DP-700 Ingest and Transform Data Practice Question
You are designing a Fabric pipeline to copy data from an on-premises SQL Server to a OneLake Lakehouse. Which integration runtime configuration ensures the highest throughput for large datasets?
⚠ Common exam trap
Candidates often select only the self-hosted runtime, failing to include the Staged Copy feature. Staged copy is essential for decoupling read/write operations to maximize throughput for large volumes.
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
✓
Configure a Self-hosted Integration Runtime and enable the Staged Copy feature using an Azure Blob storage account.
Self-hosted integration runtimes are required for on-premises data sources. To maximize throughput for large volumes, you must enable staged copy, which allows the data to be temporarily cached in an Azure Blob storage account before landing in the Lakehouse. This approach optimizes performance by decoupling the read and write operations, reducing latency and avoiding bottlenecks on the on-premises gateway during heavy transformation or ingestion tasks.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Use the default Azure Integration Runtime without a staging account.
Why it's wrong here
The Azure Integration Runtime cannot directly access on-premises resources behind a firewall. Attempting this will result in a connection failure, as the cloud-based runtime lacks the necessary network visibility into your local network architecture, making it unsuitable for direct on-premises connectivity without a self-hosted agent.
- ✗
Deploy a Self-hosted Integration Runtime on a virtual machine in the same region as the Lakehouse.
Why it's wrong here
While necessary for connectivity, simply deploying the runtime is insufficient for performance. Without configuring staging, the data must pass through the gateway in a single stream, which significantly limits throughput and increases the risk of timeout errors when processing massive datasets that exceed standard bandwidth limitations.
- ✓
Configure a Self-hosted Integration Runtime and enable the Staged Copy feature using an Azure Blob storage account.
Why this is correct
Staged copy allows the ingestion process to buffer data in intermediate storage, which significantly boosts throughput. By offloading the data to an intermediary storage layer, the source system is freed up faster, and the Fabric pipeline can ingest the data in parallel, effectively scaling the throughput for large-scale operations.
- ✗
Increase the Data Integration Unit (DIU) setting to the maximum value in the Copy Activity.
Why it's wrong here
DIU settings control the compute power for cloud-to-cloud copies but do not resolve the fundamental bottleneck of an on-premises network connection. Increasing DIUs without a staged copy implementation will only increase resource consumption on the gateway without effectively improving the actual data transfer rate from the SQL server.
Quick reference
Azure Blob Storage Tier Comparison
| Tier | Storage Cost | Retrieval Cost | Latency | Use Case |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hot | Highest | Lowest | Immediate | Active data, frequent reads |
| Cool | Lower | Higher | Immediate | Data accessed < once / month |
| Cold | Lower still | Higher | Immediate | Data accessed < once / quarter |
| Archive | Lowest | Highest + rehydration delay | Hours | Long-term compliance retention |
About these practice questions
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JA
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-700 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-700 exam.