9 Dynatrace SQL Interview Questions (Updated 2024)

At Dynatrace, SQL crucial for analyzing performance metrics collected by the software, and querying their extensive databases to identify potential software optimization opportunities. That's why Dynatrace frequently asks SQL coding questions in interviews for Data Analyst, Data Science, and BI jobs.

So, if you're preparing for a SQL Interview, here’s 9 Dynatrace SQL interview questions to practice, which are similar to commonly asked questions at Dynatrace – can you solve them?

9 Dynatrace SQL Interview Questions

SQL Question 1: Analyzing System Performance Metrics

Dynatrace is a company that specializes in software intelligence, providing tools for managing and understanding complex IT ecosystems. As an interviewee, you have been presented with a dataset comprising of system performance metrics and you have been tasked with the job of analyzing this data to understand the behavior of various systems over time.

You are asked to write a SQL query that will calculate the average, maximum and minimum CPU usage for each system, each day using the window function.

Let's consider the sample dataset called as shown below:

Example Input:

We are to figure out the behavior of these systems over the days 06/08/2022 and 06/09/2022.

Answer:

Here is a SQL query that accomplishes this task:

This query will generate a table where each row correspond to a system and a date and contains the average, maximum and minimum cpu usage on that day. The functionality is achieved by using the window function, which performs a calculation across a set of table rows that are somehow related to the current row. In this case, the relation is created by the clause.

Example Output:

To solve a similar SQL problem on DataLemur's free interactive coding environment, try this Meta SQL interview question:

SQL Question 2: Find Active Customers with Annual Subscription

Dynatrace, a software intelligence company, maintains a database of their customers. They are interested in identifying customers with an active annual subscription for any of their software products.

You are provided with the following two tables:

Example Input:

Example Input:

The task is to write a PostgreSQL query that produces a list of customers (first & last names) who currently have an active annual subscription.

Answer:

This SQL query joins the 'customers' and 'subscriptions' tables based on the 'customer_id'. It then uses the WHERE clause to filter for annual subscriptions that are currently active (i.e., the current date is within the subscription's start and end dates).

To solve a similar problem about calculating rates, solve this TikTok SQL Interview Question within DataLemur's interactive coding environment:

SQL Question 3: What's the difference between a unique index and non-unique index?

Unique indexes help ensure that there are no duplicate key values in a table, maintaining data integrity. They enforce uniqueness whenever keys are added or changed within the index.

Non-unique indexes on the other hand, are used to improve query performance by maintaining a sorted order of frequently used data values, but they do not enforce constraints on the associated table.

Unique Indexes are blazing fast. Non unique indexes can improve query performance, but they are often slower because of their non-unique nature.

SQL Question 4: Average Response Time By Application

Dynatrace provides software intelligence to simplify cloud complexity and accelerate digital transformation. For our question, let's consider that they wish to analyze the average response time of their applications.

Imagine you are a data analyst at Dynatrace. The team needs to know the average response time for each application, grouped by application ID and sorted by average response time in ascending order.

Your dataset is a table called containing the following columns:

• (an integer, the unique identifier of the log),
• (an integer, the unique identifier of the application),
• (an integer, representing the response time of an application in milliseconds),
• (a datetime object, the time at which the application produced the log)

Example Input:

Your task is to prepare an SQL query that fetches the average response time for each application.

Answer:

Example Output:

This query calculates the average response time () per application (), and sorts the apps by this average response time in ascending order. This can help Dynatrace quickly identify which apps have, on average, the fastest and slowest response times.

To solve a similar problem about calculating rates, try this TikTok SQL Interview Question on DataLemur's online SQL code editor:

SQL Question 5: How can you select records without duplicates from a table?

"The clause in SQL allows you to select records that are unique, eliminating duplicates.

For a tangible example, say you had a table of Dynatrace employees:

If you were doing an HR Analytics project and you wanted to get all the unique job titles that currently worked at the company, you would write the following SQL query:

The output would give you 3 distinct job titles at Dynatrace:

SQL Question 6: Search for all Products with Name beginning with "Dyn"

As Dynatrace, we serve various products to our customers. Some product names start with the word "Dyn".

You are tasked with designing a SQL query that would list out all the customers who bought any product beginning with the word "Dyn".

Here is the customer and product data you will be using:

Example Input:

Example Input:

Example Input:

The output should include customer name, email, and the product name.

Answer:

With this query, you are using the JOIN operation to link the customers table with the customer_products table on the customer_id, and the products table with the customer_products table on product_id. The WHERE clause with the LIKE keyword is used to filter the product names that start with "Dyn". Thus, you will get all customers who bought any product beginning with the word "Dyn".

To practice another question about calculating rates, solve this SQL interview question from TikTok within DataLemur's online SQL code editor:

SQL Question 7: What's the SQL command do, and can you give an example?

Similar to the and / operators, the PostgreSQL INTERSECT operator combines result sets of two or more statements into a single result set. However, only returns the rows that are in BOTH select statements.

For a concrete example, say you were on the Sales Analytics team at Dynatrace, and had data on sales leads exported from both HubSpot and Salesforce CRMs in two different tables. To write a query to analyze leads created after 2023 started, that show up in both CRMs, you would use the command:

SQL Question 8: Joining and Analyzing customer and orders databases

For Dynatrace company, we want to analyze the ordering habits of customers. Therefore, we have a table to hold customer data and an table to keep track of their orders.

Example Input:

Example Input

Write a SQL query that returns each customer's first and last name, along with the total quantity of all their orders.

Answer:

Above query first joins the and table using the field. It then groups the results by each customer's first and last name, and for each grouping, it sums up the quantity of their orders (as indicated through the part), resulting in the total quantity of all orders for each customer.

To solve a similar SQL interview question on DataLemur's free online SQL coding environment, try this Meta SQL interview question:

SQL Question 9: Calculate Risk Score for Server Instances

Dynatrace, a software intelligence company, maintains a database of server instances that they monitor for their customers. Each server instance has associated metrics like CPU usage, Memory usage, Disk usage, and Network usage. These metrics are updated every minute. You have to write a SQL query that calculates a 'risk score' for each server based on the following conditions:

1. The risk score for a server is calculated as the sum of the following:

   • The square root of the average CPU usage over the past hour.
   • The absolute value difference between the maximum memory usage and minimum memory usage over the past hour.
   • The modulo of the sum of the disk usage and network usage over the past hour with 100.
   • The power of the average network usage over the past hour raised to 2.

2. Round the final risk score to 2 decimal places.

3. Only include servers which have a CPU usage over 70 within the past hour.

The table is structured as follows:

Example Input:

Answer:

This query calculates the risk score as per the given conditions. It uses SQRT, ABS, MOD (%), and POWER SQL functions as well as arithmetic operators. It also demonstrates filtering with date/time values and the use of aggregate functions in HAVING clause for post-aggregation filtering. The final risk score is rounded to 2 decimal places using the ROUND function. Only servers which have a CPU usage over 70 within the past hour are included in the result.

To solve a related SQL interview question on DataLemur's free online SQL code editor, attempt this SQL interview question asked by Facebook:

Preparing For The Dynatrace SQL Interview

The key to acing a Dynatrace SQL interview is to practice, practice, and then practice some more! In addition to solving the earlier Dynatrace SQL interview questions, you should also solve the 200+ SQL coding questions which come from companies like Google, Microsoft and Silicon Valley startups.

Each interview question has multiple hints, fully explained answers along with a discussion board to see how others solved it and most importantly, there is an interactive SQL code editor so you can instantly run your SQL query and have it checked.

To prep for the Dynatrace SQL interview you can also be a great idea to solve SQL questions from other tech companies like:

• Splunk SQL questions

• Datadog SQL questions

• Fortinet SQL questions

• Zscaler SQL questions

But if your SQL query skills are weak, forget about going right into solving questions – strengthen your SQL foundations with this interactive SQL tutorial.

This tutorial covers things like WHERE vs. HAVING and LAG window function – both of which come up frequently during Dynatrace SQL assesments.

Dynatrace Data Science Interview Tips

What Do Dynatrace Data Science Interviews Cover?

For the Dynatrace Data Science Interview, in addition to SQL query questions, the other types of questions to prepare for are:

• Probability & Statistics Questions
• Python or R Coding Questions
• Data Case Study Questions
• Machine Learning and Predictive Modeling Questions
• Behavioral & Resume-Based Questions

How To Prepare for Dynatrace Data Science Interviews?

To prepare for Dynatrace Data Science interviews read the book Ace the Data Science Interview because it's got:

• 201 interview questions taken from tech companies like Google & Microsoft
• a crash course covering Stats, ML, & Data Case Studies
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