DP-900 Practice Test 20 — 15 Questions

Question 1

A company is migrating a legacy on-premises database to Azure. They require the ability to run cross-database queries within the same logical server, full control over database collation settings, and want to minimize management overhead for infrastructure patching. The database size is under 1 TB and they do not need instance-level features like SQL Agent jobs or linked servers. Which Azure SQL offering should they choose?

Choose an answer to begin — your selection is scored in the full session.

Accepted Answer

Azure SQL Database. Azure SQL Database is the correct choice because it supports cross-database queries within the same logical server via elastic queries, allows full control over database-level collation settings, and is a fully managed Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) offering that handles infrastructure patching automatically. With a database size under 1 TB and no need for instance-level features like SQL Agent jobs or linked servers, Azure SQL Database meets all requirements while minimizing management overhead.

Answer

Azure SQL Managed Instance

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SQL Server on Azure Virtual Machine

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Azure Synapse SQL pool

Question 2

A smart building company stores IoT sensor data in Azure Cosmos DB using the NoSQL API. Each document contains fields: deviceId (partition key), timestamp, temperature, and humidity. The most common query is to retrieve all readings for a specific device within a time range, which runs efficiently. However, the analytics team occasionally runs a query to find all devices that reported a temperature above 50 degrees Celsius in the last hour, without specifying deviceId. This query is very slow and consumes a high number of request units (RUs). What is the most likely reason for the slow performance and high RU consumption?

Accepted Answer

The query does not use the partition key, causing a cross-partition scan.. The query does not include the partition key (deviceId) in the filter, so Azure Cosmos DB cannot route it to a single physical partition. Instead, it must fan out the query to every partition, scanning all documents across the container. This cross-partition query consumes significantly more RUs and takes longer because each partition must be queried sequentially or in parallel, and the results are merged server-side.

Answer

The query is not using an index on the temperature field.

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The time range filter is too large, causing a full table scan.

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The document size is too large, increasing RU per read.

Question 3

A SaaS provider hosts databases for hundreds of clients, each with light and sporadic usage. They notice that using separate single databases with provisioned DTUs is cost-inefficient. They need to consolidate the databases while optimizing cost and ensuring that a busy client does not monopolize resources. Which Azure SQL Database option should they use?

Accepted Answer

Elastic pool. An Azure SQL Database elastic pool is designed to optimize cost for multiple databases with light and sporadic usage by sharing a fixed set of resources (eDTUs) across all databases in the pool. This prevents a busy client from monopolizing resources through per-database resource limits (min and max DTU), ensuring performance isolation while consolidating costs.

Answer

Single database with provisioned DTU

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Managed Instance

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SQL Server on Azure VM

Question 4

A marketing company ingests streaming data from social media feeds into Azure Event Hubs. They want to perform real-time sentiment analysis on the data and store the results in Azure SQL Database for immediate dashboarding. They also need to aggregate the raw data over longer time windows and store it in Azure Data Lake Storage for historical trend analysis. Which combination of Azure services should they use for the two processing paths?

Accepted Answer

Azure Stream Analytics for real-time analysis and Azure Data Factory for batch aggregation. Azure Stream Analytics is ideal for real-time sentiment analysis on streaming data from Event Hubs, as it can process data in-motion with low latency and output directly to Azure SQL Database for immediate dashboarding. Azure Data Factory is the correct choice for batch aggregation over longer time windows, as it can orchestrate and execute periodic data movement and transformation jobs to load aggregated data into Azure Data Lake Storage for historical analysis.

Answer

Azure Databricks for both real-time analysis and batch aggregation

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Azure Stream Analytics for both real-time analysis and batch aggregation

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Azure Data Factory for real-time analysis and Azure Databricks for batch aggregation

Question 5

A data analyst needs to run interactive SQL queries against petabytes of sales data stored in Parquet format in Azure Data Lake Storage Gen2. The analyst wants the fastest query performance for ad-hoc exploration without provisioning or managing any infrastructure. Which Azure service should they use?

Accepted Answer

B. Azure Synapse Serverless SQL pool. Azure Synapse Serverless SQL pool is correct because it enables running interactive T-SQL queries directly against Parquet files in Azure Data Lake Storage Gen2 without provisioning any infrastructure. It uses a pay-per-query model and leverages a distributed query engine to deliver fast performance on petabytes of data, making it ideal for ad-hoc exploration.

Answer

A. Azure SQL Database

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C. Azure HDInsight

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D. Azure Data Factory

Question 6

A healthcare analytics company receives continuous streams of patient monitoring data from IoT devices. The data must be processed in near real-time to detect critical events (e.g., abnormal heart rate). Processed data is then stored in a columnar format for historical analysis and reporting by data analysts using SQL. Which combination of Azure services should they use for ingestion, processing, and storage?

Accepted Answer

Azure Event Hubs, Azure Stream Analytics, Azure Synapse Analytics. Azure Event Hubs is designed for high-throughput, low-latency ingestion of streaming data from millions of IoT devices. Azure Stream Analytics provides a SQL-based, near real-time processing engine to detect critical events like abnormal heart rates. Azure Synapse Analytics (formerly SQL Data Warehouse) offers a columnar storage format (e.g., columnstore indexes) optimized for historical analysis and SQL-based reporting by data analysts.

Answer

Azure IoT Hub, Azure Data Factory, Azure SQL Data Warehouse

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Azure Event Hubs, Azure Stream Analytics, Azure Cosmos DB

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Azure Blob Storage, Azure Databricks, Azure Table Storage

Question 7

A mobile game company stores player scores in Azure Cosmos DB. Each document contains the fields PlayerID (unique to the player), GameID, Score, and Timestamp. The most common query is: 'Retrieve all scores for a specific GameID, ordered by Score descending.' Which property should be chosen as the partition key to minimize Request Unit (RU) consumption?

Accepted Answer

GameID. GameID is the correct partition key because the most common query filters on GameID, and using it as the partition key ensures that all documents for a given GameID are stored in the same physical partition. This allows the query to target a single partition, minimizing cross-partition fan-out and reducing Request Unit (RU) consumption. A partition key that matches the query filter is essential for efficient, low-latency reads in Azure Cosmos DB.

Answer

PlayerID

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Score

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Timestamp

Question 8

A financial analytics company stores petabytes of transaction data in Parquet files in Azure Data Lake Storage Gen2. Data analysts need to run complex SQL queries that join multiple large tables and return results within seconds. The company also wants to integrate with Power BI for visualization and Azure Data Factory for ETL orchestration. They require a massively parallel processing (MPP) engine to handle the scale. Which Azure service should they choose?

Accepted Answer

Azure Synapse Analytics dedicated SQL pool. Azure Synapse Analytics dedicated SQL pool is the correct choice because it provides a massively parallel processing (MPP) engine that distributes data across 60 distributions, enabling fast execution of complex SQL queries on petabyte-scale data stored in Parquet files in Azure Data Lake Storage Gen2. It natively integrates with Power BI for visualization and Azure Data Factory for ETL orchestration, meeting all stated requirements.

Answer

Azure SQL Database

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Azure Cosmos DB

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Azure Analysis Services

Question 9

A company needs to run complex analytical queries that aggregate terabytes of sales data across multiple years. The queries are used for monthly business reports and are not latency-sensitive. The data is stored in Azure Data Lake Storage Gen2. The company wants a fully managed, petabyte-scale data warehouse solution that supports SQL queries and integrates with Power BI for reporting. Which Azure service should they use?

Accepted Answer

Azure Synapse Analytics. Azure Synapse Analytics (formerly SQL Data Warehouse) is a fully managed, petabyte-scale analytics service that provides a dedicated SQL pool for running complex, high-performance T-SQL queries against massive datasets. It natively integrates with Azure Data Lake Storage Gen2 for reading data directly via PolyBase or external tables, and it offers built-in connectors to Power BI for reporting. This makes it the ideal choice for the described workload, which requires large-scale aggregation without low-latency demands.

Answer

Azure Analysis Services

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Azure Data Factory

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Azure HDInsight

Question 10

A company needs to build a centralized analytics platform that can query both structured data in a relational data warehouse and unstructured data in a data lake using a single SQL-based interface. They want to minimize data movement and use a serverless, on-demand compute model for ad-hoc queries. Which Azure service should they use?

Accepted Answer

B. Azure Synapse Serverless SQL pool. Azure Synapse Serverless SQL pool is correct because it provides a SQL-based interface to query both structured data in a relational data warehouse and unstructured data in a data lake (e.g., Parquet, CSV, JSON) without moving data. It uses a serverless, on-demand compute model that charges per query, making it ideal for ad-hoc analytics with minimal data movement.

Answer

A. Azure SQL Database

Answer

C. Azure HDInsight

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D. Azure Analysis Services

Question 11

A retail company stores product catalog data as JSON documents. Each product has a different set of attributes depending on its category (e.g., electronics have 'voltage', clothing has 'size'). The application needs to query products by category and price range efficiently. Which Azure data store is most appropriate for this workload?

Accepted Answer

Azure Cosmos DB. Azure Cosmos DB is the most appropriate choice because it natively supports JSON documents with flexible schemas, enabling each product to have a different set of attributes per category. Its indexing policies can be configured to efficiently support queries filtering by category and price range, and it offers low-latency, high-throughput access ideal for retail catalog workloads.

Answer

Azure SQL Database

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Azure Blob Storage

Answer

Azure Table Storage

Question 12

A smart building monitoring company ingests real-time sensor data (temperature, humidity, occupancy) from thousands of IoT devices into Azure Event Hubs. The company also stores historical building blueprints and maintenance records as CSV files in Azure Data Lake Storage Gen2. The engineering team needs to build a dashboard that displays live sensor readings overlaid on building floor plans, and also allows facility managers to run ad-hoc T-SQL queries that combine live sensor data with historical maintenance records. Which Azure service should they use as the primary analytics platform to meet both requirements?

Accepted Answer

Azure Synapse Analytics. Azure Synapse Analytics is the correct choice because it provides a unified analytics platform that combines big data and data warehousing. It can ingest real-time streaming data from Azure Event Hubs via its built-in Spark pools or pipelines, and also run ad-hoc T-SQL queries against both the live sensor data (staged in tables) and historical CSV files stored in Azure Data Lake Storage Gen2 using serverless SQL pools. This meets both the real-time dashboard and ad-hoc T-SQL query requirements.

Answer

Azure Stream Analytics

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Azure Databricks

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Azure Analysis Services

Question 13

A logistics company uses Azure Synapse Analytics dedicated SQL pool to analyze billions of shipment records. The table 'Shipments' is 10 TB and hash-distributed on 'ShipmentID'. Analysts frequently run queries that filter on 'WarehouseID' and aggregate by 'Region'. These queries are slow because they cause data movement (shuffle) across distributions. Which table design change will most improve query performance for these analytical workloads?

Accepted Answer

Change distribution to hash on 'WarehouseID'. D is correct because hash-distributing the 'Shipments' table on 'WarehouseID' ensures that all rows for a given warehouse are co-located on the same distribution node. This eliminates the need for data movement (shuffle) when queries filter on 'WarehouseID' and aggregate by 'Region', as the aggregation can be performed locally on each distribution without redistributing data across nodes.

Answer

Change distribution to replicated table

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Change distribution to round-robin

Answer

Create a columnstore index

Question 14

A retail company stores historical sales data from multiple stores in Azure Data Lake Storage Gen2 as CSV files. They need to run complex SQL queries that join and aggregate data across multiple files to generate weekly sales reports. They want a serverless query service that can directly query the data in the lake without loading it into a separate database. Which Azure service should they use?

Accepted Answer

Azure Synapse Serverless SQL pool. Azure Synapse Serverless SQL pool is the correct choice because it provides a serverless, on-demand SQL query engine that can directly query CSV files stored in Azure Data Lake Storage Gen2 using T-SQL syntax. It supports complex joins and aggregations across multiple files without requiring data movement or loading into a separate database, making it ideal for ad-hoc reporting on data lakes.

Answer

Azure SQL Database

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Azure Stream Analytics

Answer

Azure Data Factory

Question 15

A financial services company stores years of market trade data as Parquet files in Azure Data Lake Storage Gen2. The data volume is terabytes and growing rapidly. Data analysts need to run complex SQL queries that join multiple tables (e.g., trades, instruments, counterparties) and return results within seconds. The company also wants to integrate with Power BI for visualization and Azure Data Factory for orchestration of ETL pipelines. Which Azure service should they choose as the primary analytics platform?

Accepted Answer

Azure Synapse Analytics (serverless SQL pool). Azure Synapse Analytics serverless SQL pool is the correct choice because it provides a distributed SQL query engine that can directly query Parquet files in Azure Data Lake Storage Gen2 using T-SQL, enabling complex joins across multiple tables with fast performance via automatic query optimization and pushdown computation. It integrates natively with Power BI for visualization and Azure Data Factory for ETL orchestration, making it the ideal primary analytics platform for large-scale, schema-on-read data lake scenarios.

Answer

Azure SQL Database

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Azure HDInsight with Spark

Answer

Azure Analysis Services