Question 1mediummultiple choice
Full question →mediummultiple choiceObjective-mapped
A SaaS company hosts a multi-tenant application. Each tenant has a separate Azure SQL Database. The databases are small (1-3 GB) and their workloads vary significantly over time, with some tenants active during business hours and others at night. The company wants to maximize resource utilization and minimize costs by pooling compute resources across tenants while maintaining predictable performance per database. Which Azure SQL Database deployment option should they choose?
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
Distractor review
Azure SQL Database Single Database
Single database provisions dedicated resources per database. With many small databases and variable loads, this would lead to unused reserved capacity and higher costs.
B
Best answer
Azure SQL Database Elastic Pool
An elastic pool allows multiple databases to share a pool of resources. Databases automatically use resources as needed, maximizing utilization and lowering cost while providing predictable performance per database via settings like min and max vCores.
C
Distractor review
Azure SQL Managed Instance
Managed Instance is a fully managed SQL Server instance with many instance-level features but is designed for larger, more complex databases or lift-and-shift scenarios. It does not offer the same granular resource sharing as elastic pools.
D
Distractor review
SQL Server on Azure Virtual Machine
Running SQL Server on a VM provides the most flexibility but requires managing the OS and SQL Server. It does not natively support resource pooling across multiple tenant databases without additional configuration.
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 SQL Database Elastic Pool — Azure SQL Database Elastic Pools are designed for scenarios with multiple databases that have varying and unpredictable usage patterns. They allow databases to share a fixed pool of resources (vCores and memory), which reduces cost compared to provisioning each database with its own dedicated resources. Single databases would waste resources during idle times. Managed Instance is better for larger databases or lift-and-shift migrations with instance-level features. SQL Server on Azure VM gives full control but requires more management.
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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