DP-900 Describe core data concepts Practice Question
You are designing a data solution for a healthcare application that requires ACID transactions for patient records and needs to run complex analytics queries. Which combination of Azure services should you recommend?
⚠ Common exam trap
Many candidates confuse 'analytics' with visualization tools like Power BI or OLAP cubes, failing to recognize that complex analytics queries require a dedicated MPP engine like Synapse, not just a reporting layer.
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
✓
Azure SQL Database for transactions, Azure Synapse Analytics for analytics
Azure SQL Database provides full ACID (Atomicity, Consistency, Isolation, Durability) transaction support, which is essential for healthcare patient records where data integrity is critical. Azure Synapse Analytics is a cloud-based analytics service that can run complex queries against large datasets, including those from Azure SQL Database, using its massively parallel processing (MPP) architecture. This combination allows transactional and analytical workloads to coexist without compromising performance or consistency.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Azure Cosmos DB for transactions, Power BI for analytics
Why it's wrong here
Azure Cosmos DB is a NoSQL database that only supports multi-document transactions within a single partition, not across partitions, so it lacks the full ACID guarantees required for healthcare transaction processing. Power BI is a visualization and reporting tool, not a compute engine for complex, large-scale analytical queries, making this pairing unsuitable for both transactional integrity and analytics workloads.
- ✗
Azure Database for MySQL for transactions, Azure Analysis Services for analytics
Why it's wrong here
Azure Database for MySQL is fully ACID-compliant for transaction processing, but Azure Analysis Services is an OLAP modeling service that loads pre-computed data into in-memory tabular models rather than running complex, multi-terabyte analytics directly on the source data. Additionally, MySQL integration with Azure Synapse Analytics is less seamless than Azure SQL Database, making it harder to build a unified operational and analytical data platform for healthcare.
- ✗
Azure Blob Storage for transactions, Azure Machine Learning for analytics
Why it's wrong here
Azure Blob Storage is object storage that provides eventual consistency and does not support ACID transactions, so it cannot serve as a reliable transaction store for a healthcare application. Azure Machine Learning is designed for training and deploying models, not for running interactive analytical queries on operational data, so this combination fails on both transactional and analytical requirements.
- ✓
Azure SQL Database for transactions, Azure Synapse Analytics for analytics
Why this is correct
Azure SQL Database provides full ACID transactions with row-level security and compatibility, making it a robust operational store for healthcare applications. Azure Synapse Analytics offers a large-scale analytics platform with dedicated SQL pools, massively parallel processing, and integrated data warehousing, capable of running complex queries across relational and data lake sources. Together they deliver an integrated, high-performance OLTP/OLAP solution that supports transactional integrity and advanced analytics.
Go deeper
Related to this question
Learn chapter
Data Roles and Core Concepts
Key term
Service
A service is a software component or system that performs a specific function and is available to be used by other programs or users over a network.
Key term
Data
Data is raw, unprocessed information, like numbers, words, or measurements, that can be stored, processed, and analyzed by computers.
About these practice questions
One of 820 original DP-900 practice questions on Courseiva, each with a full explanation and wrong-answer analysis — not exam dumps or protected exam content. Learn why practice questions differ from exam dumps →
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.