Question 1hardmultiple choice
Full question →hardmultiple choiceObjective-mapped
A financial services company stores transaction data in Azure Data Lake Storage Gen2 as Parquet files, partitioned by date. The data volume is 5 TB per day. The analytics team runs ad-hoc SQL queries to detect fraudulent patterns. Queries are highly selective (filtering on AccountID and date range). The team also needs to create external tables and views for use in Power BI. They want to pay only for the data processed by each query and avoid provisioning any compute resources. Which Azure service should they use?
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Good practice is not just finding the correct option. The wrong answers often show the exact trap the exam wants you to fall into.
A
Best answer
Azure Synapse Serverless SQL pool
Synapse Serverless SQL pool allows querying data directly from ADLS Gen2 with T-SQL. It is serverless, charges per data scanned, and supports creating external tables and views for tools like Power BI.
B
Distractor review
Azure Databricks with interactive clusters
Azure Databricks requires a running cluster (even if auto-terminating, it still provisions compute) and charges per cluster hour, not per query. It is not a pay-per-query model.
C
Distractor review
Azure Stream Analytics
Stream Analytics is designed for real-time stream processing, not for ad-hoc SQL queries on historical data stored in files.
D
Distractor review
Azure HDInsight with Spark
HDInsight requires provisioning and managing clusters, and costs are incurred for the cluster uptime, not per query. It does not offer a serverless pay-per-query option.
Common exam trap
Common exam trap: NAT rules depend on direction and matching traffic
NAT is not only about the public address. The inside/outside interface roles and the ACL or rule that matches traffic are just as important.
Technical deep dive
How to think about this question
NAT questions usually test address translation, overload/PAT behaviour, static mappings and whether the right traffic is being translated. Read the interface direction and address terms carefully.
KKey Concepts to Remember
- Static NAT maps one inside address to one outside address.
- PAT allows many inside hosts to share one public address using ports.
- Inside local and inside global describe the private and translated addresses.
- NAT ACLs identify traffic for translation, not always security filtering.
TExam Day Tips
- Identify inside and outside interfaces first.
- Check whether the scenario needs static NAT, dynamic NAT or PAT.
- Do not confuse NAT matching ACLs with normal packet-filtering intent.
Related practice questions
Related DP-900 practice-question pages
Use these pages to review the topic behind this question. This is how one missed question becomes focused revision.
More questions from this exam
Keep practising from the same exam bank, or move into a focused topic page if this question exposed a weak area.
Question 1
A data engineer needs to process streaming data from IoT devices and store the results in Azure Data Lake Storage for long-term analytics. The data must be processed in near real-time to detect anomalies and trigger alerts. Which Azure service should the engineer use for stream processing?
Question 2
A data engineer needs to query data stored in CSV files in Azure Data Lake Storage Gen2 using T-SQL in Azure Synapse Analytics, without loading the data into the database. Which feature should they use?
Question 3
A data engineer needs to process raw clickstream data from multiple websites that is stored in Azure Blob Storage as JSON files. The processing must run automatically every hour, transform the data into a structured format for reporting, and handle schema changes in the source data without manual intervention. Which Azure service should be used?
Question 4
A data engineer is designing a data lake architecture in Azure. They plan to first ingest raw data from various sources into a landing zone in Azure Data Lake Storage Gen2. Then they will clean, validate, and deduplicate that data in a second zone. Finally, they will create aggregated, business-ready datasets in a third zone for analysts. This layered approach is known as which architecture?
Question 5
A data engineer needs to transform large datasets stored in Azure Data Lake Storage Gen2 using Python and Apache Spark. They want a serverless compute option that automatically scales and requires no cluster management. Which Azure service should they use?
Question 6
A company collects customer feedback forms. Each form contains always-present fields like CustomerID and SubmissionDate, but also a free-text Comments field and optional fields like Rating or ProductCategory that vary between forms. How should this data be classified?
FAQ
Questions learners often ask
What does this DP-900 question test?
Static NAT maps one inside address to one outside address.
What is the correct answer to this question?
The correct answer is: Azure Synapse Serverless SQL pool — The requirements are: ad-hoc SQL queries directly on data lake files (Parquet), pay-per-query, no compute provisioning, ability to create views/external tables for Power BI. Azure Synapse Serverless SQL pool meets all these. It can query files in ADLS Gen2 using T-SQL, create external tables and views, and charges per amount of data scanned. Azure Databricks requires provisioning clusters (even if auto-scaling, it's always running). Azure Stream Analytics is for real-time streaming, not ad-hoc SQL on historical data. Azure HDInsight requires cluster management. Therefore, Synapse Serverless SQL is correct.
What should I do if I get this DP-900 question wrong?
Then try more questions from the same exam bank and focus on understanding why the wrong options are tempting.
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