Courseiva

DP-900 Practice Question: Describe considerations for working with non-relational data on Azure

Which THREE of the following are valid considerations when choosing between Azure Cosmos DB and Azure Table Storage?

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

Cosmos DB provides multiple consistency levels

Options B, C, and E are correct. Cosmos DB provides multiple consistency levels (B), supports multi-region writes (C), and automatically indexes all properties (E). Option A is incorrect because Table Storage does not support multi-region writes; that is a feature of Cosmos DB. Option D is incorrect because Cosmos DB does support JSON documents, both natively.

Answer analysis

Option-by-option breakdown

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

  • Table Storage supports multi-region writes

    Why it's wrong here

    Table Storage is a single-region write service; even with read-access geo-redundant storage, the secondary endpoint is read-only and cannot accept write operations. Therefore, claiming Table Storage supports multi-region writes is incorrect, as write traffic must always target the primary region. This limitation forces applications that need global write scalability to look at services like Cosmos DB.

  • Cosmos DB provides multiple consistency levels

    Why this is correct

    Cosmos DB exposes five well-defined consistency levels—Strong, Bounded Staleness, Session, Consistent Prefix, and Eventual—that can be selected per request. This tunable consistency model lets developers trade between strict linearizability and lower latency or higher availability, which is a distinct advantage over Table Storage's fixed consistency semantics. The availability of multiple consistency levels is a core architectural consideration when designing globally distributed data solutions.

  • Cosmos DB supports multi-region writes

    Why this is correct

    With Cosmos DB, write operations can be accepted in any of the regions configured for multi-region write, enabling active-active replication across many geographic regions. This contrasts with Table Storage, where only one region is writable and secondary regions serve as read-only replicas. Multi-region writes reduce write latency for distributed users and provide continuous availability even if an entire write region fails.

  • Cosmos DB does not support JSON documents

    Why it's wrong here

    Cosmos DB is a multi-model NoSQL database in which JSON is the native wire format for documents, and the core SQL API stores and queries JSON directly. It also supports BSON for MongoDB compatibility, but JSON is always available without translation or transformation. Hence, stating that Cosmos DB does not support JSON is factually incorrect and overlooks its fundamental document model.

  • Cosmos DB automatically indexes all properties

    Why this is correct

    Cosmos DB's default automatic indexing of all properties is a fundamental technical mechanism that provides immediate query performance across all data attributes. This eliminates the need for manual index management, a significant advantage over Azure Table Storage, which only indexes Partition Key and Row Key. Therefore, the requirement for flexible, performant querying on non-key properties makes automatic indexing a crucial consideration when choosing between these services.

About these practice questions

Courseiva writes every DP-900 question from scratch — 820 in total, each with an explanation and a wrong-answer breakdown. None are copied from real exams or dumps. Learn why practice questions differ from exam dumps →

How Courseiva writes practice questions · Editorial policy

JA

Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security

Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva

This DP-900 practice question is part of Courseiva's free Microsoft certification practice question bank. Courseiva provides original exam-style practice questions with explanations, topic-based practice, mock exams, readiness tracking, and study analytics to help learners prepare for the DP-900 exam.