DP-900 cheat sheet

Exam at a glance

Domain weightings

How much of the exam each domain covers. Spend your study time in proportion — the heavier the domain, the more questions you'll see.

Key terms

Structured data

Structured data is data that conforms to a fixed schema of rows and columns, such as tables in a relational database. DP-900 covers it alongside semi-structured and unstructured data in the core data-concepts domain.

Semi-structured data

Semi-structured data is data that has some organizational structure, such as tags or keys, but does not fit a rigid relational schema — for example JSON or XML documents. DP-900 covers it as one of the three ways to represent data.

Relational database

A relational database is a database that stores data in tables of rows and columns with defined relationships and is queried using SQL. DP-900 covers relational concepts including normalization and common database objects.

Normalization

Normalization is the process of organizing relational data to reduce redundancy by splitting it into related tables. DP-900 expects you to describe why normalization is used within the relational-data domain.

Azure SQL Database

Azure SQL Database is a fully managed platform-as-a-service relational database in the Azure SQL family. DP-900 covers it alongside SQL Managed Instance and SQL Server on Azure Virtual Machines.

Azure SQL Managed Instance

Azure SQL Managed Instance is a managed deployment option in the Azure SQL family that offers near-complete SQL Server compatibility. DP-900 covers it as a middle ground between Azure SQL Database and SQL Server on a VM.

Azure Blob Storage

Azure Blob Storage is an object-storage service for storing large amounts of unstructured data such as files, images, and backups. DP-900 covers it as part of the non-relational data domain.

Azure Files

Azure Files is a managed file-share service that exposes fully managed file shares accessible over the SMB and NFS protocols. DP-900 covers it alongside Blob and Table storage as an Azure storage capability.

Azure Table storage

Azure Table storage is a NoSQL key-value store for large amounts of structured, non-relational data. DP-900 covers it among the capabilities of Azure storage in the non-relational domain.

Azure Cosmos DB

Azure Cosmos DB is a globally distributed, multi-model NoSQL database service with several APIs and low-latency access. DP-900 covers its use cases and APIs within the non-relational data domain.

Transactional workload

A transactional workload (OLTP) is a workload characterized by many small, fast read and write operations, such as recording orders or payments. DP-900 contrasts it with analytical workloads in the core-concepts domain.

Analytical workload

An analytical workload (OLAP) is a workload optimized for reading and aggregating large volumes of data to support reporting and decision-making. DP-900 covers it as the basis of the analytics-workload domain.

Microsoft Fabric

Microsoft Fabric is an end-to-end analytics platform that unifies data engineering, warehousing, and business intelligence. DP-900 covers it, with Azure Databricks, as a cloud service for large-scale analytics.

Power BI

Power BI is Microsoft's business-analytics service for building interactive reports and dashboards from data models. DP-900 covers its capabilities, data models, and choosing appropriate visualizations.