DAC Big Data & Cloud Analytics 5

Question 1

Which characteristic distinguishes a 'lakehouse' architecture?

Accepted Answer

Combines data lake storage with warehouse-style management and ACID transactions

Answer

A lakehouse merges low-cost lake storage with warehouse features like ACID transactions and governance.

Question 2

What is the primary purpose of Apache Airflow in a data platform?

Accepted Answer

Orchestrate and schedule data pipeline workflows

Answer

Apache Airflow authors, schedules, and monitors workflow pipelines as directed acyclic graphs (DAGs).

Question 3

In cloud cost management for analytics, what does 'query cost' in serverless warehouses like BigQuery usually depend on?

Accepted Answer

The amount of data scanned by the query

Answer

Serverless warehouses typically bill based on the volume of data a query scans.

Question 4

Which technique reduces data scanned by only reading columns needed for a query?

Accepted Answer

Columnar storage / column pruning

Answer

Columnar storage lets engines read only the columns referenced, avoiding unneeded data.

Question 5

What does 'schema-on-read' mean in a big data context?

Accepted Answer

Structure is applied when data is queried, not when stored

Answer

Schema-on-read defers structure until query time, allowing flexible ingestion of raw data.

Data Analytics Certifications (DAC) Practice Test