DP-203 Practice Question: Secure, monitor, and optimize data storage and data processing
You need to monitor an Azure Data Factory pipeline for failures and send an email notification when a pipeline run fails. Which Azure service should you use to create an alert based on the pipeline run metrics?
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
✓
Azure Monitor
Azure Monitor can create alerts based on ADF metrics like 'Failed pipeline runs'. Option A is wrong because Microsoft Sentinel is for security. Option C is wrong because Azure Service Health monitors Azure service health, not pipeline runs. Option D is wrong because Azure Log Analytics is for log queries, not alerting.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Microsoft Sentinel
Why it's wrong here
Microsoft Sentinel is a SIEM for security analytics and threat detection, not pipeline-run metric alerting. It is tempting because Sentinel ingests logs and can raise incidents, and would be correct for correlating security events, but Data Factory failures require Azure Monitor alerts on pipeline run metrics.
- ✓
Azure Monitor
Why this is correct
Azure Monitor ingests Azure Data Factory pipeline run metrics and supports metric alerts with action groups, which trigger email notifications when a run fails. This directly satisfies the requirement to alert on pipeline run failures without custom code or polling.
- ✗
Azure Service Health
Why it's wrong here
Azure Service Health reports platform incidents and planned maintenance affecting your subscriptions, not Data Factory pipeline run outcomes. Metric alerts on the ADF FailedRuns metric, routed through an action group, trigger the email. Service Health is correct for outage and maintenance notifications.
- ✗
Azure Log Analytics
Why it's wrong here
Log Analytics stores and queries log data via KQL; alerting on pipeline run metrics requires Azure Monitor metric alerts, which Log Analytics does not generate. It is tempting because Log Analytics is the correct destination for diagnostic logs and would suit querying historical pipeline telemetry, not metric-triggered notifications.
Go deeper
Related to this question
Learn chapter
Monitor Data Storage and Processing
Key term
Azure Data Factory
Azure Data Factory is a cloud-based data integration service that lets you create, schedule, and orchestrate data pipelines to move and transform data from various sources to destinations.
Key term
Data Transformation Pipelines
Data transformation pipelines are automated sequences of steps that take raw data from a source, clean and reshape it into a usable format, and then load it into a destination for analysis or storage.
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Same concept, more angles
2 more ways this is tested on DP-203
These questions test the same concept from different angles. Work through them to make sure you can recognise it however the exam phrases it.
Variation 1. You are monitoring an Azure Data Factory pipeline that runs hourly. You notice that the pipeline has been failing intermittently with an error indicating 'Activity timeout'. Which Azure Monitor metric should you set an alert on to proactively detect such failures?
easy- A.Integration runtime queue depth metric
- B.Pipeline duration metric
- C.Data read and data written metrics
- ✓ D.Failed pipeline runs metric
Why D: The 'Failed pipeline runs' metric in Azure Monitor directly tracks the number of pipeline runs that have failed, including failures caused by activity timeouts. Setting an alert on this metric allows you to be notified immediately when a pipeline run fails, enabling proactive detection. Other metrics like queue depth or duration may indicate potential issues but do not directly signal a failure. Therefore, the correct metric to alert on for detecting failures is 'Failed pipeline runs'.
Variation 2. You are monitoring an Azure Data Factory pipeline that runs hourly. You notice that the pipeline occasionally fails due to transient errors. Which monitoring solution should you use to get alerts on failures and analyze trends over time?
easy- A.Azure Event Grid subscription for pipeline failures
- ✓ B.Azure Monitor with Log Analytics workspace
- C.Azure Dashboard pinned with pipeline metrics
- D.Azure Data Factory Monitor in the Azure portal
Why B: Azure Monitor with alerts and Log Analytics provides historical analysis and alerting. Option A (Data Factory Monitor) is for real-time monitoring but lacks long-term trend analysis. Option C (Azure Dashboard) is a visualization tool. Option D (Event Grid) is for event-driven notifications, not analysis.
JA
Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This DP-203 practice question is part of Courseiva's free Microsoft certification practice question bank. Courseiva provides original exam-style practice questions with explanations, topic-based practice, mock exams, readiness tracking, and study analytics to help learners prepare for the DP-203 exam.