DP-900 Practice Question: Identify considerations for relational data on Azure
You are designing a multi-tenant SaaS application using Azure SQL Database. Each tenant has its own database. You need to perform maintenance across all databases efficiently. Which feature should you use?
⚠ Common exam trap
DP-900 often tests the confusion between Elastic pools (resource sharing) and Elastic Jobs (cross-database task execution), and the misconception that SQL Server Agent is available in Azure SQL Database.
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
✓
Elastic Jobs
Elastic Jobs is the Azure SQL Database feature designed to run T-SQL scripts or maintenance tasks across many databases — including all databases in a pool or all databases on a server — from a single job definition. For a multi-tenant SaaS model where each tenant has its own database, Elastic Jobs lets you schedule and execute maintenance (index rebuilds, statistics updates, schema changes) across the entire fleet without writing custom orchestration.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Elastic pools
Why it's wrong here
Elastic pools are wrong because they only allocate a shared set of performance resources (e.g., eDTUs or vCores) to a group of databases, providing cost savings for varying utilization. They do not include any job scheduling or script execution functionality, so you cannot use them alone to perform maintenance across tenants. Pooling affects resource governance, not operational automation.
- ✗
Failover groups
Why it's wrong here
Failover groups are wrong because they are a high-availability and disaster-recovery feature for Azure SQL Database. They replicate databases to a secondary server and provide an automatic failover endpoint, but they have no mechanism to execute T-SQL scripts or schedule maintenance tasks across tenant databases. Therefore they don't address cross-database maintenance.
- ✗
SQL Server Agent
Why it's wrong here
SQL Server Agent is wrong because it is not offered in Azure SQL Database; it only exists in SQL Server on-premises, Azure SQL Managed Instance, or SQL Server on Azure VMs. Even though it can schedule maintenance jobs in those environments, it cannot be used for a multi-tenant solution built on Azure SQL Database services. You would need Elastic Jobs instead.
- ✓
Elastic Jobs
Why this is correct
Elastic Jobs is correct because it is the Azure SQL Database service purpose-built for orchestrating T-SQL scripts, index rebuilds, or schema migrations across a large set of databases. You create an Elastic Job Agent, define target groups that can include all tenant databases, and schedule jobs that run against each member in parallel. This makes it the appropriate tool for cross-database maintenance in a multi-tenant SaaS.
Go deeper
Related to this question
Learn chapter
Star Schema vs Snowflake Schema
Key term
Schema
A schema is a blueprint or logical structure that defines how data is organized, stored, and accessed in a database or information system.
Key term
Azure SQL Database
Azure SQL Database is a fully managed relational database-as-a-service (DBaaS) in Microsoft Azure, based on the SQL Server engine, that handles scaling, backups, patching, and high availability automatically.
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Written and reviewed by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
Last reviewed September 2026 · checked against the official Microsoft exam blueprint
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.