Azure Data Storage Solutions Flashcards

When should you choose Azure SQL Database Hyperscale over a standard Azure SQL Database tier?

Answer: When the database size exceeds 4 TB

Azure SQL Hyperscale supports databases up to 100 TB and is the appropriate choice when data size exceeds the 4 TB limit of standard tiers.

In Azure SQL Data Warehouse (now Synapse Analytics dedicated pool), what distribution method minimizes data movement for large fact tables joined frequently with dimension tables?

Answer: Hash distribution on the join key

Hash distributing a large fact table on its join key co-locates matching rows on the same compute node, eliminating data movement during joins.

Which Azure storage option is most appropriate for storing semi-structured IoT telemetry data that requires millisecond reads by device ID?

Answer: Azure Table Storage

Azure Table Storage is a key-value NoSQL store optimized for fast point lookups by partition key (e.g., device ID) at low cost.

What is the primary advantage of using Azure Data Lake Storage Gen2 over Azure Blob Storage for analytics workloads?

Answer: Hierarchical namespace enabling faster analytics operations

ADLS Gen2's hierarchical namespace makes directory-level operations atomic and significantly faster, improving analytics throughput.

Which feature in Azure Synapse Analytics allows querying CSV or Parquet files in ADLS Gen2 without creating a dedicated SQL pool?

Answer: Serverless SQL pool

Synapse serverless SQL pool enables on-demand T-SQL queries over files in ADLS Gen2 with no infrastructure to provision.

In a lambda architecture on Azure, which component serves the speed layer for low-latency real-time queries?

Answer: Azure Stream Analytics or Event Hubs with real-time consumers

The speed layer processes streaming data in near real-time using services like Azure Stream Analytics to answer latency-sensitive queries.