DP-300 Implement a secure environment Practice Question
Your Azure SQL Database uses Always Encrypted to protect sensitive columns. You need to allow a reporting application to query encrypted columns without having access to the column encryption key. What should you configure?
⚠ Common exam trap
Watch out — candidates often think rotating the master key to an HSM (Option A) solves the key access problem, but HSMs only protect the master key storage, not the application's need for the column encryption key to decrypt data.
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
✓
Enable Always Encrypted with secure enclaves (Intel SGX) and create an enclave-enabled key.
Enabling Always Encrypted with secure enclaves (Intel SGX) allows the reporting application to perform computations on encrypted columns (e.g., equality, pattern matching) without ever exposing the column encryption key to the application. The enclave decrypts the data inside a trusted execution environment, so the application only sees the results of queries, not the raw encryption keys. This meets the requirement of querying encrypted columns without key access.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Rotate the column master key to a hardware security module (HSM).
Why it's wrong here
Rotation does not enable queries without keys.
- ✗
Remove the Always Encrypted configuration from the columns.
Why it's wrong here
This would expose data in plaintext.
- ✓
Enable Always Encrypted with secure enclaves (Intel SGX) and create an enclave-enabled key.
Why this is correct
Enclaves allow computations on encrypted data within the enclave.
- ✗
Provide the application with the column master key and column encryption key.
Why it's wrong here
This gives the application access to plaintext data.
Go deeper
Related to this question
Learn chapter
Overview of Azure Data Platform Options
Key term
Azure SQL Performance Tuning
Azure SQL Performance Tuning is the process of optimizing the speed and efficiency of queries and database operations in Microsoft Azure SQL Database or SQL Managed Instance to reduce latency and improve throughput.
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JA
Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This DP-300 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-300 exam.