DP-900 Describe an analytics workload on Azure Practice Question
A company has a Power BI dashboard that refreshes daily from an Azure SQL Database. During refresh, the database experiences high CPU usage that impacts transactional applications. They need to minimize impact while keeping the dashboard up-to-date. What should they do?
⚠ Common exam trap
Many candidates confuse user permissions (read-only user) with workload isolation, not realizing that read-only replicas are required to physically separate read and write workloads at the infrastructure level.
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
✓
Configure Azure SQL Database with a readable secondary replica
Configuring Azure SQL Database with a readable secondary replica offloads read-only workloads, such as Power BI refreshes, to the secondary replica. This eliminates CPU contention on the primary replica, protecting transactional applications from performance degradation while keeping the dashboard up-to-date with near-real-time data. Option A (Disable Query Store) is irrelevant to reducing refresh CPU impact. Option B (read-only user) does not physically separate the read workload. Option C (lower-capacity license) does not change query execution 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.
- ✗
Disable the Query Store in the database
Why it's wrong here
Disabling Query Store does not stop the Power BI refresh queries from consuming CPU on the primary replica. Query Store is a diagnostic feature that captures query plans and runtime statistics with relatively small overhead; turning it off may free a tiny amount of background work but leaves the actual read workload unchanged. The correct remedy is to route reads to a secondary replica, not to disable performance monitoring.
- ✗
Create a read-only user for Power BI
Why it's wrong here
Creating a read-only login for Power BI only changes authentication and permissions; it does not change where queries are executed. Every report tile or DAX query that Power BI issues still hits the database engine and consumes CPU and IO, even if the user cannot write data. A read-only user also cannot target a readable secondary unless read-scale routing is configured, so it provides no offload benefit.
- ✗
Set Power BI to use a lower-capacity license
Why it's wrong here
Downgrading the Power BI license cap reduces service-level features such as refresh frequency, semantic model storage, and sharing capabilities, but it does not alter the amount of database resources consumed when a refresh runs. If anything, a lower-capacity license may cause refresh to be throttled or queued, yet the underlying Azure SQL Database CPU pressure persists until the refreshes complete. The CPU problem is in the database tier, not the Power BI workspace capacity.
- ✓
Configure Azure SQL Database with a readable secondary replica
Why this is correct
Configuring a readable secondary replica offloads the Power BI refresh and report queries to a separate compute node that maintains a read-only copy of the data. With read-scale enabled, you can point the connection string to the listener and specify ApplicationIntent=ReadOnly; Azure SQL Database then routes these read requests to the secondary, sparing the primary replica's CPU for writes and other OLTP activity. This directly lowers CPU utilization on the primary without reducing functionality or throttling the BI workload.
Go deeper
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Data Roles and Core Concepts
Key term
Power BI
Power BI is a Microsoft business analytics tool that transforms raw data into interactive visual reports and dashboards for informed decision-making.
Key term
Dashboard
A dashboard is a visual display of key metrics and data points that helps IT professionals monitor, analyze, and manage systems or processes in real time.
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