This DP-900 practice question tests your understanding of describe an analytics workload on azure. Match the stated requirement to the specific cloud service, access model, or configuration option — many options are valid in isolation but not for this scenario. After answering, compare your reasoning against the explanation and wrong-answer breakdown below. Once you have made your selection, read the full explanation to reinforce the concept and understand why each distractor is designed to mislead on exam day.
Which THREE components are required to implement a modern data warehouse architecture (medallion architecture) on Azure?
Azure Data Lake Storage Gen2
Serves as the storage foundation for raw and transformed data.
Azure Analysis Services
Why wrong: Not required; model serving can be done by Power BI or Synapse.
Azure Synapse Analytics
Provides the data warehouse for gold layer and reporting.
Azure Databricks
Provides transformation capabilities (bronze to silver to gold).
Azure DevOps
Why wrong: DevOps is for CI/CD, not a core architecture component.
Answer choices
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
Azure Data Lake Storage Gen2
Azure Data Lake Storage Gen2 is required because it provides the scalable, hierarchical storage foundation for the medallion architecture's bronze, silver, and gold layers. It combines blob storage with a hierarchical namespace, enabling efficient data ingestion and transformation at petabyte scale.
Key principle: Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Answer analysis
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
Azure Data Lake Storage Gen2
Why this is correct
Serves as the storage foundation for raw and transformed data.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
Azure Analysis Services
Why it's wrong here
Not required; model serving can be done by Power BI or Synapse.
Azure Synapse Analytics
Why this is correct
Provides the data warehouse for gold layer and reporting.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
Azure Databricks
Why this is correct
Provides transformation capabilities (bronze to silver to gold).
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
Azure DevOps
Why it's wrong here
DevOps is for CI/CD, not a core architecture component.
Common exam traps
The trap here is that candidates often confuse optional analytics services (like Azure Analysis Services or Azure DevOps) with the mandatory storage and compute components required for the medallion architecture.
Detailed technical explanation
The medallion architecture relies on Delta Lake format for ACID transactions and schema enforcement across bronze (raw), silver (cleaned), and gold (aggregated) layers. Azure Databricks and Azure Synapse Analytics both natively support Delta Lake, allowing seamless data transformation and querying without data duplication. In practice, Azure Data Lake Storage Gen2 acts as the single source of truth, with compute engines reading/writing Delta tables directly.
Key takeaway
Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Real-world example
A media company stores terabytes of video archives that are accessed once a year for audit purposes. Moving these objects to a cold storage tier (Azure Archive, S3 Glacier, or Google Nearline) costs a fraction of hot storage. Questions like this test whether you understand storage tiers, access frequency tradeoffs, and retrieval latency requirements.
What to study next
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FAQ
Describe an analytics workload on Azure — This question tests Describe an analytics workload on Azure — Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer..
The correct answer is: Azure Data Lake Storage Gen2 — Azure Data Lake Storage Gen2 is required because it provides the scalable, hierarchical storage foundation for the medallion architecture's bronze, silver, and gold layers. It combines blob storage with a hierarchical namespace, enabling efficient data ingestion and transformation at petabyte scale.
Identify which exam domain this question belongs to, review the core concept, then practise similar questions from the same domain.
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
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Last reviewed: Jun 24, 2026
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