DP-203 Develop data processing Practice Question
Which TWO strategies reduce data movement in Azure Synapse Analytics pipelines? (Choose two.)
⚠ Common exam trap
Test-takers frequently confuse 'reducing data movement' with 'optimizing data movement'—they may think Data Flow or Copy activity with staging reduces movement when in fact they still move data, whereas serverless SQL and PolyBase query data in place without relocation.
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Use serverless SQL pool to query data in place
Serverless SQL pools in Azure Synapse Analytics allow you to query data directly from files in Azure Data Lake Storage or other external sources without moving the data into a dedicated SQL pool. This eliminates data movement entirely by using the compute resources of the serverless pool to process queries in place, leveraging the OPENROWSET or CREATE EXTERNAL TABLE syntax to read data from its original location.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Use Data Flow to transform data before loading
Why it's wrong here
Data Flow involves movement.
- ✗
Use Stored Procedure activity to insert data
Why it's wrong here
Still moves data into the pool.
- ✓
Use serverless SQL pool to query data in place
Why this is correct
Queries without moving data.
- ✗
Use Copy activity to move data from source to staging
Why it's wrong here
This is data movement.
- ✓
Use PolyBase to load data from external tables
Why this is correct
Loads directly, minimizing movement.
Quick reference
Cloud Service Model Comparison
| Model | You Manage | Provider Manages | Examples |
|---|---|---|---|
| IaaS | OS, runtime, apps, data | Hardware, hypervisor, networking | EC2, Azure VMs, GCP Compute Engine |
| PaaS | Apps and data | OS, runtime, middleware, hardware | Elastic Beanstalk, Azure App Service |
| SaaS | Data and settings only | Everything else | Microsoft 365, Salesforce, Workday |
| FaaS / Serverless | Function code only | Infra, scaling, runtime | Lambda, Azure Functions, Cloud Run |
| CaaS | Containers and apps | Kubernetes, OS, hardware | EKS, AKS, GKE |
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