DP-900 · Sample questions

DP-900 sample questions with answers and explanations

10 real questions from the CertifyDeck DP-900 bank, spread across the domains of the official Microsoft Certified: Azure Data Fundamentals skills outline, with the correct answer and a full explanation of why the other options are wrong. They are original questions written from the public syllabus, not exam dumps, and they are the same style you will find in the practice tests and mock exams.

1. Question 1Domain: Describe considerations for working with non-relational data on AzureEasy

   Which protocols can clients use to mount Azure file shares?

   • A.HTTP and the AMQP messaging protocol
   • B.Server Message Block (SMB) and Network File System (NFS)
   • C.File Transfer Protocol (FTP) and Trivial FTP
   • D.iSCSI and Fibre Channel
   Show answer and explanation

   Correct answer: B. Server Message Block (SMB) and Network File System (NFS)

   Explanation

   Azure Files shares are accessed through the industry-standard SMB and NFS protocols, and also through a REST API for programmatic access. FTP, TFTP and AMQP are not the file-share protocols of Azure Files, and iSCSI is the protocol used by Azure Elastic SAN, not by Azure Files.

   Official references

   • What is Azure Files?
   • Introduction to Azure Storage
2. Question 2Domain: Describe considerations for working with non-relational data on AzureMedium

   An online ticketing company stores orders in Azure Cosmos DB, and several microservices must reliably and incrementally react to every new or updated order. Which Cosmos DB feature supports this event-driven design?

   • A.Change feed
   • B.Serverless capacity mode
   • C.Azure Synapse Link
   • D.Autoscale throughput
   Show answer and explanation

   Correct answer: A. Change feed

   Explanation

   The change feed lets downstream microservices read inserts and updates to a container reliably and incrementally, which is how Cosmos DB supports event sourcing. Autoscale and serverless only govern how capacity is provisioned, and Synapse Link provides analytics over operational data rather than event delivery to microservices.

   Official references

   • Common Use Cases and Scenarios - Azure Cosmos DB
3. Question 3Domain: Describe an analytics workloadEasy

   A video platform needs a service to ingest very high volumes of clickstream events from its web application for downstream processing. Which service is designed for this?

   • A.Azure IoT Hub
   • B.Azure Event Hubs
   • C.Delta Lake
   • D.Microsoft Power BI
   Show answer and explanation

   Correct answer: B. Azure Event Hubs

   Explanation

   Azure Event Hubs is a data ingestion service for high volumes of event data, and clickstream analytics is one of its listed use cases. Azure IoT Hub is optimized for event data from IoT devices, which does not match a web application. Power BI visualizes results and Delta Lake is a storage format, so neither ingests events.

   Official references

   • Explore common elements of stream processing architecture - Training
   • What is Azure Event Hubs - Real-time data streaming platform
4. Question 4Domain: Describe an analytics workloadMedium

   An energy company wants Microsoft Fabric to notify staff or start a workflow automatically whenever streaming meter data crosses a defined threshold. Which Real-Time Intelligence component provides this?

   • A.Eventhouse
   • B.Real-time hub
   • C.Activator
   • D.Eventstreams
   Show answer and explanation

   Correct answer: C. Activator

   Explanation

   Activator triggers automated actions, such as alerts or workflows, when streaming data meets defined conditions, including simple thresholds. The Real-time hub is a catalog for discovering and sharing streams, Eventhouse stores and queries event data, and Eventstreams ingest and transform streams.

   Official references

   • Explore common elements of stream processing architecture - Training
   • What Is Real-Time Intelligence in Microsoft Fabric?
5. Question 5Domain: Describe core data conceptsEasy

   Which task is a typical example of a transactional workload?

   • A.Recording each sale at a store checkout as it happens
   • B.Producing a quarterly trend report from five years of sales history
   • C.Aggregating revenue by region and product into a pre-calculated model
   • D.Training a model on raw files stored in a data lake
   Show answer and explanation

   Correct answer: A. Recording each sale at a store checkout as it happens

   Explanation

   Transactional systems record events such as retail payments as they occur, supporting live line-of-business applications. The other tasks work on accumulated historical data: trend reporting, data lake modeling and pre-aggregated analytical models are analytical activities.

   Official references

   • Explore transactional data processing
   • Online Transaction Processing (OLTP)
6. Question 6Domain: Describe core data conceptsMedium

   In a medallion architecture, which layer holds cleansed and conformed data, with duplicates removed and data types standardized?

   • A.Semantic model
   • B.Bronze
   • C.Gold
   • D.Silver
   Show answer and explanation

   Correct answer: D. Silver

   Explanation

   The Silver layer holds cleansed and conformed data. Bronze keeps raw data ingested as-is so it can be reprocessed, and Gold holds aggregated, business-ready data for reporting. A semantic model is an analytical structure for reporting, not one of the three medallion layers.

   Official references

   • Explore analytical data processing
7. Question 7Domain: Describe core data conceptsEasy

   A legacy payroll export allocates a fixed number of characters to every field instead of using separators. Which text layout is this?

   • A.Space-delimited text
   • B.Fixed-width data
   • C.Tab-separated values (TSV)
   • D.Comma-separated values (CSV)
   Show answer and explanation

   Correct answer: B. Fixed-width data

   Explanation

   In fixed-width data each field is allocated a fixed number of characters. CSV, TSV and space-delimited text instead use commas, tabs or spaces to separate the fields.

   Official references

   • Explore file storage - Training
8. Question 8Domain: Identify considerations for relational data on AzureMedium

   Contoso Learning hosts one database per school customer, and each database peaks at different times. Within Azure SQL Database, which option lets the databases share one set of compute resources to control cost?

   • A.A single database that uses the serverless compute option
   • B.An elastic pool
   • C.A failover group
   • D.A single database with its own provisioned compute for each tenant
   Show answer and explanation

   Correct answer: B. An elastic pool

   Explanation

   An elastic pool is a collection of databases that share a set of resources, which suits multitenant SaaS patterns with variable usage. A single database has resources dedicated to it and not shared with other databases, and the serverless option scales compute for one database at a time. A failover group is a high availability and disaster recovery feature, not a way to share compute.

   Official references

   • What is the Azure SQL Database service?
   • What Is Azure SQL?
9. Question 9Domain: Identify considerations for relational data on AzureEasy

   In the Orders table of a furniture shop, the CustomerID column holds values taken from the primary key of the Customers table. What is this CustomerID column called?

   • A.A foreign key
   • B.A clustered index
   • C.An entity
   • D.The primary key of the Orders table
   Show answer and explanation

   Correct answer: A. A foreign key

   Explanation

   A foreign key is a column that references the primary key of another table and so maintains the relationship between the tables. It cannot be the primary key of Orders, because one customer can place many orders and the same CustomerID value therefore repeats. An index is a lookup structure, and an entity is the real-world thing a table models.

   Official references

   • Explore the characteristics of relational data - Training
   • Primary and foreign key constraints - SQL Server
10. Question 10Domain: Identify considerations for relational data on AzureEasy

    In the relational database of an online bookstore, a Customers table holds one entry per shopper. What does each row of that table represent?

    • A.A single instance of the entity, that is, one customer
    • B.A relationship between the Customers table and another table
    • C.The whole collection of customers held in the table
    • D.A property shared by every customer, such as name or address
    Show answer and explanation

    Correct answer: A. A single instance of the entity, that is, one customer

    Explanation

    A relational table models a collection of entities, and each row is a single instance of the entity, here one customer. Properties such as name or address are the columns, and relationships between tables are maintained through keys, not rows.

    Official references

    • Explore the characteristics of relational data - Training