose is for using day to
day transactions
Purpose is for analysis and reporting
Data volume will be less
Data volume is huge
Data stored in normalized format
Data stored in de-normalized format
Operational Data Store (ODS) vs Staging database
Factor
Period
ODS
It will have limited period of
data (30 to 90 days)
Staging
Based on type of load it stores
incremental data or full volume
of data
Temporary data storage and for
Purpose
Operational processing
doing data cleansing and other

calculations
Data
Integrated from dierent

business lines
Based on business need,

normally the each business line
would have dedicated staging
Explain about star schema

This type schema contains the fact table in center position. As we know
that fact table contains a reference to dimension tables.Then the fact
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table will be surrounded by dimension tables with foreign key

reference. The dimension table will not have a reference with any other
dimension.
Explain about snowake schema
This type also contains a fact table in center position. The fact table
has a reference to dimension tables.The dimension table will have a
reference to another dimension. The data will be stored in the more
normalized form.
What is the dierence between star and snowake?
Feature
Performance
Query
complexity
Star Schema
Snowake schema
As there is no relationship
Due to multiple links
between dimensions to
between dimensions
other dimensions the
the performance will
performance will be high.
be low.
The number of joins will

be less which makes
query complexity low
Consider the Project
dimension mentioned in
above example it has Role
column where the Role
Database size
name value will be stored

against for each project in
case of start schema, the
size of the table will be
high
The number of joins

will be more which
makes query
complexity high
The role information
is separately stored
in a table and the
reference will be
linked in Project
dimension, it
reduces the table
size
Data will be stored in
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Normalization
Data will be stored in de-
more normalized
normalized format in
format in dimension
dimension table
tables
What is data cleansing?

Data cleansing is a process of removing irrelevant and redundant data,
and correcting the incorrect and incomplete data. It is also called as data
cleaning or data scrubbing. All organizations are growing drastically
with huge competitions, they take business decisions based on their
past performance data and future projection
What is data masking?
What does data masking mean? Organizations never want to disclose
highly condential information into all users. All sensitive data will be
restricted to access in all environments other than production. The
process of masking/hiding/encrypting sensitive data is called data
masking.
Can you list down the challenges you have faced?
Data warehouse ETL Testing Challenges

Why Data mart?
1. The data warehouse database contains integrated data for all
business lines, for example, a banking data warehouse contains
data for all saving, credit and loan accounts databases.
2. The reporting access level will be given to a person who has
authority or needs to see the comparison of data for all three types
of accounts.
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3. Meanwhile, a loan account branch manager does not require to

see the saving and credit card details, he wants to see only the
past performance of loan account alone.
4. In that case for his analysis, we need to apply data level security
to protect saving and credit informations data warehouse.
5. At the same time, the number of end users across three accounts
will access the same data warehouse, it will end up in poor
performance.
6. To avoid these issues, the separate database will be built on top of
data warehouse, named as the data mart. The access will be given
for respective business line resources not for everyone.
What is data purging and archiving?
Data purging means deleting data from adatabase which crosses the
dened retention time.
Archiving means moving the data which crosses the dened retention
time to another database (archival database).
What are the types of SCD?
SCD Type 1
-Modications will be done on the same record
-Here no history of changes will be maintained
SCD Type 2
-An existing record will be marked as expired with is_active ag or
Expired_date column
-This type allows tracking the history of changes
SCD Type 3
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-A new value will be tracked as a column

-Here history of changes will be maintained
What type of schema and SCD type used in your project?
In my current project, we are using type2 to keep the history of
changes.
ETL Concepts and Testing Interview Questions:

What is ETL?
ExtractExtractingthedatafromsourcesystem
Transform Transforming or modifying the data into format what business
required
LoadLoadingintotargetdatabase
Explain about your current project?
Here explain about your current project with clear ETL process,
practice before getting into aninterview room.
Start with what is theobjectiveof the project whether building a data
mart or warehouse or ODS.
Then, explain how many source systems are there and do you
havestagingenvironment or not.
Then, tell about theETL toolyou are using.Stop it here.
What are the transformation types?
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Active Transformation
The output record count of the transformation may or may not
equalto input record count.
For example, when we apply lter transformation for age column
with the condition of age between 25 and 40. In this case, the data
will come out which satises this condition, hence the outcome
count cannot be predicted.
Passive Transformation
The output record count of the transformation isequal to inputrecord
count.
For
example,
when
we
apply
expression
transformation
to
concatenate rst name and last name columns, in this case, the data
will come out even though the columns do not have values.
Connected Transformation
A transformation which is being linked with other transformation or
target component is called connected.
Unconnected Transformation
A transformation which is not being linked with any other
transformation or target component is called unconnected.
What are the types of load?
Full Load(Initial Load or Bulk Load or Fresh Load)
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The data loading process when we do it at very rst time. It can be

referred as Bulk load or Fresh load.
The job extracts entire volume of data from source table or le and
loading into truncated target table after applying transformations
logics
Incremental Load (Refresh Load or Daily Load or Change Data
Capture)
The modied data alone will be updated in target followed by full
load. The changes will be captured by comparing created or modied
date against last run date of the job.
The modied data alone extracted from the source, the job will look
for changes in the source table against job run table, if change exists
then data will be extracted and that data alone will be updated in the
target without impacting the existing data.
Name some ETL tools
Informatica Power center
Talend Open Studio
IBM Datastage
SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS)
Ab-initio
Oracle Data Integrator
SAS Data Integration Studio
SAP Business Object Integrator
Clover ETL
Pentaho Data Integration
Explain the scenarios for testing source to a staging table.
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Verify the table structure of staging table (columns, data type,

length, constraints, index)
-Verify the successful workow (ETL job) run
-Verify the data count between source and staging table
-Verify the data comparison between source table and staging table
-Verify the duplicate data checking, duplicate data should not be
loaded into staging table
-Verify the excess trailing space trimmed for all Varchar data type
columns
-Verify the job consistency by performingsubsequent run
-Verify the job failure runs behavior
-Verify the job re-run success scenario after failure correction
-Verify thejob run with bad data (NULL values, exceeding precisions,
lookup or reference datanot exists)
-Verify the job performance timing
How do you ensure that all source table datas are loaded into target
table?
UsingSEToperatorMINUSifbothsourceandtargettablesareinthesame
databaseserver.
Usingmacrobothsourcetableandtargettabledatawillbecopiedintoan
excelandcomparedwithmacro
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UsingAutomationtoolstoolwillfetchdataandcomparesinternallywithown
algorithm
Using utility tools develop an automation utility tool using Java or any
scriptinglanguagealongwithdatabasedrivers
Give an example for Low severity and High priority defect.
-There is a requirement where email notication needs to be
triggered in case of job failure
-There is a deviation found during testing that the email notication
has been received but the number of records count in the content is
not matching
Low severity since it does not aect any functionality
High priority since the wrong data count shows the wrong
picture to the management team
What are the components of Informatica?
One of the major tool in worldwide. Majorly this tool is using for
ETL, data masking, and data quality.
It has four major components,
1. Repository manager to add repository and managing folders
2. Designer creating mappings
3. Workow manager creating workow with task and mappings
4. Workow monitor workow run status tracker
What are tasks available in Informatica?
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The below are major tasks available in Informatica power center tool.
1.Session
2.Email
3.Command
4.Control
5.Decision
6.Timer
Database testing vs ETL testing
ETL Testing Making sure that the data from source to target is
being loaded properly or not along with the business transformation
rules.
Database Testing Testing whether the data is being stored properly
in the database when we do some operations from the front end or
back end along with testing of procedures, functions, and triggers.
Testing whether the data is being retrieved properlyin UI.
What is partitioning?
Portioning is a concept of running with parallel threads by distributing
records. It will be used when the volume of data is huge which
directly impact the data load and other transformation progress.
Database and ETL tools are oering this partition concept to
improvise the job execution time for high volume data tables.
Below are the types of partitioning available in Informatica power
center tool,
1.Pass Through
2.Database partitioning
3.Key range
4.Round robin
5.Hash Auto key
6.Has user key
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What are the responsibilities of an ETL tester?

Understanding Requirement
Estimating
Planning
Test case preparation
Test execution
Giving Sign o
What does a mapping document contain?
A mapping document contains,
1. Columns mapping between source and target
2. Data type and length for all columns of source and target
3. Transformation logic for each column
4. ETL job or workow information
5. Input parameter le information
What kind of defects can expect?
Table structure issue
Index unable to drop issue
Index is not created after job run
Data issue in source table
Data count mismatch between source and target
Data not matching between source and target
Duplicate data loaded issue
Trim and NULL issue
Data precision issue
Date format issue
Business transformation rules issue
Subsequent job run not working properly
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Running job with bad data does not kick o the bad datas
properly
Rollback is not happening in case of job failure
Performance issue
Log le and content issue
Mail notication and content issue
1000 records are in the source table, but only 900 records are loaded
into the target table. How do you nd the missing 100 records?
UsingSEToperatorMINUSifbothsourceandtargettablesareinthesame
databaseserver.
UsingExcel macro both source table and target table data will be copied
intoanexcelandcomparedwithmacro
Using Automation tool tool will fetch data and compares internally with
ownalgorithm
Using Utility tool develop an automation utility tool using Java or any
Can you give few test cases to test the incremental load table?
Insert few records and validate the data after job run
Update non-primary column values and validate the data after job
run
Update primary column values and validate the data after job run
Delete few records and validate the data after job run
Insert/update few records to create duplicate entries and validate
the data after job run
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Update with bad data NULL values, blank spaces, lookup data
missing
How do you compare a at le and database table?
-Manual Sampling method manually comparedin sampling basis
UsingExcelmacroflatfiledataandtargettabledatawillbecopiedintoan
excelandcomparedwithmacro
Using Automation tool tool will fetch data and compares internally with
ownalgorithm
Using Utility tool develop an automation utility tool using Java or any
SQL Interview Questions and Answers:

Write a query to nd the duplicate record?
The below is the employee table, it has 2 records with the name Bala.
Now will write SQL query to return the only record where id=4.
id
Name
Country
DOB
Bala
India
25-JAN-1987
Krishnan
India
01-NOV-1992
Test
India
14-JUL-1989
Bala
India
25-JAN-1987
Using GROUP BY
SELECT name, count(*)
FROM employee
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GROUP BY name
HAVING count(*)>1;
Using Rank()
SELECT *
FROM (
SELECT name, RANK() over(PARTITION BY name ORDER BY id) as
rankn
FROM employee)
WHERE rankn>1;
Using Rownum()
SELECT *
FROM (
SELECT name, rownum() over(PARTITION BY name ORDER BY id) as
rowno
FROM employee)
WHERE rowno >1;
Write a query to delete duplicate records?
Using GROUP BY
DELETE FROM employee
WHERE rowid IN (
SELECT rowid
FROM employee
GROUP BY name
HAVING COUNT(*)>1);
Using Rank()
DELETE FROM employee
WHERE rowid IN (
SELECT rowid FROM(
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SELECT rowid,name, RANK() OVER(PARTITION BY name ORDER BY id)

as rankn
FROM employee)a
WHERE rankn>1);
What is the dierence between Drop vs truncate vs delete?
Scenario
Purpose
Can rollback
DML/DDL/D
CL
Delete
Truncate
Delete the specic
Delete all records,
rows using WHERE
table will exists
Yes
No
No
DML
DML
DDL
Slow since it deletes

Performance
data one by one. Will

take more time
Drop
Remove the table
itself from
database
Faster since it
Faster
when volume is high
removes table
irrespective if
data volume
What are constraints?

Primary key does not allow NULL and duplicate values. It acts as
a reference in other tables.
Foreign key will have reference with main table, main table
column can be accessed with joins.
Unique it does not allow duplicate values
Not NULL does not allow NULL values
Check it will take action based on the condition mentioned
Default it will update the default value mentioned
Unique key vs Primary key
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Activity
Number of
columns in a
table
Primary Key
Foreign Key
Only one column can
Multiple columns can
have
have
Allows NULL values
NULL insert
Wont allow NULL value
unless the column

marked as NOT
NULLABLE
Allows
duplicate
No
Yes
values
Union and union all

Union to select unique records from multiple records
Select column1, column2, column3 from table1
UNION
Union ALL to select all records from multiple records including
duplicate entries
UNION ALL
Primary Condition for using UNION and UNION ALL would be,
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The number of columns and data type of each column should be

same.
Write a query to nd cumulative sum at month level.
EmpId
Month
Salary
1001
10000
1002
12000
1003
10000
1004
12000
Select
empid, month, salary, sum(salary) over (order by empid, month
ROWS BETWEEN UNBOUNDED PRECEDING AND CURRENT ROW) cum_salary
From Salary
Group by empid, month, salary
Order by empid, month
EmpId
Month
Salary
cum_salary
1001
10000
10000
1002
12000
22000
1003
10000
32000
1004
12000
44000
EmpId Month Salary cum_salary
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1001 1 10000 10000

1002 2 12000 22000
1003 3 10000 32000
1004 4 12000 44000
Write a query to nd nth highest value?
Select
id,name,dept,salary,
DENSE_RANK () over(PARTITION BY dept ORDER BY salary desc) as
rankorder
from employee
order by dept,rankorder
Click here for more details.

The dierence between Rank vs Dense_rank?
Rank It will skip the rank numbers if it nds multiple records for
the same rank
Dense_rank It will assign the sequential numbers despite it nds
multiple records for the same rank
In below table both 1005 and 1008 are having same salary, hence
same rank number will be assigned.
id
name
dept
salary
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1009
TECH
900000
1006
TECH
800000
1005
QA
700000
1008
QA
700000
1010
QA
600000
Outcome of Rank and Dense_rank query,
id
name
dept
salary
Rank
Dense_rank
1009
TECH
900000
1006
TECH
800000
1005
QA
700000
1008
QA
700000
1010
QA
600000
For query refer the previous question.

What is a correlated subquery?
The same column might be used in both outer query and inner query
condition. It is called correlated subquery since the values of inner
query have dependency with outer query values.
Select * from table1 where col1 in(select col3 from table2

where col2=col1);
The dierence between Exists and In?

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IN we should have a column in where condition

Exists does not require to have a column in where condition
Primary key vs Foreign key?
Activity
Number of
columns in a
table
Primary Key
Foreign Key
Only one column can
Multiple columns can
have
have
Allows NULL values
NULL insert
Wont allow NULL value
unless the column

marked as NOT
NULLABLE
Allows
duplicate
No
Yes
values
Subquery vs Join?
-The columns of subquery cannot be used in select statement,
whereas joins will allow to use join table columns in select statement
Performance is faster in JOINS compare to subquery
Complexity will be high in subquery
-Only 8 subquery is allowable in a single select statement
View vs Materialized view?
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View only SQL query will be there and data will not be stored.
When running the view query, the select statement of view will be
executed. Extra memory is not required.
Materialized View it stores the data in raw table like normal tables.
Data refresh is required to update the data. Extra memory is required.
Explain about dierent types of joins?
Inner Join returns data if join condition matches between two
tables
Right Outer Join right side table will be considered as base table,
the datas are in right table will be returned. If join condition
matches it will return left table value else NULL value will be
returned
Left Outer Join left side table will be considered as base table, the
datas are in left table will be returned. If join condition matches it
will return right table value else NULL value will be returned
Full Outer Join combination of Right and Left outer join
Self Join any join type used for the same table
What is the use of NVL command?

In select query we may want to set the default value for a column
where it has NULL values. To replace the NULL value with some
default value NVL can be used in Oracle.
Select NVL(col,000) from table;

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What would be the order of commands Having, Group by, where,

order by?
Select col1,count(*) from table1

Where col1=value
Group by col1
Having count(*) > 1000
Order by col1
DML vs DDL vs DCL

DDL Data Denition Language
Create, Alter, Drop, Truncate
DML Data Manipulation Language
Select, Insert, Update, Delete
DCL Data Control Language
Commit, Rollback, Grant, Revoke
How do you fetch the unique records from a table?
UNION apply this command for the same table
Select col1, col2, col3 from table1

UNION
Select col1,col2,col3 from table1
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Questions on SQL functions (Min, max, sum, count, to_date,

to_char etc..)
Clustered index vs Non-clustered index?
What is a normalization process?
TESTING PROCESS:
Explain about testing life cycle
Explain about defect life cycle?
The dierence between Test Plan and Test Strategy?
Test Scenarios vs Test Cases
Regression Testing vs Retesting
Can you explain about Agile process?
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ETL Data warehouse SQL testing

Data warehousing concepts Interview

Main Usage of a data warehouse:

Factless fact table

Online Transactional Database

Data warehouse database

Dedicated database available for

specic subject area or business

Integrated from dierent business

It does not keep history

It keeps history of data for analyzing

It allows user to perform thebelow

It allows only Select for end users

Purpose is for analysis and reporting

Data volume will be less

Data volume is huge

Data stored in normalized format

Data stored in de-normalized format

Operational Data Store (ODS) vs Staging database

doing data cleansing and other

Integrated from dierent

Based on business need,

Explain about star schema

table will be surrounded by dimension tables with foreign key

Due to multiple links

other dimensions the

the performance will

performance will be high.

The number of joins will

name value will be stored

The number of joins

Data will be stored in de-

What is data cleansing?

Data warehouse ETL Testing Challenges

3. Meanwhile, a loan account branch manager does not require to

-A new value will be tracked as a column

ETL Concepts and Testing Interview Questions:

The data loading process when we do it at very rst time. It can be

Verify the table structure of staging table (columns, data type,

What are the responsibilities of an ETL tester?

SQL Interview Questions and Answers:

Write a query to delete duplicate records?

SELECT rowid,name, RANK() OVER(PARTITION BY name ORDER BY id)

What is the dierence between Drop vs truncate vs delete?

Delete the specic

Delete all records,

rows using WHERE

table will exists

Slow since it deletes

data one by one. Will

when volume is high

What are constraints?

Only one column can

Multiple columns can

Wont allow NULL value

unless the column

Union and union all

The number of columns and data type of each column should be

EmpId Month Salary cum_salary

1001 1 10000 10000

Write a query to nd nth highest value?

Click here for more details.