I've been using Microsoft Fabric for about 8 months and I'm preparing for the DP-600 exam. My background is mostly Power BI report development and some ADF pipeline work, so I feel okay on the visualization and orchestration side. What I'm trying to gauge is how deep the DAX requirements actually go - I can write solid calculated columns and measures but I've never needed advanced time intelligence or complex CALCULATE modifiers in production.
The exam skills outline lists Lakehouses, Warehouses, Spark notebooks, data pipelines, semantic models, and real-time analytics as core areas. I'm weakest on Spark and real-time analytics - never touched Eventstream in production and my PySpark is limited to basic transformations. I scored 58% on a practice assessment and need 700 to pass.
I'm planning 8 weeks of prep at roughly 1.5 hours daily on weekdays. I've done SC-900 and PL-300 before so I know the Microsoft exam format. Are there specific Fabric features that keep showing up? I've heard OneLake architecture comes up constantly.
The Spark section was harder than the study materials suggest. Spend real time on Delta Lake operations in Fabric notebooks - MERGE statements, time travel queries, and optimization commands. That came up more than I expected from a Power BI background.
DAX on my exam wasn't as deep as I feared. You need CALCULATE, context transition, and basic time intelligence like TOTALYTD and SAMEPERIODLASTYEAR, but I didn't get anything requiring advanced iterators or complex KEEPFILTERS scenarios. Your current level sounds adequate.
Eight weeks at 1.5 hours daily is a solid plan. I went from 61% on my diagnostic to 78% on the actual exam in about 7 weeks. The Microsoft Learn Fabric paths are the best free resource - more reliable than third-party dumps that don't reflect current Fabric features.
OneLake and the shortcut architecture definitely show up a lot - probably 15-20% of my exam was about how data flows through OneLake and why you'd use Lakehouse vs Warehouse for different scenarios. Get that conceptual framework solid before anything else.