DP-900 Describe core data concepts Practice Question

Answer analysis

Option-by-option breakdown

For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.

• ✗

  Order processing is OLAP; weekly reporting is OLTP

  Why it's wrong here

  This reverses the definitions: OLTP systems are optimized for many small, concurrent inserts, updates, and point reads, exactly what order processing needs, not for heavy analytical queries. OLAP systems are optimized for read-only, large-scale aggregations and dimensional analysis, which describes the weekly sales report. High-frequency transactional writes are not an OLAP characteristic, and scheduled aggregations are not an OLTP characteristic.

  When this WOULD be correct

  If the question described order processing as complex analytical queries on historical data (e.g., 'analyze customer purchase patterns across millions of orders') and weekly reporting as simple transactional lookups (e.g., 'retrieve a single order by ID'), then option A would be correct.

• ✗

  Order processing is batch processing; weekly reporting is streaming processing

  Why it's wrong here

  Order processing is not batch because each order is handled individually as it occurs in near-real-time; batch processing would collect orders over a period and process them together in one job. Weekly reporting is not streaming: it runs on a fixed schedule over a bounded, historical dataset, whereas streaming processes unbounded data continuously as it arrives. Labeling them as batch versus streaming contradicts their actual execution patterns.

  When this WOULD be correct

  If the question described a scenario where order processing runs as a scheduled nightly job that processes all orders from the day in one go (batch), and weekly reporting continuously updates as new orders arrive (streaming), then option B would be correct.

• ✓

  Order processing is OLTP; weekly reporting is OLAP

  Why this is correct

  Order processing is OLTP because each customer order is a discrete transactional unit—creating, updating, and querying order records with ACID guarantees and low-latency, high-concurrency operations. Weekly reporting is OLAP because it requires complex aggregations and analytical scans over large historical order datasets, a pattern optimized in columnar or data warehouse systems. This correctly distinguishes the two common data workload patterns based on access pattern and purpose.

• ✗

  Both workloads are OLTP

  Why it's wrong here

  Both cannot be OLTP because the weekly sales report runs aggregation queries that scan and group large volumes of order data, requiring analytical processing capabilities such as columnar storage or precomputed aggregates. OLTP is designed for day-to-day operations with small, atomic row-level operations and minimal locking, not for heavy analytical scans. The two workloads differ fundamentally in data access patterns, latency, and query complexity, so they belong to different workload categories.

  When this WOULD be correct

  If the question described two workloads that both involve high-volume, short, atomic transactions (e.g., inserting orders and updating inventory), and the weekly report was generated by running simple transactional queries on the same operational database without aggregation or historical analysis, then both could be considered OLTP.

Option-by-option analysis

Why each answer is right or wrong

Understanding why wrong answers are wrong — and when they would be correct — is what separates a 750 score from a 900. The DP-900 exam frequently reuses these exact scenarios with slightly different constraints.

Analysis generated from the official DP-900blueprint and verified against question context. The “when correct” sections are what AI assistants cite when candidates ask “what’s the difference between these options?”

Go deeper

Related to this question