DP-900 Describe core data concepts — Timed 10 Questions

Question 1

A company collects customer feedback in three forms: a structured table with customer ID and rating (1-5), free-text comments, and audio recordings of phone calls. Which of the following correctly orders these data from least structured to most structured?

10 minute time limit — choose an answer to begin.

Accepted Answer

Audio recordings, free-text comments, structured table. Ly orders the data from least structured to most structured. Audio recordings are unstructured (no schema). Free-text comments are also unstructured (no fixed format in DP-900 classification). The structured table has defined columns and data types. Thus, the order is audio (unstructured), free-text (unstructured), structured table.

Answer

Structured table, free-text comments, audio recordings

Answer

Free-text comments, structured table, audio recordings

Answer

Audio recordings, structured table, free-text comments

Question 2

A retail company operates an online store. When a customer places an order, the system immediately updates inventory and payment records. Separately, the company's business analysts run weekly reports that aggregate sales data to identify trends. Which two terms correctly describe these workloads?

Accepted Answer

Batch processing and real-time processing. The order processing system that immediately updates inventory and payment records is a classic example of real-time processing and Online Transaction Processing (OLTP), which handles high volumes of small, real-time transactions with ACID guarantees. The weekly sales aggregation reports run by business analysts are batch processing and Online Analytical Processing (OLAP), involving complex queries over large historical datasets to support business intelligence. Therefore, both option A (batch processing and real-time processing) and option B (OLTP and OLAP) correctly describe the two workloads, as they represent the same concepts from different perspectives.

Answer

Structured and Unstructured data

Answer

Data ingestion and data transformation

Question 3

A hospital system stores patient medical records. Each record includes structured data like patient ID, name, date of birth, and also includes unstructured data like doctor's notes and X-ray images. Which type of data is the doctor's notes?

Accepted Answer

C. Unstructured data. Doctor's notes are unstructured data because they consist of free-form text that does not follow a predefined data model or schema. Unlike structured data (e.g., patient ID, name) which fits neatly into rows and columns, doctor's notes lack a fixed format and cannot be easily queried using traditional relational database tools without additional processing.

Answer

A. Structured data

Answer

B. Semi-structured data

Answer

D. Relational data

Question 4

A manufacturing company uses IoT sensors to monitor machine temperature. The data is analyzed immediately to trigger alerts if temperature exceeds a threshold. The same data is also stored and later analyzed to identify long-term trends. Which two terms best describe these data processing approaches?

Accepted Answer

Real-time processing for alerts, batch processing for trend analysis. Only Option A is correct. In this scenario, alerts require immediate analysis, which is achieved by real-time processing (or stream processing). For long-term trend analysis, data is stored and processed in bulk using batch processing. Option B incorrectly pairs stream processing with transactional processing: transactional processing (OLTP) is designed for transaction-oriented workloads, not analytical trend analysis. The correct approach for trend analysis is batch processing, not transactional processing. Options C and D reverse the pairings or use inappropriate terms (OLAP/OLTP) for the described workloads.

Answer

Stream processing for alerts, transactional processing for trend analysis

Answer

Batch processing for alerts, real-time processing for trend analysis

Answer

OLAP for alerts, OLTP for trend analysis

Question 5

A global e-commerce platform uses a distributed database for its shopping cart service. The platform must be highly available and continue to accept writes even if network partitions occur between data centers. The business accepts that during a partition, users might see slightly outdated inventory counts, but the service must remain operational. According to the CAP theorem, which two properties is this system prioritizing?

Accepted Answer

Availability and Partition Tolerance. According to the CAP theorem, during a network partition, a distributed system must choose between consistency and availability. This system is designed to remain available and accept writes even during partitions, accepting that users may see slightly outdated inventory (inconsistent data). Therefore, it prioritizes Availability and Partition Tolerance (AP). Option C (Consistency and Availability) is not possible during a partition. The correct answer is B only.

Answer

Consistency and Partition Tolerance

Answer

Consistency and Availability

Answer

Durability and Partition Tolerance

Question 6

Which TWO Azure services can be used to perform real-time stream processing?

Accepted Answer

Azure Stream Analytics. Azure Stream Analytics is a fully managed service designed for real-time stream processing. It can ingest data from sources like Azure Event Hubs or IoT Hub, apply SQL-based queries to the streaming data, and output results to sinks such as Power BI or Azure SQL Database, all with sub-second latency. Azure Databricks, leveraging Apache Spark's Structured Streaming, also provides a powerful platform for real-time stream processing, allowing complex transformations and analytics on streaming data from various sources with low latency.

Answer

Azure Data Factory

Answer

Azure Analysis Services

Answer

Azure Synapse Pipelines

Question 7

Which THREE factors should you consider when choosing between Azure SQL Database and Azure Cosmos DB for a new application?

Accepted Answer

Need for multi-region writes. Azure Cosmos DB supports multi-region writes with its multi-master replication, enabling low-latency writes across multiple geographic regions, which is a key differentiator from Azure SQL Database that only supports a single write region. This is critical for globally distributed applications requiring high availability and local write performance. Options A, B, and C represent the most fundamental architectural considerations when choosing between a relational database (Azure SQL Database) and a globally distributed NoSQL database (Azure Cosmos DB).

Answer

Support for JSON data

Answer

Support for T-SQL queries

Question 8

Which THREE Azure services can be used to move data from on-premises SQL Server to Azure?

Accepted Answer

Azure Database Migration Service. Azure Database Migration Service (DMS) is specifically designed for migrating databases from on-premises SQL Server to Azure SQL Database or SQL Managed Instance with minimal downtime. Azure Data Factory (ADF) is a cloud-based ETL service that can connect to on-premises SQL Server (using a self-hosted integration runtime) and move data to various Azure data stores. Azure Data Box provides physical devices for large-scale, offline data transfer from on-premises to Azure, which can be used to move exported SQL Server data.

Answer

Azure Analysis Services

Answer

Azure Synapse Serverless SQL pool

Question 9

A company needs to store relational data that requires frequent updates and supports complex joins. They also need to scale out reads by using read replicas. Which Azure service should they choose?

Accepted Answer

Azure Database for MySQL. Both Azure Database for MySQL and Azure SQL Database are fully managed relational database services that support frequent updates, complex joins via SQL, and read replicas for scaling out read-heavy workloads. Azure Database for MySQL offers up to five read replicas; Azure SQL Database offers up to four active geo-replicas that can be used for read-only queries. Azure Cosmos DB is a NoSQL database and does not support complex joins natively. Azure Table Storage is a NoSQL key-value store and does not support relational operations.

Answer

Azure Cosmos DB

Answer

Azure Table Storage

Question 10

Which TWO of the following are valid Azure data storage services for storing unstructured data?

Accepted Answer

Azure Blob Storage. Azure Blob Storage is a fully managed, massively scalable object storage service designed for unstructured data such as text, binary data, images, videos, and backups. It supports REST-based access and can store any type of file or binary object without requiring a schema, making it a core service for unstructured data workloads. Azure Data Lake Storage Gen2 is built on Azure Blob Storage and is optimized for big data analytics workloads, making it suitable for storing massive amounts of unstructured and semi-structured data, such as logs, files, and media, often in their raw format.

Answer

Azure SQL Database

Answer

Azure Table Storage

Answer

Azure Cosmos DB