DP-203 Practice Question: Secure, monitor, and optimize data storage and data processing
You are monitoring an Azure Data Lake Storage Gen2 account using Azure Monitor. You need to be alerted when the number of storage account requests exceeds 20,000 per hour. What is the most efficient way to set up this alert?
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
✓
Create a metric alert on the 'Transactions' metric with a threshold of 20,000 and aggregation granularity of 1 hour.
The 'Transactions' metric in Azure Monitor can be used to count the number of requests to the storage account, and you can set a metric alert with a threshold of 20,000 aggregated over an hour. This is the most efficient method as it directly uses the metric without needing complex queries. Option A is wrong because it requires creating a Log Analytics workspace and writing a KQL query, which is more complex and less efficient than a metric alert. Option B is wrong because Activity Log alerts are for management events like 'List Storage Account Keys', not for data transaction counts. Option D is wrong because Azure Advisor provides recommendations, not custom alerting on specific metric thresholds.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Create a Log Analytics workspace and write a KQL query to count requests.
Why it's wrong here
A Log Analytics workspace plus KQL requires diagnostic settings to route request logs, then query execution and its own alert rule, adding ingestion cost and latency. It is tempting because KQL handles complex, multi-condition analysis, and would be correct for correlating request counts with latency or status-code dimensions.
- ✗
Create an Activity Log alert for 'List Storage Account Keys' events.
Why it's wrong here
An Activity Log alert fires on control-plane events such as key listing, not on the data-plane request volume the metric records. It is tempting because Activity Log alerts need no diagnostic settings, and would be correct for detecting suspicious key retrieval or administrative changes to the storage account.
- ✓
Create a metric alert on the 'Transactions' metric with a threshold of 20,000 and aggregation granularity of 1 hour.
Why this is correct
The Transactions metric natively counts storage account requests, so a metric alert with a one-hour aggregation granularity and a 20,000 threshold evaluates the hourly request volume directly, avoiding the latency and cost of log-based query alerts.
- ✗
Use Azure Advisor to recommend scaling.
Why it's wrong here
Azure Advisor produces periodic cost, reliability, and performance recommendations; it neither counts requests nor raises threshold alerts. It is tempting because it surfaces storage insights without configuration, and would be correct for identifying underused capacity or redundancy changes rather than monitoring request rates.
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Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
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