DP-900 Describe core data concepts Practice Test 16 — 15 Questions

Question 1

You are designing a data lake architecture for a large enterprise. You need to organize data into zones (raw, curated, and analytics) and enforce data lineage tracking. Which Azure service should you use to catalog and govern the data?

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

Accepted Answer

Microsoft Purview. Microsoft Purview is the correct choice because it is a unified data governance service designed specifically for cataloging data assets, tracking lineage across hybrid and multi-cloud environments, and enforcing data policies. Unlike the other options, Purview provides out-of-the-box lineage scanning, a business glossary, and automated classification, making it the appropriate tool for organizing data into zones and ensuring end-to-end lineage in a data lake architecture.

Answer

Azure Synapse Analytics

Answer

Azure Data Factory

Answer

Azure Databricks

Question 2

Your organization wants to run SQL queries on data stored in Azure Blob Storage without moving the data. Which Azure service supports this?

Accepted Answer

Azure Synapse Serverless SQL pool. Azure Synapse Serverless SQL pool allows you to query data directly from Azure Blob Storage using T-SQL without moving the data. It uses a distributed query engine that reads files in place, supporting formats like Parquet, CSV, and JSON, making it ideal for ad-hoc analytics on stored data.

Answer

Azure SQL Database

Answer

Azure Analysis Services

Answer

Azure Data Lake Storage Gen2

Question 3

You need to choose a data store for a mobile app that requires real-time synchronization of user preferences across devices. The data is small per user and key-value oriented. Which Azure service is most appropriate?

Accepted Answer

Azure Cosmos DB. Azure Cosmos DB is the most appropriate choice because it provides global distribution, low-latency reads and writes, and automatic conflict resolution, which are essential for real-time synchronization of user preferences across devices. Its key-value API (e.g., Table API or Core SQL API with a simple partition key) efficiently handles small, per-user data with a key-value orientation, ensuring that changes made on one device are quickly reflected on others.

Answer

Azure Cache for Redis

Answer

Azure Blob Storage

Answer

Azure SQL Database

Question 4

A company uses Azure Data Lake Storage Gen2 for a data lake. They need to ensure that only authorized users can access files and that access is audited. Which two Azure services should they combine? (Choose two options that together form the solution.)

Accepted Answer

Azure RBAC. Azure RBAC (Role-Based Access Control) is correct because it provides fine-grained access management for Azure Data Lake Storage Gen2, allowing you to assign roles (e.g., Storage Blob Data Contributor) to users, groups, or service principals to control who can read, write, or delete files. Azure Monitor is correct because it can collect and analyze activity logs and diagnostic settings for the storage account, enabling auditing of access events such as successful and failed authentication attempts.

Answer

Azure Policy

Answer

Azure Key Vault

Answer

Microsoft Entra ID

Question 5

You are designing a batch processing pipeline that runs nightly to transform CSV files from an FTP server into Parquet files in Azure Data Lake Storage. Which Azure service should you use to orchestrate the pipeline?

Accepted Answer

Azure Data Factory. Azure Data Factory (ADF) is the correct choice because it is a cloud-based ETL and data integration service designed specifically for orchestrating and automating data pipelines. It supports scheduled triggers (e.g., nightly runs), native connectors for FTP and Azure Data Lake Storage, and built-in data transformation activities like Copy Data and Mapping Data Flows to convert CSV to Parquet. ADF's control flow and dependency management make it ideal for batch processing pipelines.

Answer

Azure Functions

Answer

Azure Logic Apps

Answer

Azure Batch

Question 6

You are reviewing a Data Factory mapping data flow definition. What is the primary purpose of this data flow?

Accepted Answer

Remove duplicate OrderIDs by counting them. The mapping data flow includes an Aggregate transformation configured with a group by on OrderID and a count aggregation. This removes duplicate OrderIDs by collapsing multiple rows with the same OrderID into a single row and counting the occurrences, which is the primary purpose of the data flow.

Answer

Pivot the data by OrderID

Answer

Filter rows where OrderID is null

Answer

Merge two data sources

Question 7

You are analyzing the results of a KQL query in Azure Data Explorer. What does this query return?

Accepted Answer

Top 5 states with highest total property damage from floods. The KQL query uses the 'summarize' operator to aggregate total property damage by state, then applies 'top 5 by' to return the five states with the highest total property damage from flood events. The 'where' clause filters for flood events, and the 'project' operator selects only the state and damage columns, confirming that the result is the top 5 states by total property damage.

Answer

Total damage per event type

Answer

All states with flood events sorted by damage

Answer

Top 5 flood events with highest damage

Question 8

Which THREE of the following are valid Azure data storage services? (Choose three.)

Accepted Answer

Azure Files. Azure Files provides fully managed file shares in the cloud that can be accessed via the Server Message Block (SMB) protocol or the Network File System (NFS) protocol. It is a valid Azure data storage service because it stores data as files in a hierarchical structure, making it suitable for lift-and-shift scenarios for on-premises file servers.

Answer

Azure Redis Cache

Answer

Azure Service Bus

Question 9

Which TWO of the following are characteristics of structured data? (Choose two.)

Accepted Answer

Stored in rows and columns. Structured data is organized in a tabular format with rows and columns, which is the defining characteristic of relational databases like SQL Server or Azure SQL Database. This structure enforces a fixed schema, meaning the data types and relationships are defined before data is entered, ensuring consistency and enabling efficient querying via SQL.

Answer

No predefined schema

Answer

Key-value pairs

Answer

Schema-on-read

Question 10

A company stores customer transaction data in Azure Blob Storage. They need to query the data using SQL-based tools without moving the data. Which Azure service should they use?

Accepted Answer

Azure Synapse Serverless SQL pool. Azure Synapse Serverless SQL pool allows you to query data directly from Azure Blob Storage using T-SQL without moving or copying the data. It uses a pay-per-query model and supports reading common file formats like Parquet, CSV, and JSON, making it ideal for ad-hoc querying over data lakes.

Answer

Azure SQL Database

Answer

Azure Analysis Services

Answer

Azure Cosmos DB

Question 11

A data engineer needs to load data from an on-premises SQL Server database to Azure Synapse Analytics every hour with minimal latency. Which Azure service should they use?

Accepted Answer

Azure Data Factory. Azure Data Factory (ADF) is the correct choice because it provides a fully managed, code-free ETL service that can connect to on-premises SQL Server via self-hosted integration runtime, and load data into Azure Synapse Analytics with low latency using a scheduled trigger (e.g., every hour). ADF supports incremental data loading and parallel copy activities, minimizing latency while handling the required frequency.

Answer

Azure Databricks

Answer

Azure SQL Database

Answer

Azure HDInsight

Question 12

Your company uses Azure SQL Database and needs to ensure that transactions are durable even if the database instance fails. Which feature should you enable?

Accepted Answer

Zone-redundant storage. Zone-redundant storage (ZRS) replicates your Azure SQL Database transaction logs and data files synchronously across three Azure availability zones within the same region. This ensures that even if an entire zone fails, committed transactions are preserved and the database remains available, providing durability at the storage layer without requiring a separate database replica.

Answer

Active geo-replication

Answer

Transparent Data Encryption

Answer

Auto-failover groups

Question 13

A retail company wants to run real-time analytics on streaming clickstream data from their website. Which Azure service should they use to ingest and process the data?

Accepted Answer

Azure Stream Analytics. Azure Stream Analytics is a real-time analytics and event-processing engine designed to ingest, process, and analyze high-velocity streaming data, such as clickstream data from a website. It can directly consume data from Azure Event Hubs or IoT Hub and output results to sinks like Power BI, Azure SQL Database, or Azure Data Lake Storage, making it the correct choice for real-time analytics on streaming data.

Answer

Azure Analysis Services

Answer

Azure Data Lake Storage

Answer

Azure SQL Database

Question 14

A multinational corporation needs to store archival data for 10 years with the lowest possible storage cost, while still being able to retrieve it within 24 hours if needed. Which Azure storage tier should they use?

Accepted Answer

Archive Blob Storage. Archive Blob Storage is the correct choice because it is designed for long-term retention of data that is rarely accessed, offering the lowest storage cost among Azure blob tiers. The 10-year retention requirement and 24-hour retrieval window align perfectly with Archive's capabilities, as data can be rehydrated to a hot or cool tier within hours (typically up to 15 hours for standard priority rehydration).

Answer

Cool Blob Storage

Answer

Premium Blob Storage

Answer

Hot Blob Storage

Question 15

A healthcare organization needs to store patient records that must be immutable and cannot be modified or deleted for 7 years due to regulatory compliance. Which Azure feature should they use?

Accepted Answer

Azure Blob Storage immutable storage. Azure Blob Storage immutable storage is correct because it provides WORM (Write Once, Read Many) capabilities that prevent data from being modified or deleted for a specified retention period. This directly meets the regulatory requirement for patient records to remain immutable for 7 years, as the policy is enforced at the storage level and cannot be overridden by any user, including administrators.

Answer

Microsoft Purview

Answer

Azure Policy

Answer

Microsoft Defender for Cloud