AZURE INTERVIEW QUESTIONS LIST

Understanding the Azure Data Engineer's Toolbox

In the multifaceted world of data engineering on Azure, the tools and software at one's
disposal are more than just aids; they are the very fabric that binds the data lifecycle
together. For Azure Data Engineers, these tools are indispensable for orchestrating
data workflows, enabling sophisticated analytics, and ensuring that data-driven insights
are both actionable and impactful. The right set of tools can dramatically enhance the
efficiency and effectiveness of data operations. They serve as the backbone for
managing data storage, processing, and analysis, and are crucial for collaboration
within data teams and with other stakeholders. Understanding and mastering these
tools is essential for any Azure Data Engineer looking to excel in their field.

Azure Data Engineer Tools List

Data Storage and ManagementData Integration and ETLData Processing and
AnalyticsData Security and ComplianceMonitoring and Optimization
Data Storage and Management
Data storage and management tools are the foundation of a data engineer's work,
ensuring that data is stored reliably and can be retrieved and manipulated efficiently.
These tools must support scalability, performance, and security to handle the vast
amounts of data processed in the cloud.

Popular Tools

Azure SQL Database

A fully-managed relational database with built-in intelligence that supports scalable

performance and robust security features for managing structured data.

Azure Blob Storage

An object storage solution for the cloud that is optimized for storing massive amounts of
unstructured data, such as text or binary data.

Azure Data Lake Storage

A highly scalable and secure data lake that allows for high-performance analytics and
machine learning on large volumes of data.
Data Integration and ETL
Data integration and ETL (Extract, Transform, Load) tools are crucial for consolidating
data from various sources, transforming it into a usable format, and loading it into the
target system. These tools help in automating and optimizing data pipelines, which is
vital for timely data analysis.

Popular Tools

Azure Data Factory

A cloud-based data integration service that allows you to create data-driven workflows
for orchestrating and automating data movement and data transformation.

Azure Synapse Analytics

An analytics service that brings together big data and data warehousing, enabling large-
scale data preparation, data management, and business intelligence.

SSIS (SQL Server Integration Services)

A platform for building enterprise-level data integration and data transformations

solutions, often used in conjunction with Azure for hybrid data scenarios.
Data Processing and Analytics
Data processing and analytics tools enable data engineers to build and run scalable
data processing pipelines and perform complex analytics. These tools are essential for
transforming raw data into meaningful insights.

Popular Tools

Azure Databricks

An Apache Spark-based analytics platform optimized for the Microsoft Azure cloud
services platform, designed for big data and machine learning.

Azure HDInsight

A cloud service that makes it easy, fast, and cost-effective to process massive amounts
of data using popular open-source frameworks such as Hadoop, Spark, and Kafka.

Azure Stream Analytics

A real-time analytics and complex event-processing engine that is designed to analyze
and process high volumes of fast streaming data from multiple sources simultaneously.
Data Security and Compliance
Ensuring data security and compliance is paramount for Azure Data Engineers. Tools in
this category help protect data assets, manage privacy, and ensure that data handling
practices meet regulatory requirements.

Popular Tools

Azure Key Vault

A tool to safeguard and manage cryptographic keys and other secrets used by cloud
applications and services, ensuring secure access to sensitive data.

Azure Policy

Allows you to create, assign, and manage policies that enforce different rules and
effects over your resources, keeping your data compliant with corporate standards and
service level agreements.

Azure Security Center

Provides unified security management and advanced threat protection across hybrid
cloud workloads, enabling data engineers to detect and respond to security threats
quickly.
Monitoring and Optimization
Monitoring and optimization tools are essential for maintaining the health and
performance of data systems. These tools help in tracking system performance,
diagnosing issues, and tuning resources for optimal efficiency.

Popular Tools

Azure Monitor

Provides full-stack monitoring, advanced analytics, and intelligent insights to ensure

performance and availability of applications and services.

Azure Advisor

A personalized cloud consultant that helps you follow best practices to optimize your
Azure deployments, improving performance and security.
Azure Automation

Allows you to automate frequent, time-consuming, and error-prone cloud management

tasks, ensuring efficient and consistent management across your Azure environment.

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Interviewing as a Azure Data Engineer

Navigating the path to becoming an Azure Data Engineer involves not only mastering the
technical landscape of Azure services but also showcasing your expertise during interviews.
These interviews are a critical juncture, assessing your proficiency in data solutions, cloud
architecture, and analytics within the Azure ecosystem.

In this guide, we will dissect the array of questions that Azure Data Engineer candidates are
likely to encounter. From the intricacies of SQL data warehousing to the complexities of data
processing with Azure Data Factory and beyond. We'll provide you with the insights needed to
deliver compelling answers, demonstrate your technical acumen, and reveal the strategic
thinking required for this role. Our aim is to equip you with the knowledge and confidence to
excel in your interviews and to illuminate the qualities that define a top-tier Azure Data
Engineer.
Types of Questions to Expect in a Azure Data Engineer Interview
Azure Data Engineer interviews are designed to probe the depth and breadth of your technical
expertise, problem-solving abilities, and understanding of data infrastructure in the cloud
environment. Recognizing the various question types you may encounter will not only aid in
your preparation but also enable you to demonstrate your full range of skills effectively. Here's
an overview of the key question categories that are integral to Azure Data Engineer interviews.

Technical Proficiency Questions

Technical questions form the backbone of an Azure Data Engineer interview. These questions
assess your knowledge of Azure services like Azure Data Factory, Azure Databricks, Azure SQL
Database, and others. You'll be asked about data modeling, ETL processes, data warehousing,
and performance tuning. This category tests your hands-on experience and understanding of data
engineering principles within the Azure ecosystem.

Data Processing and Transformation Questions

Data processing and transformation are at the heart of data engineering. Interviewers will ask
about your experience with batch and real-time data processing, data transformation techniques,
and your ability to use Azure tools to implement these processes. These questions evaluate your
proficiency in handling data at scale and your capability to leverage Azure services for efficient
data manipulation.

Scenario-Based Problem-Solving Questions

These questions present you with hypothetical scenarios to solve, often involving the design and
optimization of data systems on Azure. You might be given a specific business problem and
asked to architect a data solution using Azure components. This category assesses your practical
application of Azure services, your architectural decision-making, and your ability to deliver
scalable and cost-effective solutions.

Security and Compliance Questions

Given the importance of data security and regulatory compliance, expect questions on how you
secure data within Azure, implement data governance, and ensure compliance with various
standards. These questions test your knowledge of Azure security features, data protection, and
your approach to maintaining data integrity and privacy.

Behavioral and Communication Questions

These questions delve into your soft skills, such as teamwork, communication, and your
approach to problem-solving in a collaborative environment. You may be asked about past
experiences, how you've handled conflicts, or how you stay updated with new Azure features and
data engineering practices. They gauge your ability to fit into a team, lead projects, and
communicate complex technical concepts to non-technical stakeholders.
Understanding these question types and tailoring your study and practice accordingly can greatly
improve your chances of success in an Azure Data Engineer interview. It's not just about
showing what you know, but also demonstrating how you apply your knowledge to real-world
situations and communicate effectively within a team.
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Preparing for a Azure Data Engineer Interview

Preparing for an Azure Data Engineer interview requires a blend of technical knowledge,
practical experience, and a clear understanding of the Azure platform's capabilities and services.
As data continues to be a critical asset for companies, the role of a Data Engineer becomes
increasingly important, making the interview process quite competitive. Demonstrating your
expertise in Azure data solutions and your ability to design, implement, and manage data
processing systems will set you apart. A well-prepared candidate not only exudes confidence but
also shows a potential employer their commitment to excellence in the field of data engineering
on Azure.

How to do Interview Prep as an Azure Data Engineer

 Master Azure Data Services: Gain a deep understanding of Azure data services such as
Azure SQL Database, Azure Cosmos DB, Azure Data Lake Storage, Azure Synapse
Analytics, and Azure Databricks. Be prepared to discuss how and when to use each
service effectively.
 Understand Data Engineering Principles: Review core data engineering concepts,
including data warehousing, ETL processes, data modeling, and data architecture. Be
ready to explain how these principles apply within the Azure ecosystem.
 Practice with Real-World Scenarios: Be prepared to solve scenario-based problems
that may be presented during the interview. This could include designing a data pipeline,
optimizing data storage, or troubleshooting performance issues.
 Review Azure Security and Compliance: Understand Azure's security features,
including data protection, access control, and compliance standards. Be able to articulate
how you would secure data within Azure.
 Stay Current with Azure Updates: Azure services are constantly evolving. Make sure
you are up-to-date with the latest features and updates to Azure services relevant to data
engineering.
  Prepare Your Portfolio: If possible, bring examples of your work or case studies that
demonstrate your skills and experience with Azure data services. This can help
interviewers understand your expertise in a tangible way.
 Ask Insightful Questions: Develop thoughtful questions about the company's data
strategy, current data infrastructure, and how they leverage Azure services. This shows
your interest in the role and your strategic thinking skills.
 Conduct Mock Interviews: Practice your interview skills with a colleague or mentor
who is familiar with Azure data services. This will help you articulate your thoughts
clearly and give you a chance to receive constructive feedback.

By following these steps, you'll be able to demonstrate not just your technical abilities, but also
your strategic understanding of how to leverage Azure data services to drive business value. This
preparation will help you to engage confidently in discussions about your potential role and
contributions to the company's data-driven objectives.
Azure Data Engineer Interview Questions and Answers

"How do you ensure data security and compliance when working with Azure

Data Services?"
This question assesses your knowledge of security best practices and regulatory compliance
within Azure's data ecosystem. It's crucial for protecting sensitive information and adhering to
legal standards.

How to Answer It

Discuss specific Azure security features and compliance certifications. Explain how you apply
these to safeguard data and meet compliance requirements. Mention any experience with Azure
Policy, Blueprints, and role-based access control (RBAC).

Example Answer
"In my previous role, I ensured data security by implementing Azure Active Directory for
identity management and RBAC to restrict access based on the principle of least privilege. I also
used Azure Policy to enforce organizational standards and compliance requirements. For GDPR
compliance, we leveraged Azure's compliance offerings, ensuring our data practices met EU
standards."
"Can you describe your experience with data modeling and database design in

Azure?"
This question evaluates your technical skills in structuring data effectively for storage and
retrieval in Azure's data services.

How to Answer It

Detail your experience with Azure SQL Database, Cosmos DB, or other Azure data storage
services. Discuss how you approach normalization, partitioning, and indexing in the context of
performance and scalability.

Example Answer
"In my last project, I designed a data model for a high-traffic e-commerce platform using Azure
SQL Database. I focused on normalization to eliminate redundancy and implemented
partitioning strategies to enhance query performance. Additionally, I used indexing to speed up
searches on large datasets, which significantly improved our application's response times."

"How do you handle data transformation and processing in Azure?"

This question probes your proficiency with Azure's data processing tools and your ability to
transform raw data into actionable insights.

How to Answer It

Describe your experience with Azure Data Factory, Azure Databricks, or Azure Synapse
Analytics. Explain how you use these tools for ETL processes, data cleaning, and transformation
tasks.

Example Answer
"In my role as a Data Engineer, I frequently used Azure Data Factory for orchestrating ETL
pipelines. For complex data processing, I leveraged Azure Databricks, which allowed me to
perform transformations using Spark and integrate with machine learning models. This
streamlined our data workflows and enabled real-time analytics."

"Explain how you monitor and optimize Azure data solutions for performance."
This question checks your ability to maintain and improve the efficiency of data systems in
Azure.
How to Answer It

Talk about your use of Azure Monitor, Azure SQL Database's Performance Insights, and other
tools to track performance metrics. Discuss how you interpret these metrics and take action to
optimize systems.

Example Answer
"To monitor Azure data solutions, I use Azure Monitor and Application Insights to track
performance and set up alerts for any anomalies. For SQL databases, I rely on Performance
Insights to identify bottlenecks. Recently, I optimized a query that reduced the execution time by
50% by analyzing the execution plan and adding appropriate indexes."

"How do you approach disaster recovery and high availability in Azure?"

This question assesses your understanding of business continuity strategies within the Azure
platform.

How to Answer It

Explain the importance of disaster recovery planning and high availability. Describe how you
use Azure's built-in features like geo-replication, failover groups, and Azure Site Recovery.

Example Answer
"In my previous role, I designed a disaster recovery strategy using Azure's geo-replication for
Azure SQL databases to ensure high availability. We had active geo-replication across multiple
regions and used failover groups for automatic failover in case of an outage. Regular drills and
updates to our disaster recovery plan were part of our routine to minimize potential data loss."

"Describe your experience with data integration in Azure. How do you handle

different data sources and formats?"

This question explores your ability to work with diverse data sets and integrate them within the
Azure ecosystem.

How to Answer It

Discuss your experience with Azure Data Factory, Logic Apps, or Event Hubs for data
integration. Mention how you deal with various data formats and protocols to ensure seamless
data flow.
Example Answer
"In my last project, I integrated multiple data sources using Azure Data Factory. I created custom
connectors for APIs that were not natively supported and transformed JSON, CSV, and XML
data into a unified format for our data warehouse. This allowed for consistent data analysis
across different business units."

"How do you use Azure's data analytics services to provide insights to

stakeholders?"
This question tests your ability to leverage Azure's analytics services to drive business decisions.

How to Answer It

Describe your experience with Azure Synapse Analytics, Power BI, or Azure Analysis Services.
Explain how you transform raw data into meaningful reports and dashboards for stakeholders.

Example Answer
"At my previous job, I used Azure Synapse Analytics to aggregate data from various sources into
a single analytics platform. I then created interactive dashboards in Power BI, providing
stakeholders with real-time insights into customer behavior and sales trends. This enabled data-
driven decision-making and identified new market opportunities."

"What is your process for troubleshooting issues in Azure data pipelines?"

This question evaluates your problem-solving skills and your approach to maintaining reliable
data pipelines.

How to Answer It

Discuss your methodology for identifying, diagnosing, and resolving data pipeline issues.
Mention tools like Azure Monitor, Log Analytics, or custom logging solutions you've
implemented.

Example Answer
"When troubleshooting Azure data pipelines, I first consult Azure Monitor logs to identify the
issue. For complex problems, I use Log Analytics to query and analyze detailed logs. Recently, I
resolved a data inconsistency issue by tracing the pipeline's execution history, identifying a
transformation error, and implementing a fix to prevent future occurrences."
Find & Apply for Azure Data Engineer jobs
Explore the newest Azure Data Engineer openings across industries, locations, salary ranges, and
more.
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Which Questions Should You Ask in a Azure Data

Engineer Interview?
In the dynamic field of Azure Data Engineering, the interview process is not just about
showcasing your technical expertise, but also about demonstrating your strategic thinking and
alignment with the company's data vision. As a candidate, the questions you ask can significantly
influence the interviewer's perception of your analytical skills, your engagement with the role,
and your long-term potential. Moreover, these questions are crucial for you to determine if the
position aligns with your career goals, values, and expectations for professional growth. By
asking insightful questions, you take an active role in the interview, transitioning from a passive
candidate to an informed decision-maker who is evaluating the opportunity with a critical eye.

Good Questions to Ask the Interviewer

"Can you describe the current data architecture in use and how the data engineering team
contributes to its evolution?"

This question underscores your interest in understanding the company's data infrastructure and
your potential role in shaping it. It reflects your desire to engage with existing systems and to
contribute to their strategic development, indicating that you are thinking about your fit within
the team and the value you can add.

"What are the main data sources that the company relies on, and what are the biggest
challenges in managing and integrating these sources?"

Asking this allows you to grasp the complexity of the data ecosystem you'll be working with. It
also shows that you are considering the practical challenges you might face and are eager to
understand how the company approaches data integration and management issues.
"How does the company approach data governance, and what role do Azure Data
Engineers play in ensuring data quality and compliance?"

This question demonstrates your awareness of the importance of data governance and your
commitment to maintaining high standards of data quality and regulatory compliance. It helps
you assess the company's dedication to these principles and your potential responsibilities.

"Could you share an example of a recent project the data engineering team has worked on
and the impact it had on the business?"

Inquiring about specific projects and their outcomes shows your interest in the tangible results of
the team's work. This question can provide insights into the types of projects you might be
involved in and how the company measures success in data engineering initiatives.
What Does a Good Azure Data Engineer Candidate Look Like?
In the evolving landscape of cloud services, a good Azure Data Engineer candidate is someone
who not only has a strong foundation in data processing and storage but also possesses a blend of
technical expertise, strategic thinking, and soft skills. Employers and hiring managers are on the
lookout for candidates who can design and implement data solutions that are scalable, reliable,
and secure within the Azure ecosystem. They value individuals who can collaborate effectively
with cross-functional teams, communicate complex ideas with clarity, and continuously adapt to
new technologies and methodologies. A strong candidate is expected to bridge the gap between
business requirements and technical execution, ensuring that data strategies contribute to the
overall success of the organization.

Technical Proficiency in Azure Services

A good Azure Data Engineer must have in-depth knowledge of Azure data services such as
Azure SQL Database, Azure Cosmos DB, Azure Data Lake Storage, Azure Data Factory, and
Azure Databricks. They should be able to leverage these services to build and maintain robust
data pipelines and facilitate data storage, processing, and analytics.

Understanding of Data Modeling and ETL Processes

Candidates should demonstrate expertise in data modeling principles and ETL (Extract,
Transform, Load) processes. This includes the ability to design data schemas that support both
operational and analytical use cases and to develop efficient data transformations that meet
business intelligence needs.

Proficiency in Data Security and Compliance

With data security being paramount, a proficient Azure Data Engineer must understand and
implement Azure security features and compliance standards. They should be familiar with
concepts such as encryption, data masking, and access control, as well as industry-specific
compliance regulations.

Adaptability to Evolving Technologies

The cloud ecosystem is continuously changing, and a strong candidate must show a commitment
to learning and adapting to new Azure features and services. They should be proactive in keeping
their skills current and be able to apply new knowledge to solve emerging business challenges.

Collaborative Mindset

Data engineering often requires close collaboration with other technical teams, such as data
scientists and software developers, as well as non-technical stakeholders. A good candidate
should be able to work effectively in a team environment, share knowledge, and contribute to a
culture of innovation.

Effective Communication Skills

The ability to communicate technical details to non-technical stakeholders is crucial. A good
Azure Data Engineer candidate should be able to articulate the value and function of data
solutions, present complex ideas in an understandable manner, and translate business
requirements into technical specifications.

By embodying these qualities, an Azure Data Engineer candidate can position themselves as a
valuable asset to any organization looking to leverage data within the Azure cloud platform.
Interview FAQs for Azure Data Engineers
What is the most common interview question for Azure Data Engineers?
"How do you design a scalable and reliable data processing solution in Azure?" This question
evaluates your architectural skills and knowledge of Azure services. A strong response should
highlight your proficiency with Azure Data Factory, Azure Databricks, and Azure Synapse
Analytics, and your ability to integrate these tools to handle data ingestion, transformation, and
storage efficiently. Mentioning best practices for data partitioning, stream processing, and
implementing CI/CD pipelines would also showcase your comprehensive approach to building
robust data solutions.

What's the best way to discuss past failures or challenges in a Azure Data
Engineer interview?
To demonstrate problem-solving skills as an Azure Data Engineer, recount a complex data issue
you tackled. Detail your methodical approach, including how you leveraged Azure tools (like
Azure Databricks or Data Factory), conducted root cause analysis, and iterated through solutions.
Emphasize collaboration with stakeholders, your use of data to inform decisions, and the positive
outcome, such as enhanced data pipeline efficiency or reduced costs, illustrating your technical
acumen and impact-driven mindset.

How can I effectively showcase problem-solving skills in a Azure Data Engineer

interview?
To demonstrate problem-solving skills as an Azure Data Engineer, recount a complex
data issue you tackled. Detail your methodical approach, including how you leveraged
Azure tools (like Azure Databricks or Data Factory), conducted root cause analysis, and
iterated through solutions. Emphasize collaboration with stakeholders, your use of data
to inform decisions, and the positive outcome, such as enhanced data pipeline
efficiency or reduced costs, illustrating your technical acumen and impact-driven
mindset.
Basic Azure Data Engineer Interview
Questions and Answers
If you’re someone who’s just starting, here are some basic Azure data
engineer interview questions:

1. Define Microsoft Azure

You can answer this Azure data engineer interview question by stating that
Azure is a cloud computing platform that offers hardware and software both.
It provides a managed service that allows users to access the services that
are in demand.

2. List the data masking features of Azure

When it comes to data security, dynamic data masking has several vital roles
and contains sensitive data to a certain specific set of users. Some of its
features are:

 It’s available for Azure SQL Database, Azure SQL Managed Instance,
and Azure Synapse Analytics.
 It can be carried out as a security policy on all the different SQL
databases across the Azure subscription.
 The levels of masking can be controlled per the users' needs.

3. What is Meant By a Polybase?

You can answer this Azure data engineer interview question by stating that a
polybase is used to optimize data ingestion into the PDW and support T-SQL.
It lets developers transfer external data transparently from supported data
stores, no matter the storage architecture of the external data store.

4. Define Reserved Capacity in Azure

You can answer this Azure data engineer interview question by stating that
Microsoft has included a reserved capacity option in Azure storage to
optimize costs. The reserved storage gives its customers a fixed amount of
capacity during the reservation period on the Azure cloud.
5. What is Meant by the Azure Data
Factory?
Azure Data Factory is a cloud-based integration service that lets users build
data-driven workflows within the cloud to arrange and automate data
movement and transformation. Using Azure Data Factory, you can:

 Develop and schedule data-driven workflows that can take data from
different data stores.
 Process and transform data with the help of computing services such
as HDInsight Hadoop, Spark, Azure Data Lake Analytics, and Azure
Machine Learning.
Also read: Amazon Data Engineer Interview Questions

Intermediate Azure Data Engineer

Interview Questions and Answers
When applying for intermediate-level roles, these are the Azure data
engineer interview questions you can expect:

1. What is Blob Storage in Azure?

You can answer this Azure data engineer interview question by stating that it
is a service that lets users store massive amounts of unstructured object
data such as binary data or text. It can even be used to publicly showcase
data or privately store the application data. Blog storage is commonly used
for:

 Providing images or documents to a browser directly

 Audio and video streaming
 Data storage for backup and restore disaster recovery
 Data storage for analysis using an on-premises or Azure-hosted service

2. Define the Steps Involved in Creating

the ETL Process in Azure Data Factory
You can answer this Azure data engineer interview question by stating the
following steps. These are involved in creating the ETL process in Azure Data
Factory are:

 In the SQL Server Database, create a Linked Service for the source
data store
 For the destination data store, build a Linked Service that is the Azure
Data Lake Store
 For Data Saving purposes, create a dataset
 Build the pipeline and then add the copy activity
 Plan the pipeline by attaching a trigger

3. Define Serverless Database Computing

in Azure
You can answer this Azure data engineer interview question by stating that
the program code is typically present either on the client-side or the server.
However, serverless computing accompanies the stateless code nature,
which means the code doesn’t need any infrastructure.

Users have to pay to access the compute resources the code uses within the
brief period in which the code is being executed. It's cost-effective, and users
need to pay only for the resources they have used.

Also read: The Ultimate Data Engineer Interview Guide

4. Explain the Top-Level Concepts of

Azure Data Factory
The top-level concepts of Azure Data Factory are as follows:

i. Pipeline
It is used as a carrier for the numerous processes taking place. Every
individual process is known as an activity.

ii. Activities
Activities stand for the process steps involved in a pipeline. A pipeline has
one or multiple activities and can be anything. This means querying a data
set or transferring the dataset from one source to the other.

iii. Datasets
Simply put, it’s a structure that holds the data.

iv. Linked Services

Used for storing critical information when connecting an external source.

Also read: Facebook Data Engineer Interview Questions

Advanced Azure Data Engineer Interview

Questions and Answers
You need to prepare these Azure data engineer interview questions for
experienced professionals when applying for more advanced positions:

1. How is a Pipeline Scheduled?

You can answer this Azure data engineer interview question by stating that
to schedule a pipeline, you could take the help of the scheduler trigger or the
time window trigger. This trigger uses the wall-clock calendar schedule and
can plan pipelines at periodic intervals or calendar-based recurring patterns.

2. What’s the Significance of the Azure

Cosmos DB Synthetic Partition Key?
You can answer this Azure data engineer interview question by stating that
to distribute the data uniformly across multiple partitions, selecting a good
partition key is pretty important. A Synthetic partition key can be developed
when there isn’t any right column with properly distributed values.

Here are the three ways in which a synthetic partition key can be created:

i. Concatenate Properties: Combine several property values to create

a synthetic partition key.
ii. Random Suffix: A random number is added at the end of the partition
key's value.
iii. Pre-calculated Suffix: Add a pre-calculated number to the end of the
partition to enhance read performance.
Also read: How to Prepare for Data Engineer Interviews

3. Which Data Factory Version Needs to

be used to Create Data Flows?
You can answer this Azure data engineer interview question by stating that
using the Data Factory V2 version is recommended when creating data
flows.

4. How to Pass the Parameters to a

Pipeline Run?
In Data Factory, parameters are a top-tier concept. You should further state
in this Azure data engineer interview question that they can be defined at
the pipeline level, followed by the passing of arguments to execute the
pipeline run on-demand or upon using a trigger.

These are some important Azure data engineer interview questions that will
give you an idea of what to expect in the interview. Also, ensure that you
prepare these topics — Security, DevOps, CI/CD, Infrastructure as a Code
best practices, Subscription, Billing Management, etc.

As you prepare for your DE interview, it would be best to study Azure using a
holistic approach that extends beyond the fundamentals of the role. Don’t
forget to prep your resume as well with the help of the Data Engineer
Resume Guide.

Also read: 15 Skills to Ace Data Engineering Interviews

How to Crack a Data Engineer Interview

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FAQs: Azure Data Engineer Interview
Questions
Q1. What Does An Azure Data Engineer Do?

Azure data engineers are responsible for the integration, transformation,

operation, and consolidation of data from structured or unstructured data
systems.

Q2. What Skills are Needed to Become an Azure Data Engineer?

As an Azure data engineer, you’ll need to have skills such as Database

system management (SQL or Non-SQL), Data warehousing, ETL (Extract,
Transform and Load) tools, Machine Learning, knowledge of programming
language basics (Python/Java), and so on.

Q3. How to Prepare for the Azure Data Engineer Interview?

Get a good understanding of Azure’s Modern Enterprise Data and Analytics

Platform and build your knowledge across its other specialties. Further, you
should also be able to communicate the business value of the Azure Data
Platform.

Q4. What are the Important Azure Data Engineer Interview

Questions?

Some important Azure data engineer interview questions are as follows:

i. What is the difference between Azure Data Lake Store and Blob
storage?
ii. Differentiate between Control Flow activities and Data Flow
Transformations.
iii. How is the Data factory pipeline manually executed?
Q5. Are Azure Data Engineers in demand?
The answer is yes. As per Enlyft, almost 567,824 businesses are using the
Azure platform worldwide. This implies that the business and its needs are
growing. So, it’s safe to say that Microsoft Azure data engineers are highly in
demand.

Top 20 Azure Data Engineers Interview

Questions and Answers For Beginners
Ques-1. What is an Azure Data Engineer?
An Azure Data Engineer is responsible
for designing, implementing, and managing cloud-based data
solutions using Microsoft Azure. They work on data ingestion,
storage, processing, and security.

Read More:

Azure Skills in Demand 2024!

Azure Roadmap to Become Azure Developer

How to Become Azure Data Engineer: Skills, Responsibilities, and Caree

Path

Ques-2. What is Azure Data Factory?

Azure Data Factory (ADF) is a cloud-based ETL (Extract,
Transform, Load) service that allows you to create data-driven
workflows for orchestrating data movement and transformation across
various data stores. The diagram of ETL services is given below:

Ques-3. What is Azure Data Lake?

Azure Data Lake is a scalable cloud storage service for big data
analytics. It stores vast amounts of structured and unstructured
data and integrates with tools like Databricks and Synapse for
processing. It provides hierarchical storage, strong security, and cost-
effective storage tiers for efficient data management.

Ques-4. How does Azure Data Lake work?

Azure Data Lake works by providing a cloud-based, scalable storage
system that can handle vast amounts of data, both structured and
unstructured. Here’s how it functions:

1. Data Ingestion: You can ingest data from various sources

like databases, IoT devices, or on-premises systems using
services like Azure Data Factory or Event Hubs.
2. Storage: Data is stored in its raw format within Azure Data Lake
Storage, which supports hierarchical file systems for easy
organization and management.
3. Data Processing: Data can be processed using analytics tools
like Azure Databricks, HDInsight (Hadoop, Spark), and Azure
Synapse Analytics, allowing users to run complex queries,
machine learning models, or transform the data.
4. Security and Access Control: Azure Data Lake integrates
with Azure Active Directory for role-based access control (RBAC)
and provides encryption for data both at rest and in transit.
5. Scalability: The service automatically scales to handle
increasing data volumes without manual intervention, making it
suitable for large-scale analytics and data science tasks.

Ques-5. How would you ingest data in Azure?

Data can be ingested using various services like Azure Data
Factory, Azure Event Hubs, or Azure IoT Hub. ADF is commonly
used for batch processing, while Event Hubs are suited for real-time
data streams.

Ques-6. What are Azure Databricks?

Azure Databricks is an Apache Spark-based analytics platform
optimized for Azure. It allows data engineers to build large-scale data
pipelines, conduct real-time analytics, and collaborate in a cloud
environment.
Factors Azure SQL Database Azure Synapse Analytics

Optimized for large-scale

Optimized for Online Transaction
Purpose analytics and data warehousing
Processing (OLTP).
(OLAP).

Data Size Suitable for small to medium- Designed for large-scale data,
Handling sized databases. handling petabytes of data.

Best for transactional queries Suited for complex analytical

Query Type
(CRUD operations). queries and large datasets.

Storage Relational database with rows Combines relational data and big
Architecture and columns. data in a unified analytics service.

Performance Automatic scaling based on Scales massively for parallel

Scaling workloads. processing and large queries.

Similar backup features with

Backup and Automated backups and point-in-
advanced data warehousing
Recovery time restore.
capabilities.

OLTP applications, relational

Data warehousing, business
Use Cases databases, and real-time
intelligence, complex analytics.
transactions.

Ques-7. What are the differences between Azure

SQL Database and Azure Synapse Analytics?
The differences between Azure SQL database and Azure
Synapse Analytics are:

Ques-8. What is PolyBase in Azure Synapse

Analytics?
 PolyBase allows you to query external data in Azure Synapse
Analytics by using T-SQL, enabling access to data stored in sources
like Azure Blob Storage, Data Lake, and even other databases.

Ques-9. What are the different storage options

available to data engineers in Azure?
Azure offers Blob Storage, Azure Data Lake Storage, Azure SQL
Database, and Cosmos DB, among others. Each has its use case
based on scalability, data type, and cost.

Ques-10. How do you monitor data pipelines in

Azure?
Data pipelines in Azure can be monitored using built-in tools
like Azure Monitor, Azure Log Analytics, or Data Factory's
Monitoring and Alerts feature.

Ques-11. What is the difference between Azure

Blob Storage and Azure Data Lake Storage?

Factors Azure Blob Storage Azure Data Lake Storage

General-purpose object
Optimized for big data analytics with
Purpose storage for unstructured
the hierarchical namespace.
data.

Data Flat namespace (object Hierarchical namespace (file system-

Structure storage). like structure).

Target Use- General storage (media, Big data workloads (analytics, data
Case backups, logs, etc.). lakes, machine learning).
Integration Seamlessly integrates with Azure
Limited direct integration
with Databricks, HDInsight, and Synapse
with big data tools.
Analytics Analytics.

Higher costs due to enhanced

Typically lower for general-
Cost features for analytics and
purpose storage.
hierarchical structure.

Encryption is at rest, in
Same encryption but with advanced
Security transit, and integrated with
data management for analytics.
Azure AD.

The difference between Azure Blob Storage and Azure Data

Lake Storage are:

Ques-12. What is a Data Bricks Cluster?

A Databricks cluster is a set of virtual machines that run Apache
Spark. Clusters are used for processing big data workloads, and
they can auto-scale to meet data engineering demands.

Ques-13. How do you handle data security in

Azure?
Azure offers multiple layers of security, including encryption (at rest
and in transit), role-based access control (RBAC), and integration
with Azure Active Directory for authentication.
Ques-14. What are Azure Managed Disks?
Azure Managed Disks are storage services that automatically
manage storage based on the size and performance required by your
application. You don’t need to worry about underlying infrastructure
management.

Ques-15. What is Cosmos DB?

Azure Cosmos DB is a globally distributed, multi-model database
service designed for scalable, high-availability applications. It supports
various data models like key values, documents, and graphs.

Ques-16. What are Linked Services in Azure Data

Factory?
Linked Services in ADF are connections to external data sources
(e.g., SQL Server, Blob Storage). They define the connection strings
and credentials for accessing data during pipeline execution.

Ques-17. How do you create a data pipeline in

Azure Data Factory?
A data pipeline in ADF consists of activities (e.g., copy, transform)
that define the workflow for moving data between linked
services. Pipelines can be scheduled and monitored for automation.
Ques-18. What are the key benefits of using Azure
Synapse Analytics?
Azure Synapse Analytics integrates big data and data
warehousing into a single platform, allowing for unified analytics. It
also provides flexibility in using both SQL and Spark for analytics.

Ques-19. What is an Azure Data Warehouse?

Azure Data Warehouse (now called Azure Synapse Analytics) is
a cloud-based service designed to run complex analytical queries
over large amounts of data, providing high-performance computing for
data analysis.

Ques-20. How do you optimize data storage costs

in Azure?
Data storage costs can be optimized by selecting the right storage
tier (hot, cool, or archive), minimizing redundant data, using data
compression, and archiving infrequently accessed data in lower-cost
storage solutions like Blob or Data Lake.

Top 15 Azure Data Engineer Interview

Questions and Answers for Intermediate
Learners
Ques-21. What are Dedicated SQL Pools?
Dedicated SQL Pools are a feature of Azure Synapse Analytics
designed for high-performance data warehousing, enabling users to
efficiently store and analyze large volumes of data using Massively
Parallel Processing (MPP). They offer elastic scalability and
integration with various Azure services for comprehensive analytics.

 Massively Parallel Processing (MPP): Enables fast query

execution across multiple nodes.
 Elastic Scalability: Allows independent scaling of compute and
storage resources.
  Robust Security: Includes encryption, Azure Active Directory
authentication, and access control.
 T-SQL Querying: Users can utilize familiar SQL syntax for data
management and analysis.

Ques-22. Which service would you use to create a

Data Warehouse in Azure?
Azure Synapse Analytics may be used to establish a Data
Warehouse in Azure. More specifically, Dedicated SQL Pools in
Azure Synapse may be used to create and maintain a data
warehouse. This service is appropriate for large-scale data analytics
and business intelligence solutions due to its strong data processing
capabilities, scalability, and interaction with other Azure services.
Ques-23. How do you implement real-time
analytics in Azure?
Real-time analytics in Azure can be implemented using Azure
Stream Analytics or Azure Event Hubs to ingest and process
streaming data in real-time. This data can then be transformed and
analyzed, with results sent to visualization tools like Power BI or
stored in Azure Data Lake for further analysis.

Ques-24. What is the purpose of Delta Lake in

Azure Databricks?
Delta Lake is an open-source storage layer that
brings ACID transactions, scalable metadata handling, and data
versioning to big data workloads in Azure Databricks. It ensures data
reliability and consistency while allowing data engineers to manage
large volumes of data effectively and perform time travel queries.

Ques-25. What is Reserved Capacity in Azure?

Reserved Capacity in Azure allows customers to pre-purchase
resources for specific services over a one- or three-year term, resulting
in significant cost savings compared to pay-as-you-go pricing. This
option provides predictable budgeting and ensures resource
availability for consistent workloads.

Ques-26. What data masking features are available

in Azure?
Dynamic data masking plays several important responsibilities
in data security. It limits access to sensitive data to a certain
group of people.

 Dynamic Data Masking (DDM): This limits sensitive data

exposure by masking it in real-time for users without proper
access while allowing authorized users to view the original data.
 Static Data Masking: Creates a copy of the database with
sensitive data replaced by masked values, which is useful for
non-production environments and testing.
  Custom Masking Functions: Allows users to define specific
masking rules and patterns based on their business
requirements.
 Integration with Azure SQL Database: DDM can be applied
directly within Azure SQL Database and Azure Synapse
Analytics to protect sensitive data seamlessly.
 Role-Based Access Control (RBAC): Works in conjunction with
RBAC to ensure that only authorized users can access sensitive
data without masking.

Ques-27. What is Polybase?

PolyBase is a technology in Azure Synapse Analytics that enables
users to query and manage external data stored in Azure Blob
Storage or Azure Data Lake using T-SQL, allowing for seamless
integration of structured and unstructured data. It simplifies data
access by eliminating the need to move data into the database for
analysis, facilitating hybrid data management.

 Seamless Integration: Allows querying of external data sources

alongside data stored in the data warehouse.
 T-SQL Support: Users can write familiar T-SQL queries to access
and manipulate external data.
 Data Movement: Eliminates the need for data ingestion before
querying, saving time and resources.
 Support for Multiple Formats: Can query data in various
formats, including CSV, Parquet, and more.
 Performance Optimization: Provides options for optimizing
performance during external data queries.

Ques-27. What is data redundancy in Azure?

Data redundancy in Azure refers to the practice of storing copies of
data across multiple locations or systems to ensure its availability and
durability in case of failures or data loss. This strategy enhances data
protection and accessibility, making it a critical aspect of cloud storage
solutions.

 High Availability: Ensures continuous access to data even

during outages or hardware failures.
  Disaster Recovery: Facilitates quick recovery of data in case of
accidental deletion or corruption.
 Geo-Redundancy: Supports data replication across multiple
Azure regions for enhanced durability and compliance.
 Automatic Backups: Azure services often include built-in
mechanisms for automatic data backups to prevent loss.
 Cost-Effective Solutions: Offers various redundancy options
(e.g., locally redundant storage, geo-redundant storage) to
balance cost and data protection needs.

Ques-28. What are some ways to ingest data from

on-premise storage to Azure?
Here are some ways to ingest data from on-premises storage
to Azure in short bullet points:

 Azure Data Factory: Create data pipelines to move data to

Azure services with support for various sources.
 Azure Data Box: A physical device is used to transfer large
amounts of data securely by shipping it to Azure.
 Azure Import/Export Service: Import and export data to/from
Azure Blob Storage using hard drives.
 Azure Logic Apps: Automate workflows for data movement
between on-premises and cloud services with predefined
connectors.
 Azure Data Gateway: Connect on-premises data sources to
Azure services securely, enabling real-time access.

Ques-29. What are multi-model databases?

Multi-model databases are database management systems that
support multiple data models (e.g., relational, document, key-value,
graph) within a single platform. This allows users to store and manage
diverse data types seamlessly, enabling flexible querying and
simplifying application development.

Here are the key features of a multi-model database:

 Unified Storage: Manage structured, semi-structured, and

unstructured data in one system.
  Flexible Querying: Use various query languages and APIs for
different data models.
 Improved Development: Reduces the need for multiple
databases, streamlining development.
 Data Relationships: Easily model complex relationships
between different data types.
 Scalability: Designed to scale horizontally to handle large
volumes of data.

Ques-30. What is the Azure Cosmos DB synthetic

partition key?
Azure Cosmos DB synthetic partition key is a feature that allows
users to create a composite partition key by combining multiple
properties of an item in a container. This improves data distribution,
reduces hotspots, and enhances query performance by optimizing how
data is partitioned across the system.

 Composite Key Creation: Combines multiple properties to form

a single logical key.
 Enhanced Performance: Reduces hotspots for better read and
write operations.
 Flexibility: Users can define keys based on specific access
patterns.
 Dynamic Partitioning: Adapts to changes in data distribution
over time.

Ques-31. What various consistency models are

available in Cosmos DB?
Azure Cosmos DB offers five consistency models to balance
performance, availability, and data consistency:

1. Strong Consistency: This guarantees linearizability, ensuring

that reads always return the most recent committed write.
2. Bounded Staleness: Allows reads to return data within a
defined time interval or version count, providing some staleness
with consistency.
3. Session Consistency: Ensures reads within a session and
returns the most recent write by that session, balancing
consistency and performance.
 4. Consistent Prefix: Guarantees that reads will return all updates
made prior to a point, maintaining operation order but allowing
some staleness.
5. Eventual Consistency: Provides the lowest consistency level,
where reads may return stale data but guarantees eventual
convergence of all replicas.

Ques-32. What is the difference between Data Lake

and Delta Lake?
The critical differences between Data Lake and Delta Lake are:

Factors Data Lake Delta Lake

A centralized repository to store An open-source storage layer tha

Definition large volumes of structured and brings ACID transactions to dat
unstructured data. lakes.

Data It can store data in its raw Uses a structured format wit
Structure format without any schema. schema enforcement and evolution.

Schema-on-read: schema is Schema-on-write: schema is applie

Schema
applied when data is read. when data is written.

Transactio Generally lacks ACID transaction Supports ACID transactions for dat
ns support. integrity.

Data
Data consistency issues may be Ensures data consistency an
Consistenc
due to concurrent writing. reliability through transactions.
y

Suitable for data exploration, Ideal for big data processing, dat
Use cases
machine learning, and analytics. engineering, and real-time analytics
 Generally cheaper for storage It may have higher storage cost
Cost but may incur higher costs for due to additional features, but
data processing. improves processing efficiency.

Ques-33. What are the data flow partitioning

schemes in Azure?
In Azure, data flow partitioning schemes optimize data processing
by distributing workloads across multiple nodes, enhancing
performance and resource utilization. Various schemes can be used
depending on the data characteristics and application requirements.

 Hash Partitioning: Distributes data evenly based on a hash

function applied to a specified column.
 Range Partitioning: Divides data into partitions based on
specified value ranges, effective for ordered data.
 Round-Robin Partitioning: Evenly distributes data across all
partitions in a circular manner, ensuring equal workload.
 List Partitioning: Allocates data to specific partitions based on
a predefined list of values.
 Composite Partitioning: Combines multiple partitioning
schemes (e.g., hash and range) for enhanced performance on
complex queries.

Ques-34. What is the trigger execution in Azure

Data Factory?
Trigger execution in Azure Data Factory allows for the automatic
initiation of data pipelines based on specific events, schedules, or
conditions. This feature enhances automation and ensures timely data
processing for integration and transformation tasks.

 Scheduled Triggers: Start pipelines at predefined intervals or

specific times.
 Event-Based Triggers: Initiate pipelines in response to data
changes or external events.
 Pipeline Triggers: Trigger one pipeline upon the completion of
another, enabling complex workflow orchestration.
Ques-35. What are Mapping Dataflows?
Mapping Dataflows in Azure Data Factory is a visual data
transformation feature that enables users to design and execute data
transformations without writing code. This user-friendly interface
simplifies the creation of complex data workflows for integrating and
manipulating data from various sources.

 Visual Interface: Drag-and-drop components to build data

transformation workflows easily.
 Comprehensive Transformations: Supports a wide range of
operations, including joins, aggregations, and filtering.
 Integration: Connects to various data sources and sinks,
facilitating seamless data movement.
 Scalability: Leverages Azure's infrastructure to efficiently
process large volumes of data.

Top 15 Azure Data Engineer Interview

Questions and Answers for Experienced
Learners
Ques-36. What are the differences between Azure
Data Lake Storage Gen1 and Gen2?
The differences between Azure Data Lake Storage Gen1 and
Gen2 are:

Azure Data Lake

Factors Azure Data Lake Storage Gen2
Storage Gen1

Built on a proprietary
Architecture Built on Azure Blob Storage
architecture

Namespace Flat namespace Hierarchical namespace

Access
Basic access control Fine-grained access control with ACLs
Control

Optimized for big data

Performance Improved performance and lower latency
workloads

Cost
Pay-per-use model Pay-as-you-go with competitive pricing
Structure

Data Limited management Enhanced management features, includin

Management capabilities lifecycle management

Security Advanced security with encryption at res

Basic security features
Features and in transit

Ques-37. How does Azure Synapse Analytics

integrate with other Azure services?
Azure Synapse integrates with services like Azure Data
Factory for ETL processes, Azure Machine
Learning for predictive analytics, and Power BI for data
visualization, creating a comprehensive analytics ecosystem.

Question-38. Explain the concept of serverless SQL

pools in Azure Synapse Analytics.
Serverless SQL pools in Azure Synapse Analytics allow users to
run T-SQL queries on data stored in Azure Data Lake or Blob
Storage without provisioning dedicated resources. This on-demand
querying model is cost-effective, scalable, and easy to use for
analyzing large datasets.

 On-Demand Querying: Execute queries directly on data without

ingestion into a data warehouse.
 Pay-Per-Query Pricing: Costs are incurred based on the
amount of data processed, allowing for budget control.
  Integration: Easily integrates with services like Power BI and
Azure Data Factory for enhanced analytics.
 Scalability: Automatically scales resources based on query
demands, accommodating varying workloads.

Ques-39. What are the benefits of using Azure Data

Factory for data movement?
Here are the benefits of using Azure Data Factory for data
movement in short bullet points:

 Unified Interface: Provides a single platform for data

integration, allowing users to manage and orchestrate data
workflows easily.
 Wide Data Source Support: Connects to various data sources,
both on-premises and in the cloud, facilitating seamless data
movement.
 Scalability: Automatically scales resources to handle large
volumes of data efficiently, accommodating growing workloads.
 Scheduled Workflows: Supports scheduling and event-based
triggers for automated data movement, ensuring timely
processing.
 Monitoring and Debugging: Offers built-in monitoring tools to
track data flows, identify bottlenecks, and troubleshoot issues.

Ques-40. How can you optimize performance in

Azure SQL Database?
Some key strategies to optimize performance in Azure SQL
Database:

 Indexing: Create and maintain appropriate indexes to speed up

query performance and reduce data retrieval times.
 Query Optimization: Analyze and rewrite queries to improve
execution plans and reduce resource consumption.
 Elastic Pools: Use elastic pools to manage and allocate
resources across multiple databases, optimizing performance for
variable workloads.
 Automatic Tuning: Enable automatic tuning features to
automatically identify and implement performance
 enhancements, such as creating missing indexes or removing
unused ones.
 Partitioning: Implement table partitioning to improve query
performance and manage large datasets more efficiently.
 Connection Management: Optimize connection pooling and
limit the number of concurrent connections to reduce overhead.

Ques-41. What is the role of Azure Stream

Analytics in real-time data processing?
Azure Stream Analytics is a real-time analytics service that enables
the processing and analysis of streaming data from various sources,
such as IoT devices and social media. It provides immediate insights
and actions, making it essential for applications requiring real-time
decision-making.
Roles of Azure Stream Analytics in Real-Time Data Processing:

 Real-Time Analytics: Processes and analyzes streaming data to

deliver immediate insights and facilitate quick decision-making.
 Event Processing: Supports complex event processing (CEP) to
identify patterns, anomalies, and trends in real-time data
streams.
 Integration: Seamlessly integrates with Azure services like
Azure Event Hubs and Azure Data Lake for efficient data
ingestion and storage.
 Scalable Processing: Automatically scales resources to
accommodate fluctuating data loads, ensuring reliable processing
of large volumes.
 Output Options: Delivers processed results to various
destinations, including Azure Blob Storage, Azure SQL Database,
and Power BI for visualization.
 SQL-like Language: Utilizes SQL-like query language for easy
data manipulation, making it accessible to users familiar with
SQL.

Ques-42. Describe how you would implement data

encryption in Azure.
Here’s a concise approach to implementing data encryption in
Azure, presented in bullet points:
1. Data at Rest Encryption:
 Azure Storage Service Encryption (SSE): Automatically
encrypts data in Azure Blob Storage, Files, Queue, and Table
Storage using managed or customer-managed keys.
 Transparent Data Encryption (TDE): Encrypts SQL Database
data and log files automatically without application changes.
 Azure Disk Encryption: Encrypts virtual machine disks using
BitLocker (Windows) or DM-Crypt (Linux).

2. Data in Transit Encryption:

 TLS/SSL: Use Transport Layer Security to encrypt data between
clients and Azure services.
 VPN Gateway: Establish secure connections to Azure resources,
encrypting data over the internet.
 Azure ExpressRoute: Create private connections with optional
encryption for added security.

3. Key Management:
 Azure Key Vault: Store and manage cryptographic keys,
implementing access controls and key rotation policies.

4. Data Access Controls:

 Role-Based Access Control (RBAC): Manage user access to
resources, ensuring only authorized users access encrypted data.
 Access Policies: Restrict access to encryption keys in Azure Key
Vault.

5. Compliance and Monitoring:

 Compliance Standards: Ensure encryption practices meet
industry regulations (e.g., GDPR, HIPAA).
 Azure Security Center: Monitor security configurations and
receive alerts about encryption-related issues.

Ques-43. What are Azure Data Warehouse features

that support big data analytics?
Azure Synapse Analytics (formerly SQL Data
Warehouse) supports big data analytics through features like
integrated Apache Spark pools, serverless SQL capabilities, and
support for unstructured data through Azure Data Lake integration.

Ques-44. How do you handle schema changes in

Azure Data Factory?
Schema changes can be managed using the schema drift feature,
allowing Data Factory to adapt to changes dynamically. Additionally,
parameterization and metadata-driven approaches can help manage
schema changes effectively.

Ques-45. Explain the concept of data lineage in

Azure Data Factory.
Data lineage in Azure Data Factory refers to the tracking and
visualization of the flow of data from source to destination, providing
insights into data transformations, dependencies, and data quality
throughout the pipeline.

Ques-46. What are the different types of triggers

available in Azure Data Factory?
Azure Data Factory supports scheduled triggers for time-based
executions, event-based triggers for responding to changes in data,
and manual triggers for on-demand executions.

Ques-47. How can you implement data retention

policies in Azure?
Data retention policies can be implemented using Azure Blob Storage
lifecycle management to automatically delete or move data after a
specified time period, ensuring compliance and efficient storage
management.

Ques-48. What is Azure Cosmos DB’s multi-model

capability, and why is it important?
Azure Cosmos DB’s multi-model capability allows it to natively
support various data models, including document, key-value, graph,
and column family. This flexibility enables developers to choose the
most suitable data model for their applications.

Ques-49. How do you ensure data quality in your

Azure data pipelines?
Data quality can be ensured by implementing validation checks,
using data profiling tools, setting up alerts for anomalies, and
establishing data cleansing processes within the data pipeline.

Ques-50. Describe a scenario where you would use

Azure Functions in a data engineering context.
Azure Functions can be used to process data in real-time as it arrives
in Azure Event Hubs or Service Bus, performing lightweight
transformations or triggering data workflows in Azure Data
Factory based on events.

100+ Azure Data Engineer

Interview Questions and Answers
Updated 7 Nov 2024
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Q1. 7. How can we load multiple(50)tables
at a time using adf?
Ans.
You can load multiple tables at a time using Azure Data Factory
by creating a single pipeline with multiple copy activities.
 Create a pipeline in Azure Data Factory
 Add multiple copy activities to the pipeline, each copy
activity for loading data from one table
 Configure each copy activity to load data from a different
table
 Run the pipeline to load data from all tables simultaneously
View 1 answer
Azure Data Factory
Data Engineering
Q2. Difference between RDD, Dataframe and
Dataset. How and what you have used in
you databricks for data anlysis
Ans.
RDD, Dataframe and Dataset are data structures in Spark. RDD is
a low-level structure, Dataframe is tabular and Dataset is a
combination of both.
 RDD stands for Resilient Distributed Datasets and is a low-
level structure in Spark that is immutable and fault-tolerant.
 Dataframe is a tabular structure with named columns and is
similar to a table in a relational database.
 Dataset is a combination of RDD and Dataframe and
provides type-safety and object-oriented programming
features.
 In Databricks, I have used Dataframe extensively for data
analysis and manipulation tasks.
Add your answer
Big Data
Spark
Azure Data Engineer Interview Questions and Answers for Freshers
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Q3. What is incremental load and other
types of loads? How do you implement
incremental load in your ADF pipeline?
Ans.
Incremental load is a process of updating only the new or
changed data in a target system. Other types of loads include full
load and delta load.
 Incremental load reduces the time and resources required to
update the target system.
 Full load loads all the data from the source system to the
target system.
 Delta load loads only the changed data from the source
system to the target system.
 In ADF pipeline, incremental load can be implemented using
watermarking or change data capture (CDC) techniques.
 Watermarking involves adding a column to the source data
that tracks the last updated time or ID.
 CDC involves capturing the changes made to the source
data since the last update and loading only those changes to
the target system.
Add your answer
Azure Data Factory
Data Engineering
ETL
Q4. 2. What is the get metadata activity and
what are the parameters we have to pass?
Ans.
Get metadata activity is used to retrieve metadata of a specified
data store or dataset in Azure Data Factory.
 Get metadata activity is used in Azure Data Factory to
retrieve metadata of a specified data store or dataset.
 Parameters to pass include dataset, linked service, and
optional folder path.
 The output of the activity includes information like schema,
size, last modified timestamp, etc.
 Example: Get metadata of a SQL Server table using a linked
service to the database.
View 1 answer
Azure Data Factory
Data Engineering
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Q5. What are key components in ADF? What
all you have used in your pipeline?
Ans.
ADF key components include pipelines, activities, datasets,
triggers, and linked services.
 Pipelines - logical grouping of activities
 Activities - individual tasks within a pipeline
 Datasets - data sources and destinations
 Triggers - event-based or time-based execution of pipelines
 Linked Services - connections to external data sources
 Examples: Copy Data activity, Lookup activity, Blob Storage
dataset
Add your answer
Azure Data Factory
Data Engineering
Q6. 3. How can we monitor the child
pipeline in the master pipeline?
Ans.
You can monitor the child pipeline in the master pipeline by using
Azure Monitor or Azure Data Factory monitoring tools.
 Use Azure Monitor to track the performance and health of
the child pipeline within the master pipeline.
 Leverage Azure Data Factory monitoring tools to view
detailed logs and metrics for the child pipeline execution.
 Set up alerts and notifications to be informed of any issues
or failures in the child pipeline.
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Q7. What are the error handling
mechanisms in ADF pipelines?
Ans.
ADF pipelines have several error handling mechanisms to ensure
data integrity and pipeline reliability.
 ADF provides built-in retry mechanisms for transient errors
such as network connectivity issues or service outages.
 ADF also supports custom error handling through the use of
conditional activities and error outputs.
 Error outputs can be used to redirect failed data to a
separate pipeline or storage location for further analysis.
 ADF also provides logging and monitoring capabilities to
track pipeline execution and identify errors.
 In addition, ADF supports error notifications through email or
webhook triggers.
Add your answer
Azure Data Factory
Data Engineering
Q8. How do you design an effective ADF
pipeline and what all metrics and
considerations you should keep in mind
while designing?
Ans.
Designing an effective ADF pipeline involves considering various
metrics and factors.
 Understand the data sources and destinations
 Identify the dependencies between activities
 Optimize data movement and processing for performance
 Monitor and track pipeline execution for troubleshooting
 Consider security and compliance requirements
 Use parameterization and dynamic content for flexibility
 Implement error handling and retries for robustness
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Data Engineering
Azure Data Engineer Jobs

Azure Data Engineer • 5-8 years

PEPSICO GLOBAL BUSINESS SERVICES INDIA LLP
•
4.1
Hyderabad / Secunderabad
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Azure Data Engineer - Azure Data Factory and Databricks • 5-10

years
CGI Information Systems And Management Consultants
•
4.0
Bangalore / Bengaluru
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Azure Data Engineer • 4-9 years

Cognizant
•
3.8
Pan india
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Q9. Lets say you have table 1 with values

1,2,3,5,null,null,0 and table 2 has
null,2,4,7,3,5 What would be the output
after inner join?
Ans.
The output after inner join of table 1 and table 2 will be 2,3,5.
  Inner join only includes rows that have matching values in
both tables.
 Values 2, 3, and 5 are present in both tables, so they will be
included in the output.
 Null values are not considered as matching values in inner
join.
Add your answer
SQL
Q10. On-premise Oracle server with daily
incremental of 10 gb data. How do you
move to cloud using Azure?
Ans.
Use Azure Data Factory to move data from on-premise Oracle
server to Azure cloud.
 Create a linked service to connect to the on-premise Oracle
server
 Create a linked service to connect to the Azure cloud
storage
 Create a pipeline with a copy activity to move data from on-
premise to cloud
 Schedule the pipeline to run daily
 Monitor the pipeline for any errors or issues
Add your answer
Cloud Computing
Q11. How to read parquet file, how to call
notebook from adf, Azure Devops CI/CD
Process, system variables in adf
Ans.
Answering questions related to Azure Data Engineer interview
 To read parquet file, use PyArrow or Pandas library
 To call notebook from ADF, use Notebook activity in ADF
pipeline
 For Azure DevOps CI/CD process, use Azure Pipelines
 System variables in ADF can be accessed using expressions
like @pipeline().RunId
Add your answer
Azure Data Factory
DevOps
Cloud Computing
Q12. Do you create any encryprion key in
Databricks? Cluster size in Databricks.
Ans.
Yes, encryption keys can be created in Databricks. Cluster size
can be adjusted based on workload.
 Encryption keys can be created using Azure Key Vault or
Databricks secrets
 Cluster size can be adjusted manually or using autoscaling
based on workload
 Encryption at rest can also be enabled for data stored in
Databricks
Add your answer
Big Data
Q13. Explain about copy activity in ADF
Slowly changing dimensions Data
warehousing
Ans.
Copy activity in ADF is used to move data from source to
destination.
 Copy activity supports various sources and destinations such
as Azure Blob Storage, Azure SQL Database, etc.
 It can be used for both one-time and scheduled data
movement.
 It supports mapping data between source and destination
using mapping data flows.
 Slowly changing dimensions can be handled using copy
activity in ADF.
 Copy activity is commonly used in data warehousing
scenarios.
Add your answer
Azure Data Factory
Data Engineering
Data Warehousing
Q14. 1. What is the difference between Blob
and adls?
Ans.
Blob is a storage service for unstructured data, while ADLS is a
distributed file system for big data analytics.
 Blob is a general-purpose object storage service for
unstructured data, while ADLS is optimized for big data
analytics workloads.
 Blob storage is suitable for storing large amounts of data,
such as images, videos, and logs, while ADLS is designed for
processing large datasets in parallel.
 ADLS offers features like hierarchical namespace, POSIX-
compliant file system semantics, and integration with big
data processing frameworks like Hadoop and Spark.
 Blob storage is commonly used for backup and disaster
recovery, media streaming, and serving static website
content.
 ADLS is part of the Azure Data Lake suite and is designed for
big data analytics scenarios that require high throughput
and low latency.
View 1 answer
Q15. 2. Do you know data bricks? And from
when you are working on it?
Ans.
Yes, I am familiar with Databricks and have been working on it for
the past 2 years.
 I have been using Databricks for data engineering tasks
such as data processing, data transformation, and data
visualization.
 I have experience in building and optimizing data pipelines
using Databricks.
 I have worked on collaborative projects with team members
using Databricks notebooks.
 I have utilized Databricks for big data processing and
analysis, leveraging its scalability and performance
capabilities.
Add your answer
Big Data
Q16. how do you connect data bricks with
storage account
Ans.
To connect data bricks with storage account, you need to create
a storage account and configure it in the data bricks workspace.
 Create a storage account in Azure portal
 Get the connection string of the storage account
 In the data bricks workspace, go to 'Storage' and click on
'Create'
 Select the storage account type and provide the connection
string
 Test the connection and save the configuration
Add your answer
Cloud Computing
Q17. How do you design/implement
database solutions in the cloud?
Ans.
Designing/implementing database solutions in the cloud involves
selecting appropriate cloud service, data modeling, security, and
scalability.
 Select the appropriate cloud service (e.g. Azure SQL
Database, Cosmos DB, etc.) based on the requirements of
the application
 Design the data model to optimize for the cloud
environment (e.g. denormalization, partitioning, etc.)
 Implement security measures such as encryption, access
control, and auditing
 Ensure scalability by using features such as auto-scaling,
load balancing, and caching
 Monitor performance and optimize as needed
Add your answer
Cloud Computing
Database Design
Q18. What are the types of triggers
available in adf?
Ans.
There are three types of triggers available in Azure Data Factory:
Schedule, Tumbling Window, and Event.
 Schedule trigger: Runs pipelines on a specified schedule.
 Tumbling Window trigger: Runs pipelines at specified time
intervals.
  Event trigger: Runs pipelines in response to events like a file
being added to a storage account.
View 1 answer
Azure Data Factory
Data Engineering
Q19. How would you convince client to
migrate to cloud?
Ans.
Migrating to the cloud offers numerous benefits such as cost
savings, scalability, and improved security.
 Highlight the cost savings that can be achieved by migrating
to the cloud, as clients can avoid upfront infrastructure costs
and pay only for the resources they use.
 Emphasize the scalability of cloud services, allowing clients
to easily scale up or down based on their needs without the
need for additional hardware investments.
 Discuss the improved security measures provided by cloud
providers, including data encryption, regular backups, and
disaster recovery capabilities.
 Mention the flexibility and agility offered by the cloud,
enabling clients to quickly deploy new applications and
services.
 Provide case studies or success stories of other clients who
have successfully migrated to the cloud and experienced
positive outcomes.
View 1 answer
Cloud Migration
Q20. Write a SQL query to fetch the
Customer who have not done any
transaction in last 30 day but did before 30
days
Ans.
SQL query to fetch customers who have not transacted in last 30
days but did before
 Use a subquery to filter customers who transacted before 30
days
 Use NOT IN or NOT EXISTS to exclude customers who
transacted in last 30 days
Add your answer
SQL
Q21. How to choose a cluster to process the
data? What is Azure services ?
Ans.
Choose a cluster based on data size, complexity, and processing
requirements.
 Consider the size and complexity of the data to be
processed.
 Determine the processing requirements, such as batch or
real-time processing.
 Choose a cluster with appropriate resources, such as CPU,
memory, and storage.
 Examples of Azure clusters include HDInsight, Databricks,
and Synapse Analytics.
Add your answer
Cloud Computing
Q22. How to create mount points? How to
load data source to ADLS?
Ans.
To create mount points in ADLS, use the Azure Storage Explorer
or Azure Portal. To load data source, use Azure Data Factory or
Azure Databricks.
 Mount points can be created using Azure Storage Explorer or
Azure Portal
 To load data source, use Azure Data Factory or Azure
Databricks
 Mount points allow you to access data in ADLS as if it were a
local file system
 Data can be loaded into ADLS using various tools such as
Azure Data Factory, Azure Databricks, or Azure HDInsight
Add your answer
Data Engineering
Q23. 5. SQL inner and left join with tables
having duplicate values
Ans.
SQL inner and left join can be used to combine tables with
duplicate values based on specified conditions.
  Use INNER JOIN to return rows from both tables that have
matching values
 Use LEFT JOIN to return all rows from the left table and the
matched rows from the right table
 Handle duplicate values by using DISTINCT or GROUP BY
clauses
Add your answer
SQL
Q24. How do you read files in notebook
What are configuration needed to read data
Why you have not used adf trigger only
What is parquet format Window functions vs
group by How to read a CSV file and store it
in par...
read more
Ans.
Reading files in notebook, configuring data, using ADF trigger,
parquet format, window functions vs group by, reading CSV file
and storing in parquet, dataset vs dataframe, transformations,
delta lake
 To read files in notebook, use libraries like pandas or
pyspark
 Configuration needed includes specifying file path, format,
and any additional options
 ADF trigger can be used for automated data processing, but
may not be necessary for all scenarios
 Parquet format is a columnar storage format that is efficient
for analytics workloads
 Window functions allow for calculations across a set of rows,
while group by aggregates data by a specified column
 To read a CSV file and store it in parquet format, use tools
like pandas or pyspark to read the CSV file and then save it
in parquet format
 Dataset is a collection of data, while dataframe is a
distributed collection of data organized into named columns
 Types of transformations include mapping, filtering,
aggregating, and joining data
 Delta Lake is an open-source storage layer that brings ACID
transactions to Apache Spark and big data workloads
Add your answer
Data Science
Q25. What is Distributed table in Synapse?
How to choose distribution type
Ans.
Distributed table in Synapse is a table that is distributed across
multiple nodes for parallel processing.
 Distributed tables in Synapse are divided into distributions
to optimize query performance.
 There are three distribution types: Hash distribution, Round-
robin distribution, and Replicate distribution.
 Hash distribution is ideal for joining large tables on a
common key, Round-robin distribution evenly distributes
data, and Replicate distribution duplicates data on all nodes.
 Choose distribution type based on query patterns, data size,
and join conditions.
Add your answer
Q26. What is ADLS and diff between ADLS
gen1 and gen2
Ans.
ADLS is Azure Data Lake Storage, a scalable and secure data lake
solution. ADLS gen2 is an improved version of gen1.
 ADLS is a cloud-based storage solution for big data analytics
workloads
 ADLS gen1 is based on Hadoop Distributed File System
(HDFS) and has limitations in terms of scalability and
performance
 ADLS gen2 is built on Azure Blob Storage and offers
improved performance, scalability, and security features
 ADLS gen2 supports hierarchical namespace, which enables
efficient data organization and management
 ADLS gen2 also supports Azure Active Directory-based
access control and data encryption at rest and in transit
Add your answer
Cloud Computing
Q27. what is Accumulators? what is groupby
key and reducedby key?
Ans.
Accumulators are variables used for aggregating data in Spark.
GroupByKey and ReduceByKey are operations used for data
transformation.
 Accumulators are used to accumulate values across multiple
tasks in a distributed environment.
 GroupByKey is used to group data based on a key and
create a pair of key-value pairs.
 ReduceByKey is used to aggregate data based on a key and
reduce the data to a single value.
 GroupByKey is less efficient than ReduceByKey as it shuffles
all the data across the network.
 ReduceByKey is more efficient as it reduces the data before
shuffling.
 Example: GroupByKey - group sales data by product
category. ReduceByKey - calculate total sales by product
category.
Add your answer
Big Data
Q28. Cte vs subQuery Stored Procedure vs
Functions in SQL Left outer join Pyspark
optimisation DIA in azure data factory
Ans.
CTE is used to create temporary result sets, stored procedures
are reusable blocks of code, left outer join combines rows from
two tables based on a related column
 CTE (Common Table Expression) is used to create temporary
result sets that can be referenced within a SELECT, INSERT,
UPDATE, or DELETE statement.
 Stored Procedures are reusable blocks of code that can be
executed with a single call. They can accept input
parameters and return output parameters.
 Left Outer Join combines rows from two tables based on a
related column. It returns all rows from the left table and the
matched rows from the right table.
 PySpark optimization involves techniques like partitioning,
caching, and using appropriate transformations to improve
the performance of PySpark jobs.
 DIA (Data Integration Runtime) in Azure Data Factory is a
cluster of Azure VMs used to execute data integration
activities like data movement and transformation.
Add your answer
Pyspark
Cloud Computing
Q29. What all optimization techniques have
you applied in projects using Databricks
Ans.
I have applied optimization techniques like partitioning, caching,
and cluster sizing in Databricks projects.
 Utilized partitioning to improve query performance by
limiting the amount of data scanned
 Implemented caching to store frequently accessed data in
memory for faster retrieval
 Adjusted cluster sizing based on workload requirements to
optimize cost and performance
Add your answer
Big Data
Q30. What is Dynamic Content in ADF and
how did you use in previous projects
Ans.
Dynamic Content in ADF allows for dynamic values to be passed
between activities in Azure Data Factory.
 Dynamic Content can be used to pass values between
activities, such as passing output from one activity as input
to another.
 Expressions can be used within Dynamic Content to
manipulate data or create dynamic values.
 Dynamic Content can be used in various ADF components
like datasets, linked services, and activities.
 For example, in a pipeline, you can use Dynamic Content to
pass the output of a Copy Data activity to a subsequent
activity for further processing.
Add your answer
Cloud Computing
Q31. Which IR should we use if we want to
copy data from on-premise db to azure
Ans.
We should use the Self-hosted Integration Runtime (IR) to copy
data from on-premise db to Azure.
  Self-hosted IR allows data movement between on-premise
and Azure
 It is installed on a local machine or virtual machine in the
on-premise network
 Self-hosted IR securely connects to the on-premise data
source and transfers data to Azure
 It supports various data sources like SQL Server, Oracle,
MySQL, etc.
 Self-hosted IR can be managed and monitored through
Azure Data Factory
View 1 answer
Cloud Computing
Q32. What is serialization? what is
broadcast join?
Ans.
Serialization is the process of converting an object into a stream
of bytes for storage or transmission.
 Serialization is used to transfer objects between different
applications or systems.
 It allows objects to be stored in a file or database.
 Serialization can be used for caching and improving
performance.
 Examples of serialization formats include JSON, XML, and
binary formats like Protocol Buffers and Apache Avro.
Add your answer
Q33. what is the Spark architecture? what is
azure sql?
Ans.
Spark architecture is a distributed computing framework that
processes large datasets in parallel across a cluster of nodes.
 Spark has a master-slave architecture with a driver program
that communicates with the cluster manager to allocate
resources and tasks to worker nodes.
 Worker nodes execute tasks in parallel and store data in
memory or disk.
 Spark supports various data sources and APIs for batch
processing, streaming, machine learning, and graph
processing.
  Azure Databricks is a popular managed Spark service on
Azure that provides a collaborative workspace and optimized
performance.
 Azure Synapse Analytics also supports Spark pools for big
data processing and integration with other Azure services.
Add your answer
Big Data
Q34. explai data bricks,how its different
from adf
Ans.
Data bricks is a unified analytics platform for big data and
machine learning, while ADF (Azure Data Factory) is a cloud-
based data integration service.
 Data bricks is a unified analytics platform that provides a
collaborative environment for big data and machine learning
projects.
 ADF is a cloud-based data integration service that allows
you to create, schedule, and manage data pipelines.
 Data bricks supports multiple programming languages like
Python, Scala, and SQL, while ADF uses a visual interface for
building data pipelines.
 Data bricks is optimized for big data processing and
analytics, while ADF is focused on data integration and
orchestration.
 Data bricks can be used for data exploration, visualization,
and machine learning model training, while ADF is more
suitable for data movement and transformation tasks.
Add your answer
Big Data
Q35. Implement IF Else activity in your
pipeline.
Ans.
IF Else activity can be implemented using the Switch activity in
Azure Data Factory.
 Create a Switch activity in your pipeline
 Define the condition in the expression field
 Add cases for each condition with corresponding activities
 Add a default activity for cases that do not match any
condition
Add your answer
Q36. Have you worked on any real time data
processing projects
Ans.
Yes, I have worked on real-time data processing projects using
technologies like Apache Kafka and Spark Streaming.
 Implemented real-time data pipelines using Apache Kafka
for streaming data ingestion
 Utilized Spark Streaming for processing and analyzing real-
time data
 Worked on monitoring and optimizing the performance of
real-time data processing systems
Add your answer
Q37. How to load data Synapse which is
available in Databricks
Ans.
You can load data from Databricks to Synapse using PolyBase or
Azure Data Factory.
 Use PolyBase to load data from Databricks to Synapse by
creating an external table in Synapse pointing to the
Databricks data location.
 Alternatively, use Azure Data Factory to copy data from
Databricks to Synapse by creating a pipeline with Databricks
as source and Synapse as destination.
 Ensure proper permissions and connectivity between
Databricks and Synapse for data transfer.
Add your answer
Cloud Computing
Q38. How do we do delta load using adf?
Ans.
Delta load in ADF is achieved by comparing source and target
data and only loading the changed data.
 Use a Lookup activity to retrieve the latest watermark or
timestamp from the target table
 Use a Source activity to extract data from the source system
based on the watermark or timestamp
 Use a Join activity to compare the source and target data
and identify the changed records
  Use a Sink activity to load only the changed records into the
target table
View 1 answer
Azure Data Factory
Data Integration
Q39. Difference between ADLS gen 1 and
gen 2?
Ans.
ADLS gen 2 is an upgrade to gen 1 with improved performance,
scalability, and security features.
 ADLS gen 2 is built on top of Azure Blob Storage, while gen 1
is a standalone service.
 ADLS gen 2 supports hierarchical namespace, which allows
for better organization and management of data.
 ADLS gen 2 has better performance for large-scale analytics
workloads, with faster read and write speeds.
 ADLS gen 2 has improved security features, including
encryption at rest and in transit.
 ADLS gen 2 has a lower cost compared to gen 1 for storing
large amounts of data.
Add your answer
Cloud Computing
Q40. What is the difference between Blob
and adls
Ans.
Blob is a storage service for unstructured data, while ADLS is
optimized for big data analytics workloads.
 Blob is a general-purpose object storage service for
unstructured data, while ADLS is optimized for big data
analytics workloads.
 ADLS offers features like file system semantics, file-level
security, and scalability for big data analytics, while Blob
storage is simpler and more cost-effective for general
storage needs.
 ADLS is designed for big data processing frameworks like
Hadoop, Spark, and Hive, while Blob storage is commonly
used for backups, media files, and other unstructured data.
  ADLS Gen2 combines the capabilities of Blob storage and
ADLS into a single service, offering the best of both worlds
for big data analytics.
View 1 answer
Q41. What are your current responsibilities
as Azure Data Engineer
Ans.
As an Azure Data Engineer, my current responsibilities include
designing and implementing data solutions on Azure, optimizing
data storage and processing, and ensuring data security and
compliance.
 Designing and implementing data solutions on Azure
 Optimizing data storage and processing for performance and
cost efficiency
 Ensuring data security and compliance with regulations
 Collaborating with data scientists and analysts to support
their data needs
Add your answer
Cloud Computing
Q42. What is Semantic layer?
Ans.
Semantic layer is a virtual layer that provides a simplified view of
complex data.
 It acts as a bridge between the physical data and the end-
user.
 It provides a common business language for users to access
data.
 It simplifies data access by hiding the complexity of the
underlying data sources.
 Examples include OLAP cubes, data marts, and virtual
tables.
Add your answer
Q43. What is difference between scheduled
trigger and tumbling window trigger
Ans.
Scheduled trigger is time-based while tumbling window trigger is
data-based.
 Scheduled trigger is based on a specific time or interval,
such as every hour or every day.
  Tumbling window trigger is based on the arrival of new data
or a specific event.
 Scheduled trigger is useful for regular data processing tasks,
like ETL jobs.
 Tumbling window trigger is useful for aggregating data over
fixed time intervals.
 Scheduled trigger can be set to run at a specific time, while
tumbling window trigger reacts to data changes.
Add your answer
Triggers
Data Processing
Q44. Have you worked on any Data
Validation Framework?
Ans.
Yes, I have worked on developing a Data Validation Framework to
ensure data accuracy and consistency.
 Developed automated data validation scripts to check for
data accuracy and consistency
 Implemented data quality checks to identify and resolve
data issues
 Utilized tools like SQL queries, Python scripts, and Azure
Data Factory for data validation
 Worked closely with data stakeholders to define validation
rules and requirements
Add your answer
Q45. What is the difference between
datawarehouse and datalake?
Ans.
A data warehouse is a structured repository for storing and
analyzing structured data, while a data lake is a centralized
repository for storing and analyzing structured, semi-structured,
and unstructured data.
 Data Warehouse: Stores structured data, follows a schema,
optimized for querying and analysis.
 Data Lake: Stores structured, semi-structured, and
unstructured data, schema-on-read, supports exploratory
analysis.
 Data Warehouse: Data is typically transformed and loaded
from various sources before being stored.
  Data Lake: Data is ingested as-is, without any
transformation, allowing for flexibility and agility.
 Data Warehouse: Provides a single source of truth for
structured data, used for business intelligence and
reporting.
 Data Lake: Enables data scientists and analysts to explore
and discover new insights from diverse data sources.
 Data Warehouse: Examples include Microsoft Azure SQL
Data Warehouse, Snowflake, and Amazon Redshift.
 Data Lake: Examples include Microsoft Azure Data Lake
Storage, Amazon S3, and Google Cloud Storage.
Add your answer
Data Lake
Q46. Sql queries using window functions
Ans.
Window functions are used to perform calculations across a set of
rows in a table.
 Window functions are used to calculate values based on a
subset of rows within a table
 They are used to perform calculations such as running
totals, ranking, and moving averages
 Examples of window functions include ROW_NUMBER(),
RANK(), and SUM() OVER()
Add your answer
SQL
Q47. Setup an ETL flow for data present in
Lake House using Databricks
Ans.
Set up ETL flow for data in Lake House using Databricks
 Connect Databricks to Lake House storage (e.g. Azure Data
Lake Storage)
 Define ETL process using Databricks notebooks or jobs
 Extract data from Lake House, transform as needed, and
load into target destination
 Monitor and schedule ETL jobs for automated data
processing
Add your answer
Data Engineering
ETL
Q48. Write a SQL query to fetch the Top 3
revenue generating Product from Sales
table
Ans.
SQL query to fetch Top 3 revenue generating Products from Sales
table
 Use the SELECT statement to retrieve data from the Sales
table
 Use the GROUP BY clause to group the data by Product
 Use the ORDER BY clause to sort the revenue in descending
order
 Use the LIMIT clause to fetch only the top 3 revenue
generating Products
Add your answer
SQL
Q49. tell me the difficult problem come
across and how you resove it
Ans.
Encountered a data corruption issue in Azure Data Lake Storage
and resolved it by restoring from a backup.
 Identified the corrupted files by analyzing error logs and
data inconsistencies
 Restored the affected data from the latest backup available
 Implemented preventive measures such as regular data
integrity checks and backups
 Collaborated with the Azure support team to investigate the
root cause
Add your answer
Q50. How to copy multiple tables from on-
prim to Azure blob storage
Ans.
Use Azure Data Factory to copy multiple tables from on-premises
to Azure Blob Storage
 Create a linked service to connect to the on-premises data
source
 Create datasets for each table to be copied
 Create a pipeline with copy activities for each table
 Use Azure Blob Storage as the sink for the copied tables
Add your answer
Data Migration
Q51. How are you connecting your onPerm
from Azure?
Ans.
I connect onPrem to Azure using Azure ExpressRoute or VPN
Gateway.
 Use Azure ExpressRoute for private connection through a
dedicated connection.
 Set up a VPN Gateway for secure connection over the
internet.
 Ensure proper network configurations and security settings.
 Use Azure Virtual Network Gateway to establish the
connection.
 Consider using Azure Site-to-Site VPN for connecting
onPremises network to Azure Virtual Network.
Add your answer
Cloud Computing
Q52. How did you handle failures in ADF
Pipelines
Ans.
I handle failures in ADF Pipelines by setting up monitoring, alerts,
retries, and error handling mechanisms.
 Implement monitoring to track pipeline runs and identify
failures
 Set up alerts to notify when a pipeline fails
 Configure retries for transient failures
 Use error handling activities like Try/Catch to manage
exceptions
 Utilize Azure Monitor to analyze pipeline performance and
troubleshoot issues
Add your answer
Data Engineering
Q53. What is the main advantage of delta
lake?
Ans.
Delta Lake provides ACID transactions, schema enforcement, and
time travel capabilities for data lakes.
  ACID transactions ensure data consistency and reliability.
 Schema enforcement helps maintain data quality and
prevent data corruption.
 Time travel allows users to access and revert to previous
versions of data for auditing or analysis purposes.
Add your answer
Big Data
Q54. what is DAG? what is RDD?
Ans.
DAG stands for Directed Acyclic Graph and is a way to represent
dependencies between tasks. RDD stands for Resilient Distributed
Datasets and is a fundamental data structure in Apache Spark.
 DAG is used to represent a series of tasks or operations
where each task depends on the output of the previous task.
 RDD is a distributed collection of data that can be processed
in parallel across multiple nodes in a cluster.
 RDDs are immutable and can be cached in memory for
faster processing.
 Examples of DAG-based systems include Apache Airflow and
Luigi.
 Examples of RDD-based systems include Apache Spark and
Hadoop.
Add your answer
Big Data
Data Structures
Q55. 4. Difference between delta and
parquet?
Ans.
Delta is an open-source storage layer that brings ACID
transactions to Apache Spark and big data workloads, while
Parquet is a columnar storage format optimized for reading and
writing data in large volumes.
 Delta is designed for use with big data workloads and
provides ACID transactions, while Parquet is optimized for
reading and writing large volumes of data efficiently.
 Delta allows for updates and deletes of data, while Parquet
is a read-only format.
  Delta supports schema evolution, allowing for changes to
the data schema over time, while Parquet requires a
predefined schema.
 Delta can be used for streaming data processing, while
Parquet is typically used for batch processing.
View 1 answer
Q56. what are the difference b/w data lake
gen1 and gen2
Ans.
Data Lake Gen1 is based on Hadoop Distributed File System
(HDFS) while Gen2 is built on Azure Blob Storage.
 Data Lake Gen1 uses HDFS for storing data while Gen2 uses
Azure Blob Storage.
 Gen1 has a hierarchical file system while Gen2 has a flat file
system.
 Gen2 provides better performance, scalability, and security
compared to Gen1.
 Gen2 supports Azure Data Lake Storage features like tiering,
lifecycle management, and access control lists (ACLs).
 Gen2 allows direct access to data using REST APIs and SDKs
without the need for a cluster.
Add your answer
Data Lake
Q57. What are linked service What is data
set Function vs SP
Ans.
Linked services are connections to external data sources in Azure
Data Factory. Data sets are representations of data in those
sources. Functions and stored procedures are used for data
transformation.
 Linked services are connections to external data sources
such as databases, file systems, or APIs.
 Data sets are representations of data in those sources,
specifying the location, format, and schema of the data.
 Functions are reusable code snippets used for data
transformation and manipulation within Azure Data Factory.
 Stored procedures are pre-defined sets of SQL statements
that can be executed to perform specific tasks on data.
  Linked services and data sets are used to define the data
movement and transformation activities in Azure Data
Factory.
Add your answer
Azure Data Factory
Data Engineering
Q58. What are the control flow activites in
adf
Ans.
Control flow activities in Azure Data Factory (ADF) are used to
define the workflow and execution order of activities.
 Control flow activities are used to manage the flow of data
and control the execution order of activities in ADF.
 They allow you to define dependencies between activities
and specify conditions for their execution.
 Some commonly used control flow activities in ADF are If
Condition, For Each, Until, and Switch.
 If Condition activity allows you to define conditional
execution based on expressions or variables.
 For Each activity is used to iterate over a collection and
perform actions on each item.
 Until activity repeats a set of activities until a specified
condition is met.
 Switch activity is used to define multiple branches of
execution based on different conditions.
 Control flow activities can be used to create complex
workflows and handle data dependencies in ADF.
Add your answer
Azure Data Factory
Data Engineering
Q59. How do you write stored procedures in
databricks?
Ans.
Stored procedures in Databricks can be written using SQL or
Python.
 Use %sql magic command to write SQL stored procedures
 Use %python magic command to write Python stored
procedures
  Stored procedures can be saved and executed in Databricks
notebooks
Add your answer
Q60. Find the student with marks greater
than 80 in all subjects
Ans.
Filter students with marks greater than 80 in all subjects
 Iterate through each student's marks in all subjects
 Check if all marks are greater than 80 for a student
 Return the student if all marks are greater than 80
Add your answer
Q61. Write the syntax to define the schema
of a file for loading.
Ans.
Syntax to define schema of a file for loading
 Use CREATE EXTERNAL TABLE statement in SQL
 Specify column names and data types in the schema
definition
 Example: CREATE EXTERNAL TABLE MyTable (col1 INT, col2
STRING) USING CSV
Add your answer
Q62. What is incremental load. What is
partition and bucketing. Spark archtecture
Ans.
Incremental load is the process of loading only new or updated
data into a data warehouse, rather than reloading all data each
time.
 Incremental load helps in reducing the time and resources
required for data processing.
 It involves identifying new or updated data since the last
load and merging it with the existing data.
 Common techniques for incremental load include using
timestamps or change data capture (CDC) mechanisms.
 Example: Loading only new sales transactions into a
database instead of reloading all transactions every time.
Add your answer
Big Data
Spark
Q63. Advanced SQL questions - highest
sales from each city
Ans.
Use window functions like ROW_NUMBER() to find highest sales
from each city in SQL.
 Use PARTITION BY clause in ROW_NUMBER() to partition
data by city
 Order the data by sales in descending order
 Filter the results to only include rows with row number 1
Add your answer
SQL
Q64. how to find max value and min value in
PySpark
Ans.
Use the agg() function with max() and min() functions to find the
maximum and minimum values in PySpark.
 Use the agg() function with max() and min() functions on the
DataFrame to find the maximum and minimum values.
 Example: df.agg({'column_name': 'max'}).show() to find the
maximum value in a specific column.
 Example: df.agg({'column_name': 'min'}).show() to find the
minimum value in a specific column.
Add your answer
Pyspark
Q65. What are the types of transformation?
Ans.
Types of transformations include filtering, sorting, aggregating,
joining, and pivoting.
 Filtering: Selecting a subset of rows based on certain
criteria.
 Sorting: Arranging rows in a specific order based on one or
more columns.
 Aggregating: Combining multiple rows into a single result,
such as summing or averaging values.
 Joining: Combining data from multiple sources based on a
common key.
 Pivoting: Restructuring data from rows to columns or vice
versa.
Add your answer
Data Science
Q66. SQL query and difference between
rank,dense rank and row number
Ans.
Rank, dense rank, and row number are SQL functions used to
assign a unique sequential number to rows in a result set.
 Rank function assigns a unique number to each row based
on the ordering specified in the query.
 Dense rank function also assigns a unique number to each
row, but it does not leave gaps in the ranking sequence.
 Row number function simply assigns a sequential number to
each row in the result set, without any consideration of the
order.
Add your answer
SQL
Q67. what is the difference between set and
tuple
Ans.
Sets are unordered collections of unique elements, while tuples
are ordered collections of elements that can be of different data
types.
 Sets do not allow duplicate elements, while tuples can have
duplicate elements.
 Sets are mutable and can be modified after creation, while
tuples are immutable and cannot be changed once created.
 Sets are defined using curly braces {}, while tuples are
defined using parentheses ().
 Example of a set: {1, 2, 3, 4}
 Example of a tuple: (1, 'apple', True)
Add your answer
Python
Data Structures
Q68. How do you normalize your Json data
Ans.
Json data normalization involves structuring data to eliminate
redundancy and improve efficiency.
 Identify repeating groups of data
 Create separate tables for each group
 Establish relationships between tables using foreign keys
  Eliminate redundant data by referencing shared values
Add your answer
Data Management
Q69. How you migrated oracle data into
azure?
Ans.
I migrated Oracle data into Azure using Azure Data Factory and
Azure Database Migration Service.
 Used Azure Data Factory to create pipelines for data
migration
 Utilized Azure Database Migration Service for schema and
data migration
 Ensured data consistency and integrity during the migration
process
Add your answer
Database Management
Oracle
Cloud Computing
Q70. How do you optimize pyspark jobs?
Ans.
Optimizing pyspark jobs involves tuning configurations,
partitioning data, caching, and using efficient transformations.
 Tune configurations such as executor memory, number of
executors, and parallelism to optimize performance.
 Partition data properly to distribute workload evenly and
avoid shuffling.
 Cache intermediate results to avoid recomputation.
 Use efficient transformations like map, filter, and
reduceByKey instead of costly operations like groupByKey.
 Optimize joins by broadcasting small tables or using
appropriate join strategies.
Add your answer
Pyspark
Big Data
Q71. Architecuture of Cloud and various
tools / Technologies
Ans.
Cloud architecture involves various tools and technologies for
data engineering, such as Azure Data Factory, Azure Databricks,
and Azure Synapse Analytics.
 Azure Data Factory is used for data integration and
orchestration.
 Azure Databricks is a unified analytics platform for big data
and AI.
 Azure Synapse Analytics combines big data and data
warehousing for real-time analytics.
Add your answer
Cloud Computing
Q72. Difference between dataframe and rdd
Ans.
Dataframe is a distributed collection of data organized into
named columns while RDD is a distributed collection of data
organized into partitions.
 Dataframe is immutable while RDD is mutable
 Dataframe has a schema while RDD does not
 Dataframe is optimized for structured and semi-structured
data while RDD is optimized for unstructured data
 Dataframe has better performance than RDD due to its
optimized execution engine
 Dataframe supports SQL queries while RDD does not
View 1 answer
Spark
Big Data
Data Processing
Q73. Difference between olap and oltp
Ans.
OLAP is for analytics and reporting while OLTP is for transaction
processing.
 OLAP stands for Online Analytical Processing
 OLTP stands for Online Transaction Processing
 OLAP is used for complex queries and data analysis
 OLTP is used for real-time transaction processing
 OLAP databases are read-intensive while OLTP databases
are write-intensive
 Examples of OLAP databases include data warehouses and
data marts
  Examples of OLTP databases include banking systems and e-
commerce websites
Add your answer
OLAP
Q74. What are the types of IR
Ans.
IR stands for Integration Runtime. There are two types of IR: Self-
hosted and Azure-SSIS.
 Self-hosted IR is used to connect to on-premises data
sources.
 Azure-SSIS IR is used to run SSIS packages in Azure Data
Factory.
 Self-hosted IR requires an on-premises machine to be
installed and configured.
 Azure-SSIS IR is a fully managed service provided by Azure.
 Both types of IR enable data movement and transformation
in Azure Data Factory.
View 2 more answers
Q75. What is Autoloader in Databricks?
Ans.
Autoloader in Databricks is a feature that automatically loads
new data files as they arrive in a specified directory.
 Autoloader monitors a specified directory for new data files
and loads them into a Databricks table.
 It supports various file formats such as CSV, JSON, Parquet,
Avro, and ORC.
 Autoloader simplifies the process of ingesting streaming
data into Databricks without the need for manual
intervention.
 It can be configured to handle schema evolution and data
partitioning automatically.
Add your answer
Big Data
Q76. SCD Types and how you implement it
Ans.
SCD Types are Slowly Changing Dimensions used to track
historical data changes in a data warehouse.
 SCD Type 1: Overwrite old data with new data, losing
historical information.
  SCD Type 2: Create new records for each change,
maintaining historical data.
 SCD Type 3: Add columns to track changes, keeping both old
and new data in the same record.
Add your answer
Q77. What is SCD and there types?
Ans.
SCD stands for Slowly Changing Dimension. There are three
types: Type 1, Type 2, and Type 3.
 SCD is used in data warehousing to track changes in
dimension data over time.
 Type 1 SCD overwrites old data with new data, losing
historical information.
 Type 2 SCD creates new records for each change, preserving
historical data.
 Type 3 SCD keeps both old and new data in the same
record, with separate columns for each version.
Add your answer
Q78. What is catalyst optimiser in Spark
Ans.
Catalyst optimizer is a query optimizer in Apache Spark that
leverages advanced techniques to optimize and improve the
performance of Spark SQL queries.
 Catalyst optimizer uses a rule-based and cost-based
optimization approach to generate an optimized query plan.
 It performs various optimizations such as constant folding,
predicate pushdown, and projection pruning to improve
query performance.
 Catalyst optimizer also leverages advanced techniques like
query plan caching and code generation to further enhance
query execution speed.
Add your answer
Spark
Big Data
Q79. how to do performance tuning in adf
Ans.
Performance tuning in Azure Data Factory involves optimizing
data flows and activities to improve efficiency and reduce
processing time.
  Identify bottlenecks in data flows and activities
 Optimize data partitioning and distribution
 Use appropriate data integration patterns
 Leverage caching and parallel processing
 Monitor and analyze performance metrics
Add your answer
Azure Data Factory
Data Engineering
Q80. What is Azure synapse architecture?
Ans.
Azure Synapse is a cloud-based analytics service that brings
together big data and data warehousing.
 Azure Synapse integrates big data and data warehousing
capabilities in a single service
 It allows for data ingestion, preparation, management, and
serving for BI and machine learning
 Supports both serverless and provisioned resources for data
processing
 Offers integration with Azure Machine Learning, Power BI,
and Azure Data Factory
Add your answer
Cloud Computing
Q81. What is Driver node and Executors?
Ans.
Driver node is the node in Spark that manages the execution of a
Spark application, while Executors are the nodes that actually
perform the computation.
 Driver node coordinates tasks and schedules work across
Executors
 Executors are responsible for executing tasks assigned by
the Driver node
 Driver node maintains information about the Spark
application and distributes tasks to Executors
 Executors run computations and store data for tasks
Add your answer
Spark
Q82. How do you perform Partitioning
Ans.
Partitioning in Azure Data Engineer involves dividing data into
smaller chunks for better performance and manageability.
 Partitioning can be done based on a specific column or key
in the dataset
 It helps in distributing data across multiple nodes for parallel
processing
 Partitioning can improve query performance by reducing the
amount of data that needs to be scanned
 In Azure Synapse Analytics, you can use ROUND_ROBIN or
HASH distribution for partitioning
Add your answer
Q83. How to mask data in azure
Ans.
Data masking in Azure helps protect sensitive information by
replacing original data with fictitious data.
 Use Dynamic Data Masking in Azure SQL Database to
obfuscate sensitive data in real-time
 Leverage Azure Purview to discover, classify, and mask
sensitive data across various data sources
 Implement Azure Data Factory to transform and mask data
during ETL processes
 Utilize Azure Information Protection to apply encryption and
access controls to sensitive data
Add your answer
Cloud Computing
Q84. Project Architecture, spark
transformations used?
Ans.
The project architecture includes Spark transformations for
processing large volumes of data.
 Spark transformations are used to manipulate data in
distributed computing environments.
 Examples of Spark transformations include map, filter,
reduceByKey, join, etc.
Add your answer
Spark
Big Data
Q85. what is partion key?
Ans.
Partition key is a field used to distribute data across multiple
partitions in a database for scalability and performance.
 Partition key determines the partition in which a row will be
stored in a database.
 It helps in distributing data evenly across multiple partitions
to improve query performance.
 Choosing the right partition key is crucial for efficient data
storage and retrieval.
 For example, in Azure Cosmos DB, partition key can be a
property like 'customerId' or 'date'.
Add your answer
Q86. Why is spark a lazy execution
Ans.
Spark is lazy execution to optimize performance by delaying
computation until necessary.
 Spark delays execution until an action is called to optimize
performance.
 This allows Spark to optimize the execution plan and
minimize unnecessary computations.
 Lazy evaluation helps in reducing unnecessary data shuffling
and processing.
 Example: Transformations like map, filter, and reduce are
not executed until an action like collect or saveAsTextFile is
called.
Add your answer
Big Data
Spark
Q87. What is linked services in adf
Ans.
Linked services in ADF are connections to external data sources
or destinations that allow data movement and transformation.
 Linked services are used to connect to various data sources
such as databases, file systems, and cloud services.
 They provide the necessary information and credentials to
establish a connection.
 Linked services enable data movement activities like
copying data from one source to another or transforming
data during the movement process.
  Examples of linked services include connections to Azure
SQL Database, Azure Blob Storage, and on-premises SQL
Server.
 They can be configured and managed within Azure Data
Factory.
Add your answer
Azure Data Factory
Data Engineering
Q88. What is Azure data lake gen2?
Ans.
Azure Data Lake Gen2 is a scalable and secure cloud-based
storage solution for big data analytics.
 Combines the scalability of Azure Blob Storage with the
hierarchical file system of Azure Data Lake Storage Gen1
 Supports both structured and unstructured data
 Provides high throughput and low latency access to data
 Offers advanced security features like encryption and access
control
 Integrates with various Azure services like Azure Databricks
and Azure HDInsight
Add your answer
Cloud Computing
Q89. What is azure data factory
Ans.
Azure Data Factory is a cloud-based data integration service that
allows you to create, schedule, and manage data pipelines.
 Azure Data Factory is used to move and transform data from
various sources to destinations.
 It supports data integration and orchestration of workflows.
 You can monitor and manage data pipelines using Azure
Data Factory.
 It provides a visual interface for designing and monitoring
data pipelines.
 Azure Data Factory can be used for data migration, data
warehousing, and data transformation tasks.
Add your answer
Cloud Computing
Q90. What is Azure data lake
Ans.
Azure Data Lake is a scalable data storage and analytics service
provided by Microsoft Azure.
 Azure Data Lake Store is a secure data repository that
allows you to store and analyze petabytes of data.
 Azure Data Lake Analytics is a distributed analytics service
that can process big data using Apache Hadoop and Apache
Spark.
 It is designed for big data processing and analytics tasks,
providing high performance and scalability.
Add your answer
Cloud Computing
Q91. What is index in table
Ans.
An index in a table is a data structure that improves the speed of
data retrieval operations on a database table.
 Indexes are used to quickly locate data without having to
search every row in a table.
 They can be created on one or more columns in a table.
 Examples of indexes include primary keys, unique
constraints, and non-unique indexes.
Add your answer
Q92. 4. Do you know pyspark?
Ans.
Yes, pyspark is a Python API for Apache Spark, used for big data
processing and analytics.
 pyspark is a Python API for Apache Spark, allowing users to
write Spark applications using Python.
 It provides high-level APIs in Python for Spark's functionality,
making it easier to work with big data.
 pyspark is commonly used for data processing, machine
learning, and analytics tasks.
 Example: Using pyspark to read data from a CSV file,
perform transformations, and store the results in a
database.
View 2 more answers
Spark
Python
Q93. Databricks - how to mount?
Ans.
Databricks can be mounted using the Databricks CLI or the
Databricks REST API.
 Use the Databricks CLI command 'databricks fs mount' to
mount a storage account to a Databricks workspace.
 Alternatively, you can use the Databricks REST API to
programmatically mount storage.
Add your answer
Big Data
Q94. What is tumbling window trigger
Ans.
Tumbling window trigger is a type of trigger in Azure Data
Factory that defines a fixed-size window of time for data
processing.
 Tumbling window trigger divides data into fixed-size time
intervals for processing
 It is useful for scenarios where data needs to be processed
in regular intervals
 Example: Triggering a pipeline every hour to process data
for the past hour
Add your answer
Data Processing
Q95. Difference between azure Iaas and
Paas
Ans.
IaaS provides virtualized infrastructure resources, while PaaS
offers a platform for developing, testing, and managing
applications.
 IaaS allows users to rent virtualized hardware resources like
virtual machines, storage, and networking, while PaaS
provides a platform for developers to build, deploy, and
manage applications without worrying about the underlying
infrastructure.
 In IaaS, users have more control over the operating system,
applications, and data, while in PaaS, the platform manages
the runtime, middleware, and operating system.
 Examples of IaaS in Azure include Azure Virtual Machines,
Azure Blob Storage, and Azure Virtual Network, while
examples of PaaS services include Azure App Service, Azure
SQL Database, and Azure Functions.
Add your answer
Cloud Computing
Q96. Types of cluster in data bricks??
Ans.
Types of clusters in Databricks include Standard, High
Concurrency, and Single Node clusters.
 Standard cluster: Suitable for running single jobs or
workflows.
 High Concurrency cluster: Designed for multiple users
running concurrent jobs.
 Single Node cluster: Used for development and testing
purposes.
Add your answer
Big Data
Q97. what is IR in adf pipe line
Ans.
IR in ADF pipeline stands for Integration Runtime, which is a
compute infrastructure used by Azure Data Factory to provide
data integration capabilities across different network
environments.
 IR in ADF pipeline is responsible for executing activities
within the pipeline.
 It can be configured to run in different modes such as Azure,
Self-hosted, and SSIS.
 Integration Runtime allows data movement between on-
premises and cloud data stores.
 It provides secure connectivity and data encryption during
data transfer.
 IR can be monitored and managed through the Azure Data
Factory portal.
Add your answer
Azure Data Factory
Data Engineering
Q98. What is a catalyst optimizer?
Ans.
The catalyst optimizer is a query optimization engine in Apache
Spark that improves performance by generating optimized query
plans.
 It is a query optimization engine in Apache Spark.
  It improves performance by generating optimized query
plans.
 It uses rule-based and cost-based optimization techniques.
 It leverages advanced techniques like code generation and
adaptive query execution.
 Example: Catalyst optimizer in Spark SQL analyzes the
query and generates an optimized query plan for execution.
Add your answer
Q99. What is Medallion Architecture
Ans.
Medallion Architecture is a data processing architecture that
involves breaking down data into smaller pieces for easier
processing.
 Medallion Architecture involves breaking down data into
smaller pieces for easier processing
 It allows for parallel processing of data to improve
performance
 Commonly used in big data processing systems like Hadoop
and Spark
Add your answer
Q100. What is Spark Architecture
Ans.
Spark Architecture is a distributed computing framework that
provides an efficient way to process large datasets.
 Spark Architecture consists of a driver program, cluster
manager, and worker nodes.
 It uses Resilient Distributed Datasets (RDDs) for fault-
tolerant distributed data processing.
 Spark supports various programming languages like Scala,
Java, Python, and SQL.
 It includes components like Spark Core, Spark SQL, Spark
Streaming, and MLlib for different data processing tasks.
Q101. how can u manage joins in sql
Ans.
Joins in SQL are used to combine rows from two or more tables
based on a related column between them.
 Use JOIN keyword to combine rows from two or more tables
based on a related column
  Types of joins include INNER JOIN, LEFT JOIN, RIGHT JOIN,
and FULL JOIN
 Specify the columns to join on using ON keyword
 Example: SELECT * FROM table1 INNER JOIN table2 ON
table1.column = table2.column
Add your answer
SQL
Q102. What is linked service
Ans.
A linked service is a connection to an external data source or
destination in Azure Data Factory.
 Linked services define the connection information needed to
connect to external data sources or destinations.
 They can be used in pipelines to read from or write to the
linked data source.
 Examples of linked services include Azure Blob Storage,
Azure SQL Database, and Salesforce.
 Linked services can store connection strings, authentication
details, and other configuration settings.
Add your answer
Data Structures
Q103. Challenges faced in production
deployment
Ans.
Challenges in production deployment include scalability, data
consistency, and monitoring.
 Ensuring scalability to handle increasing data volumes and
user loads
 Maintaining data consistency across different databases and
systems
 Implementing effective monitoring and alerting to quickly
identify and resolve issues
Add your answer
Software Development
Q104. Performance optimization techniques
in Pyspark
Ans.
Performance optimization techniques in Pyspark involve
partitioning, caching, and using efficient transformations.
  Partitioning data to distribute workload evenly
 Caching intermediate results to avoid recomputation
 Using efficient transformations like map, filter, and reduce
 Avoiding unnecessary shuffling of data
Add your answer
Pyspark
Big Data
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Q105. what is serverless sqlpool?
Ans.
Serverless SQL pool is a feature in Azure Synapse Analytics that
allows on-demand querying of data without the need for
managing infrastructure.
 Serverless SQL pool is a pay-as-you-go service for running
ad-hoc queries on data stored in Azure Data Lake Storage or
Azure Blob Storage.
 It eliminates the need for provisioning and managing
dedicated SQL pools, making it more cost-effective for
sporadic or unpredictable workloads.
 Users can simply write T-SQL queries against their data
without worrying about infrastructure setup or maintenance.
 Serverless SQL pool is integrated with Azure Synapse Studio
for a seamless data exploration and analysis experience.
Add your answer
Q106. What is explode function
Ans.
Explode function is used in Apache Spark to split an array into
multiple rows.
 Used in Apache Spark to split an array into multiple rows
 Creates a new row for each element in the array
 Commonly used in data processing and transformation tasks
Add your answer
PHP
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Q107. What are type of triggers
Ans.
Types of triggers include DDL triggers, DML triggers, and logon
triggers.
 DDL triggers are fired in response to DDL events like
CREATE, ALTER, DROP
 DML triggers are fired in response to DML events like
INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE
 Logon triggers are fired in response to logon events
Add your answer
Triggers
Q108. What is polybase?
Ans.
Polybase is a feature in Azure SQL Data Warehouse that allows
users to query data stored in Hadoop or Azure Blob Storage.
 Polybase enables users to access and query external data
sources without moving the data into the database.
 It provides a virtualization layer that allows SQL queries to
seamlessly integrate with data stored in Hadoop or Azure
Blob Storage.
 Polybase can significantly improve query performance by
leveraging the parallel processing capabilities of Hadoop or
Azure Blob Storage.
 Example: Querying data stored in Azure Blob Storage
directly from Azure SQL Data Warehouse using Polybase.
View 1 answer

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Q109. What is copy activity

Ans.
Copy activity is a tool in Azure Data Factory used to move data
between data stores.
 Copy activity is a feature in Azure Data Factory that allows
you to move data between supported data stores.
 It supports various data sources and destinations such as
Azure Blob Storage, Azure SQL Database, and more.
 You can define data movement tasks using pipelines in
Azure Data Factory and monitor the progress of copy
activities.
Add your answer
Data Processing
Q110. What is dataset
Ans.
A dataset is a collection of data that is organized in a structured
format for easy access and analysis.
  A dataset can consist of tables, files, or other types of data
sources.
 It is used for storing and managing data for analysis and
reporting purposes.
 Examples of datasets include customer information, sales
data, and sensor readings.
 Datasets can be structured, semi-structured, or unstructured
depending on the type of data they contain.
Add your answer
Data Science
Q111. Types of clusters in Databricks
Ans.
Types of clusters in Databricks include Standard, High
Concurrency, and Single Node clusters.
 Standard clusters are used for general-purpose workloads
 High Concurrency clusters are optimized for concurrent
workloads
 Single Node clusters are used for development and testing
purposes
Add your answer
Big Data
Q112. What is RDD ?
Ans.
RDD stands for Resilient Distributed Dataset, a fundamental data
structure in Apache Spark.
 RDD is a fault-tolerant collection of elements that can be
operated on in parallel.
 RDDs are immutable, meaning they cannot be changed once
created.
 RDDs support two types of operations: transformations
(creating a new RDD from an existing one) and actions
(returning a value to the driver program).
Add your answer
Big Data
Q113. What is partition pruning
Ans.
Partition pruning is a query optimization technique that reduces
the amount of data scanned by excluding irrelevant partitions.
  Partition pruning is used in partitioned tables to skip
scanning partitions that do not contain data relevant to the
query.
 It helps improve query performance by reducing the amount
of data that needs to be processed.
 For example, if a query filters data based on a specific
partition key, partition pruning will only scan the relevant
partitions instead of all partitions in the table.
Add your answer
Q114. Where did you use Docker
Ans.
I used Docker to containerize and deploy data processing
pipelines and applications.
 Used Docker to create reproducible environments for data
processing tasks
 Deployed data pipelines in Docker containers for scalability
and portability
 Utilized Docker Compose to orchestrate multiple containers
for complex data workflows
Add your answer
Software Development
Docker
Q115. What is Catalyst optimizer
Ans.
Catalyst optimizer is a query optimization framework in Apache
Spark.
 Catalyst optimizer is a rule-based optimization framework
used in Apache Spark for optimizing query plans.
 It leverages advanced programming language features in
Scala to build an extensible query optimizer.
 Catalyst optimizer performs various optimizations such as
constant folding, predicate pushdown, and projection
pruning.
 It helps in improving the performance of Spark SQL queries
by generating efficient query plans.
Add your answer
Q116. Find the duplicate row ?
Ans.
Use SQL query with GROUP BY and HAVING clause to find
duplicate rows.
 Use GROUP BY to group rows with same values
 Use HAVING COUNT(*) > 1 to filter out duplicate rows
 Example: SELECT column1, column2, COUNT(*) FROM
table_name GROUP BY column1, column2 HAVING COUNT(*)
>1
Add your answer
SQL
Q117. what is a polybase ?
Ans.
PolyBase is a technology in Azure that allows you to query data
from external sources like Hadoop or SQL Server.
 PolyBase enables you to run T-SQL queries on data stored in
Hadoop or Azure Blob Storage.
 It can also be used to query data from SQL Server, Oracle,
Teradata, and other relational databases.
 PolyBase uses external tables to define the schema and
location of the external data sources.
 It provides a seamless way to integrate and query data from
different sources within a single query.
Add your answer
Q118. ADF activities different types
Ans.
ADF activities include data movement, data transformation,
control flow, and data integration.
 Data movement activities: Copy data from source to
destination (e.g. Copy Data activity)
 Data transformation activities: Transform data using
mapping data flows (e.g. Data Flow activity)
 Control flow activities: Control the flow of data within
pipelines (e.g. If Condition activity)
 Data integration activities: Combine data from different
sources (e.g. Lookup activity)
Add your answer
Azure Data Factory
Data Engineering
Q119. What is azure IR
Ans.
Azure IR stands for Azure Integration Runtime, which is a data
integration service in Azure Data Factory.
 Azure IR is used to provide data integration capabilities
across different network environments.
 It allows data movement between cloud and on-premises
data sources.
 Azure IR can be configured to run data integration activities
in Azure Data Factory pipelines.
 It supports different types of data integration activities such
as copy data, transform data, and run custom activities.
Add your answer
Cloud Computing
Q120. What is scd type 1
Ans.
SCD Type 1 is a method of updating data in a data warehouse by
overwriting existing data with new information.
 Overwrites existing data with new information
 No historical data is kept
 Simplest and fastest method of updating data
Add your answer
Q121. Delta lake vs data lake
Ans.
Delta Lake is an open-source storage layer that brings ACID
transactions to Apache Spark and big data workloads.
 Delta Lake provides ACID transactions, schema
enforcement, and time travel capabilities on top of data
lakes.
 Data lakes are a storage repository that holds a vast amount
of raw data in its native format until it is needed.
 Delta Lake is optimized for big data workloads and provides
reliability and performance improvements over traditional
data lakes.
 Data lakes can store structured, semi-structured, and
unstructured data from various sources.
 Delta Lake is built on top of Apache Spark and is compatible
with popular data science and machine learning frameworks.
Add your answer
Data Lake
Big Data
Q122. ADF and ADB differences
Ans.
ADF is a cloud-based data integration service while ADB is a
cloud-based data warehouse service.
 ADF is used for data integration and orchestration tasks,
while ADB is used for data warehousing and analytics.
 ADF supports data movement and transformation activities,
while ADB supports querying and analyzing large datasets.
 ADF can be used to create data pipelines for ETL processes,
while ADB is used for storing and querying structured data.
 ADF can connect to various data sources and destinations,
while ADB is optimized for querying data stored in Azure SQL
Data Warehouse.
 Example: ADF can be used to extract data from an on-
premises database and load it into Azure Blob Storage, while
ADB can be used to run complex analytical queries on a
large dataset stored in Azure SQL Data Warehouse.
Add your answer
Data Engineering
Q123. Pipeline design on ADF
Ans.
Pipeline design on Azure Data Factory involves creating and
orchestrating data workflows.
 Identify data sources and destinations
 Design data flow activities
 Set up triggers and schedules
 Monitor and manage pipeline runs
Add your answer
Azure Data Factory
Data Engineering
Q124. Activities used in ADF
Ans.
Activities in Azure Data Factory (ADF) are the building blocks of a
pipeline and perform various tasks like data movement, data
transformation, and data orchestration.
 Activities can be used to copy data from one location to
another (Copy Activity)
 Activities can be used to transform data using mapping data
flows (Data Flow Activity)
  Activities can be used to run custom code or scripts (Custom
Activity)
 Activities can be used to control the flow of data within a
pipeline (Control Activity)
Add your answer
Cloud Computing
Q125. Dataframes in pyspark
Ans.
Dataframes in pyspark are distributed collections of data
organized into named columns.
 Dataframes are similar to tables in a relational database,
with rows and columns.
 They can be created from various data sources like CSV,
JSON, Parquet, etc.
 Dataframes support SQL queries and transformations using
PySpark functions.
 Example: df = spark.read.csv('file.csv')
Add your answer
Spark
Big Data
Q126. Remove duplicates
Ans.
Use DISTINCT keyword in SQL to remove duplicates from a
dataset.
 Use SELECT DISTINCT column_name FROM table_name to
retrieve unique values from a specific column.
 Use SELECT DISTINCT * FROM table_name to retrieve unique
rows from the entire table.
 Use GROUP BY clause with COUNT() function to remove
duplicates based on specific criteria.
Add your answer
Algorithms
Q127. Types of IR in Azure
Ans.
Integration Runtimes (IR) in Azure are used to provide data
integration capabilities for various data services.
 Self-hosted IR: Allows data movement between on-premises
data stores and Azure data stores.
  Azure-SSIS IR: Used for running SQL Server Integration
Services (SSIS) packages in Azure Data Factory.
 Azure IR: Default IR provided by Azure Data Factory for data
movement within Azure services.
 HDInsight IR: Used for running Apache Hadoop and Spark
jobs in Azure Data Factory.
Add your answer
Cloud Computing
Q128. Types of triggers
Ans.
Triggers are actions that are automatically performed when a
certain event occurs in a database.
 Types of triggers include DML triggers (for INSERT, UPDATE,
DELETE operations), DDL triggers (for CREATE, ALTER, DROP
operations), and logon triggers.
 Triggers can be used to enforce business rules, maintain
data integrity, and automate tasks.
 Examples of triggers include auditing changes to a table
using an INSERT trigger, preventing certain updates using
an UPDATE trigger, and sending notifications on table
creation using a DDL trigger.
Add your answer
Triggers
Q129. rdd vs dataframe
Ans.
RDD is a basic abstraction in Spark representing data as a
distributed collection of objects, while DataFrame is a distributed
collection of data organized into named columns.
 RDD is more low-level and less optimized compared to
DataFrame
 DataFrames are easier to use for data manipulation and
analysis
 DataFrames provide a more structured way to work with
data compared to RDDs
 RDDs are suitable for unstructured data processing, while
DataFrames are better for structured data
Add your answer
Big Data
Q130. challenging problem
Ans.
Designing a data pipeline to process and analyze large volumes
of real-time data from multiple sources.
 Identify the sources of data and their formats
 Design a scalable data ingestion process
 Implement data transformation and cleansing steps
 Utilize Azure Data Factory, Azure Databricks, and Azure
Synapse Analytics for processing and analysis

Commonly Asked Azure Data Engineer Interview

Questions With Answers
1. What is Data Engineering?
The application of data collecting and analysis is the emphasis of data engineering. The
information gathered from numerous sources is merely raw information. Data
engineering helps in the transformation of unusable data into useful information. It is the
process of transforming, cleansing, profiling, and aggregating huge data sets in a
nutshell.

2. What is Azure Synapse analytics?

Azure Synapse is an enterprise service accelerating time to discernment across data
storage and tectonic data networks. Azure Synapse combines the stylish of
SQL(Structured Query Language) technologies used in enterprise data warehousing,
Spark technologies used for big data, Pipelines for data integration and ETL/ ELT, and
deep integration with distinct Azure services like Power BI, CosmosDB, and AzureML.

3. Explain the data masking feature of Azure?

Data masking helps in preventing unauthorized access to delicate data by enabling
customers to assign how much of the delicate data to reveal with minimal impact on the
application layer. Dynamic data masking limits acute data exposure by masking it to
non-privileged users. It is a policy-based security feature that hides the delicate data in
the result set of a query over designated database fields. In contrast, the data in the
database will not be changed.
A few data masking policies are:
 SQL users excluded from masking - A set of SQL users or Azure Active
Directory identities that get unmasked data in the SQL query results. Users
with administrator privileges are permanently banned from masking and
seeing the original data without any mask.
 Masking rules - A set of rules defining the designated fields to be masked
and the masking function used. The selected fields can be determined using
a database schema, table, and column names.
  Masking functions - A set of methods that control data exposure for
different scenarios.

4. Difference between Azure Synapse Analytics and Azure Data

Lake Storage?
Azure Synapse Analytics Azure Data Lake

It is optimized for processing structured data in a well- It is optimized for storing and
defined schema. processing structured and non-structured data.

Built on SQL(Structured Query Language) Server. Built to work with Hadoop.

Built-in data pipelines and data streaming capabilities. Handle data streaming using Azure Stream Analytics.

Compliant with regulatory standards. No regulatory compliance

Used for Business Analytics. Used for data analytics and exploration by data
scientists and engineers

5. Describe various windowing functions of Azure Stream

Analytics?
A window in Azure Stream Analytics is a block of instant events that enables users to
perform various operations on the event data. To analyze and partition a window in
Azure Stream Analytics, There exist four windowing functions:
 Hopping Window: In these windows, the data segments can overlap. So, to
define a hopping window, we need to specify two parameters:
o Hop (duration of the overlap)
o Window size (length of data segment)
 Tumbling Window: In this, the data stream is segmented into distinct time
segments of fixed length in the tumbling window function.
 Session Window: This function groups events based on arrival time, so
there is no fixed window size. Its purpose is to eliminate quiet periods in the
data stream.
 Sliding Window: This windowing function does not necessarily produce
aggregation after a fixed time interval, unlike the tumbling and hopping
window functions. Aggregation occurs every time an existing event falls out
of the time window, or a new event occurs.

6. What are the different storage types in Azure?

The following are the various advantages of the Java collection
framework:
 Storage Operations
Types

Files Azure Files is an organized way of storing data on the cloud. The main advantage of using Azure
Files over Azure Blobs is that Azure Files allows for organizing the data in a folder structure.
Also, Azure Files is SMB (Server Message Block) protocol compliant, i.e., and can be used as a
file share.

Blobs Blob stands for a large binary object. This storage solution supports all kinds of files, including
text files, videos, images, documents, binary data, etc.

Queues Azure Queue is a cloud-based messaging store for establishing and brokering communication
between various applications and components.

Disks The Azure disk is used as a storage solution for Azure VMs (Virtual Machines)

Tables Tables are NoSQL storage structures for storing structured data that does not meet the standard
RDBMS (relational database schema).

7. What are the different security options available in the Azure

SQL database?
Security plays a vital role in databases. Some of the security options available in the
Azure SQL database are:
 Azure SQL Firewall Rules: Azure provides two-level security. There are
server-level firewall rules which are stored in the SQL Master database.
Server-level firewall rules determine the access to the Azure database
server. Users can also create database-level firewall rules that govern the
individual databases’ keys.
 Azure SQL TDE (Transparent Data Encryption): TDE is the technology
used to encrypt stored data. TDE is also available for Azure Synapse
Analytics and Azure SQL Managed Instances. With TDE, the encryption and
decryption of databases, backups, and transaction log files, happens in real-
time.
 Always Encrypted: It is a feature designed to protect sensitive data stored
in the Azure SQL database, such as credit card numbers. This feature
encrypts data within the client applications using Always Encrypted-enabled
driver. Encryption keys are not shared with SQL Database, which means
database admins do not have access to sensitive data.
 Database Auditing: Azure provides comprehensive auditing capabilities
along with the SQL Database. It is also possible to declare the audit policy at
the individual database level, allowing users to choose based on the
requirements.

8. How data security is implemented in Azure Data Lake

Storage(ADLS) Gen2?
Data security is one of the primary concerns for most organizations for moving data to
cloud storage. Azure data lake storage gen2 provides a multi-layered and robust
security model. This model has 6 data security layers:
 Authentication: The first layer includes user account security. ADLS Gen2
provides three authentication modes, Azure Active Directory (AAD), Shared
Access Token (SAS), and Shared Key.
 Access Control: The next layer for restricting access to individual
containers or files. This can be managed using Roles and Access Control
Lists (ACLs)
 Network Isolation: This layer enables administrators to manage access by
disabling or allowing access to only particular Virtual Private Networks
(VPNs) or IP Addresses.
 Data Protection: This is achieved by encrypting in-transit data using
HTTPS(Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure). Options to encrypt stored data
are also available.
 Advanced Threat Protection: If enabled, ADLS Gen2 will monitor any
unauthorized attempts to access or exploit the storage account.
 Auditing: This is the sixth and final layer of security. ADLS Gen2 provides
comprehensive auditing features in which all account management activities
are logged. These logs can be later reviewed to ensure the highest level of
security.

9. What are the various data flow partition schemes available in

Azure?
Partition Explanation Usage
Scheme

Round It is the most straightforward partition scheme which No good key candidates were
Robin spreads data evenly across partitions. available in the data.

Hash Hash of columns creates uniform partitions such that It is used to check for partition skew.
rows with similar values fall in the same partition.

Dynamic Spark dynamics range based on the provided columns Select the column that will be used
Range or expression. for partitioning.

Fixed Range A fixed range of values based on the user-created A good understanding of data is
expression for disturbing data across partitions. required to avoid partition skew.

Key Partition for each unique value in the selected column. Good understanding of data
cardinality is required.
10. Why is the Azure data factory needed?
The amount of data generated these days is vast, coming from different sources. When
we move this particular data to the cloud, a few things must be taken care of-
 Data can be in any form as it comes from different sources, and these
various sources will transfer or channelize the data in different ways, and it
 can be in different formats. When we bring this data to the cloud or particular
storage, we need to make sure that this data is well managed. i.e., you need
to transform the data and delete unnecessary parts. As per moving the data
is concerned, we need to make sure that data is picked from different
sources and bring it to one common place, then stored, and if required, we
should transform it into more meaningful.
 A traditional data warehouse can also do this, but certain disadvantages
exist. Sometimes we are forced to go ahead and have custom applications
that deal with all these processes individually, which is time-consuming, and
integrating all these sources is a huge pain.
 A data factory helps to orchestrate this complete process into a more
manageable or organizable manner.

11. What do you mean by data modeling?

Data Modeling is creating a visual representation of an entire information system or
parts to express linkages between data points and structures. The purpose is to show
the many types of data used and stored in the system, the relationships between them,
how the data can be classified and arranged, and its formats and features. Data can be
modeled according to the needs and requirements at various degrees of abstraction.
The process begins with stakeholders and end-users providing information about
business requirements. These business rules are then converted into data structures to
create a concrete database design.
There are two design schemas available in data modeling:
 Star Schema
 Snowflake Schema

12. What is the difference between Snowflake and Star Schema?

Both are multidimensional models of the data warehouses. The main differences are:
Snowflake Star Schema

It contains 3D, sub-dimension, and fact tables. It contains fact and dimension tables.

It is a type of bottom-up model. It is a type of top-down model.

It uses both normalization and denormalization. It does not use normalization.

In the snowflake schema, data redundancy is lower. In the star schema, data redundancy is higher.

The design is very complex. The design is straightforward.

Execution time for queries is high. Execution time for queries is low.

It makes use of less space. It makes use of more space.

13. What are the 2 levels of security in Azure data lake storage
Gen2?
The two levels of security available in Azure data lake storage Gen2 are also adequate
for Azure data lake Gen1. Although this is not new, it is worth calling it two levels of
security because it’s a fundamental piece for getting started with the Azure data lake.
The two levels of security are defined as:
 Role-Based Access Control (RBAC): RBAC includes built-in Azure roles
such as reader, owner, contributor, or custom. Typically, RBAC is assigned
due to two reasons. One is to permit the use of built-in data explorer tools
that require reader permissions. Another is to specify who can manage the
service (i.e., update properties and settings for the storage account).
 Control Lists (ACLs): ACLs specify exactly which data objects a user may
write, read, and execute (execution is required for browsing the directory
structure). ACLs are POSIX (Portable Operating System Interface) -
compliant, thus familiar to those with a Linux or Unix background.

14. Explain a few important concepts of the Azure data factory?

 Pipeline: It acts as a carrier in various processes occurring. An individual
process is considered an activity.
 Activities: It represents the processing steps of a pipeline. A pipeline can
have one or many activities. It can be a process like moving the dataset from
one source to another or querying a data set.
 Datasets: It is the source of data or, we can say it is a data structure that
holds our data.
 Linked services: It stores information that is very important when
connecting to an external source.

15. Differences between Azure data lake analytics and

HDInsight?
Azure Data Lake Analytics HDInsight

It is a software. It is a platform.

Azure Data Lake Analytics creates essential HDInsight configures the cluster with predefined
computer nodes as on-demand instruction and nodes and then uses a language like a hive or pig for
processes the dataset. data processing.

Azure data lake analytics does not give much HDInsight provides more flexibility, as we can create
flexibility in provisioning the cluster. and control the cluster according to our choice.
16. Explain the process of creating ETL(Extract, Transform,
Load)?
The process of creating ETL are:
 Build a Linked Service for source data store (SQL Server Database).
Suppose that we have a cars dataset.
 Formulate a Linked Service for address data store which is Azure Data Lake
Store.
 Build a dataset for Data Saving.
 Formulate the pipeline and attach copy activity.
 Program the pipeline by combining a trigger.

17. What is Azure Synapse Runtime?

Apache Spark pools in Azure Synapse use runtimes to tie together essential
component versions, Azure Synapse optimizations, packages, and connectors with a
specific Apache Spark version. These runtimes will be upgraded periodically to include
new improvements, features, and patches.
These runtimes have the following advantages:
 Faster session startup times.
 Tested compatibility with specific Apache Spark versions.
 Access to popular, compatible connectors and open-source packages.

18. What is SerDe in the hive?

Serializer/Deserializer is popularly known as SerDe. For IO(Input/Output), Hive employs
the SerDe protocol. Serialization and deserialization are handled by the interface, which
also interprets serialization results as separate fields for processing.
The Deserializer turns a record into a Hive-compatible Java object. The Serializer now
turns this Java object into an HDFS (Hadoop Distributed File System) -compatible
format. The storage role is then taken over by HDFS. Anyone can create their own
SerDe for their own data format.

19. What are the different types of integration runtime?

 Azure Integration Run Time: It can copy data among cloud data
repositories and it can express the exercise to a type of computing services
like SQL server or Azure HDinsight where the transformation takes place
 Self-Hosted Integration Run Time: It is software with basically the
equivalent code as Azure Integration Run Time. Except you install it on an
on-premise instrument or a virtual machine in the virtual network. A Self
Hosted IR can operate copy exercises between a data store in a private
network and a public cloud data store.
 Azure SSIS Integration Run Time: With this, one can natively perform
SSIS (SQL Server Integration Services) packages in a controlled
environment. So when we elevate and shift the SSIS packages to the data
factory, we work Azure SSIS Integration Run Time.

20. Mention some common applications of Blob storage?

Common works of Blob Storage consists of:
 Laboring images or documents straight to a browser.
 Saving files for shared access.
 Streaming audio and video.
 Collecting data for backup and recovery disaster restoration, and archiving.
 Saving data for analysis by an on-premises or Azure-hosted.

21. What are the main characteristics of Hadoop?

 It is an open-source structure that is ready for freeware.
 Hadoop is cooperative with the various types of hardware and simple to
access distinct hardware within a particular node.
 It encourages faster-distributed data processing.
 It saves the data in the group, which is unconventional of the rest of the
operations.
 Hadoop supports building replicas for every block with separate nodes.

22. What is the Star scheme?

Star Join Schema or Star Schema is the most manageable type of Data Warehouse
schema. This is called a star schema because its construction is like a star. In this, the
heart of the star may have one particular table and various connected dimension tables.
This schema is practiced for questioning large data sets.

23. How would you approve data to move from one database to
another?
The efficency of data and guaranteeing that no data is released should be of the highest
priority for a data engineer. Hiring administrators examine this question to know your
thought method on how validation of data would occur.
The candidate should be capable to talk about proper validation representations in
different situations. For example, you could recommend that validation could be a
simplistic comparison, or it can occur after the comprehensive data migration.

24. Discriminate between structured and unstructured data?

Parameter Structured Data Unstructured Data

Storage DBMS (Database Management Unmanaged file structure

System)

Standard ADO.net, ODBC, and SQL STMP, XML, CSV, and SMS

Scaling Schema scaling is hard. Schema scaling is easy.

Integration ETL (Extract, Transform, Load) Manual data entry or batch processing that
Tool incorporates codes

25. What do you mean by data pipeline?

A data pipeline is a system for transporting data from one location (the source) to
another (the destination), such as a data warehouse. Data is converted and optimized
along the journey, and it eventually reaches a state that can be evaluated and used to
produce business insights. The procedures involved in aggregating, organizing, and
transporting data are referred to as a data pipeline. Many of the manual tasks needed in
processing and improving continuous data loads are automated by modern data
pipelines.

Top Azure Data Factory Interview Questions

and Answers in 2024
This list of Azure Data Factory interview questions and answers
covers basic and experienced-level questions frequently asked in
interviews, giving you a comprehensive understanding of the Azure
Data Factory concepts. So, get ready to ace your interview with this
complete list of ADF interview questions and answers!
Azure Data Factory Interview Questions for
Beginners

Below are the commonly asked interview questions for beginners on

Azure Data Factory to help you ace your interview and showcase
your skills and knowledge:
1. What is Azure Data Factory?
Azure Data Factory is a cloud-based, fully managed, serverless
ETL and data integration service offered by Microsoft Azure for
automating data movement from its native place to, say, a data lake
or data warehouse using ETL (extract-transform-load) OR extract-
load-transform (ELT). It lets you create and run data pipelines to
help move and transform data and run scheduled pipelines.
2. Is Azure Data Factory ETL or ELT tool?
It is a cloud-based Microsoft tool that provides a cloud-based
integration service for data analytics at scale and supports ETL and
ELT paradigms.
3. Why is ADF needed?
With an increasing amount of big data, there is a need for a service
like ADF that can orchestrate and operationalize processes to refine
the enormous stores of raw business data into actionable business
insights.
4. What sets Azure Data Factory apart from conventional
ETL tools?
Azure Data Factory stands out from other ETL tools as it provides: -
 Enterprise Readiness: Data integration at Cloud Scale for big
data analytics!
 Enterprise Data Readiness: There are 90+ connectors
supported to get your data from any disparate sources to
the Azure cloud!
 Code-Free Transformation: UI-driven mapping dataflows.
 Ability to run Code on Any Azure Compute: Hands-on data
transformations
 Ability to rehost on-prem services on Azure Cloud in 3 Steps:
Many SSIS packages run on Azure cloud.
 Making DataOps seamless: with Source control, automated
deploy & simple templates.
 Secure Data Integration: Managed virtual networks protect
against data exfiltration, which, in turn, simplifies your
networking.
Data Factory contains a series of interconnected systems that
provide a complete end-to-end platform for data engineers. The
below snippet summarizes the same.
 New Projects
Build a Langchain Streamlit Chatbot for EDA using LLMs
LLM Project to Build and Fine Tune a Large Language Model
AI Video Summarization Project using Mixtral, Whisper, and AWS
Build and Deploy Text-2-SQL LLM Using OpenAI and AWS
Build a Customer Support Agent using OpenAI and AzureML
Learn to Build an End-to-End Machine Learning Pipeline - Part 1
Build Real-Time Data Pipeline using AWS Kinesis and Snowflake
Build a Langchain Streamlit Chatbot for EDA using LLMs
LLM Project to Build and Fine Tune a Large Language Model
Build a Streaming Pipeline with DBT, Snowflake and Kinesis

5. What are the major components of a Data Factory?

To work with Data Factory effectively, one must be aware of below
concepts/components associated with it: -
 Pipelines: Data Factory can contain one or more pipelines,
which is a logical grouping of tasks/activities to perform a
task. An activity can read data from Azure blob storage and
load it into Cosmos DB or Synapse DB for analytics while
 transforming the data according to business logic. This way,
one can work with a set of activities using one entity rather
than dealing with several tasks individually.
 Activities: Activities represent a processing step in a
pipeline. For example, you might use a copy activity to copy
data between data stores. Data Factory supports data
movement, transformations, and control activities.
 Datasets: Datasets represent data structures within the data
stores, which simply point to or reference the data you want
to use in your activities as inputs or outputs.
 Linked Service: This is more like a connection string, which
will hold the information that Data Factory can connect to
various sources. In the case of reading from Azure Blob
storage, the storage-linked service will specify the
connection string to connect to the blob, and the Azure blob
dataset will select the container and folder containing the
data.
 Integration Runtime: Integration runtime instances bridged
the activity and linked Service. The linked Service or activity
references it and provides the computing environment
where the activity runs or gets dispatched. This way, the
activity can be performed in the region closest to the target
data stores or compute Services in the most performant way
while meeting security (no publicly exposing data) and
compliance needs.
 Data Flows: These are objects you build visually in Data
Factory, which transform data at scale on backend Spark
services. You do not need to understand programming or
Spark internals. Design your data transformation intent
 using graphs (Mapping) or spreadsheets (Power query
activity).
Refer to the documentation for more
details: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/data-factory/frequen
tly-asked-questions
The below snapshot explains the relationship between pipeline,
activity, dataset, and linked service.

You can also check:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/data-factory/media/
introduction/data-factory-visual-guide.png
6. What are the different ways to execute pipelines in Azure
Data Factory?
There are three ways in which we can execute a pipeline in Data
Factory:
 Debug mode can be helpful when trying out pipeline code
and acts as a tool to test and troubleshoot our code.
 Manual Execution is what we do by clicking on the ‘Trigger
now’ option in a pipeline. This is useful if you want to run
your pipelines on an ad-hoc basis.
 We can schedule our pipelines at predefined times and
intervals via a Trigger. As we will see later in this article,
there are three types of triggers available in Data Factory.

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7. What is the purpose of Linked services in Azure Data
Factory?
Linked services are used majorly for two purposes in Data Factory:
1. For a Data Store representation, i.e., any storage system
like Azure Blob storage account, a file share, or an Oracle
DB/ SQL Server instance.
2. For Compute representation, i.e., the underlying VM will
execute the activity defined in the pipeline.
8. Can you Elaborate more on Data Factory Integration
Runtime?
The Integration Runtime, or IR, is the compute infrastructure
for Azure Data Factory pipelines. It is the bridge between activities
and linked services. The linked Service or Activity references it and
provides the computing environment where the activity is run
directly or dispatched. This allows the activity to be performed in the
closest region to the target data stores or computing Services.
The following diagram shows the location settings for Data Factory
and its integration runtimes:

Source: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/data-factory/
concepts-integration-runtime
Azure Data Factory supports three types of integration runtime, and
one should choose based on their data integration capabilities and
network environment requirements.
1. Azure Integration Runtime: To copy data between cloud
data stores and send activity to various computing services
such as SQL Server, Azure HDInsight, etc.
2. Self-Hosted Integration Runtime: Used for running copy
activity between cloud data stores and data stores in private
networks. Self-hosted integration runtime is software with
the same code as the Azure Integration Runtime but
installed on your local system or machine over a virtual
network.
 3. Azure SSIS Integration Runtime: You can run SSIS packages
in a managed environment. So, when we lift and shift SSIS
packages to the data factory, we use Azure SSIS Integration
Runtime.
9. What is required to execute an SSIS package in Data
Factory?
We must create an SSIS integration runtime and an SSISDB catalog
hosted in the Azure SQL server database or Azure SQL-managed
instance before executing an SSIS package.
10. What is the limit on the number of Integration Runtimes,
if any?
Within a Data Factory, the default limit on any entities is set
to 5000, including pipelines, data sets, triggers, linked services,
Private Endpoints, and integration runtimes. If required, one can
create an online support ticket to raise the limit to a higher number.
Refer to the documentation for more
details: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-resource-
manager/management/azure-subscription-service-limits#azure-
data-factory-limits.
11. What are ARM Templates in Azure Data Factory? What
are they used for?
An ARM template is a JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) file that
defines the infrastructure and configuration for the data factory
pipeline, including pipeline activities, linked services, datasets, etc.
The template will contain essentially the same code as our pipeline.
ARM templates are helpful when we want to migrate our pipeline
code to higher environments, say Production or Staging from
Development, after we are convinced that the code is working
correctly.
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solved big data projects for beginners.
12. How can we deploy code to higher environments in Data
Factory?
At a very high level, we can achieve this with the below set of steps:
 Create a feature branch that will store our code base.
 Create a pull request to merge the code after we’re sure to
the Dev branch.
 Publish the code from the dev to generate ARM templates.
 This can trigger an automated CI/CD DevOps pipeline to
promote code to higher environments like Staging or
Production.
13. Which three activities can you run in Microsoft Azure
Data Factory?
Azure Data Factory supports three activities: data movement,
transformation, and control activities.
 Data movement activities: As the name suggests, these
activities help move data from one place to another.
e.g., Copy Activity in Data Factory copies data from a source
to a sink data store.
 Data transformation activities: These activities help
transform the data while we load it into the data's target or
destination.
e.g., Stored Procedure, U-SQL, Azure Functions, etc.
 Control flow activities: Control (flow) activities help control
the flow of any activity in a pipeline.
e.g., wait activity makes the pipeline wait for a specified time.
14. What are the two types of compute environments
supported by Data Factory to execute the transform
activities?
Below are the types of computing environments that Data Factory
supports for executing transformation activities: -
i) On-Demand Computing Environment: This is a fully managed
environment provided by ADF. This type of calculation creates a
cluster to perform the transformation activity and automatically
deletes it when the activity is complete.
ii) Bring Your Environment: In this environment, you can use ADF to
manage your computing environment if you already have the
infrastructure for on-premises services.
15. What are the steps involved in an ETL process?
The ETL (Extract, Transform, Load) process follows four main steps:
i) Connect and Collect: Connect to the data source/s and move data
to local and crowdsource data storage.
ii) Data transformation using computing services such as
HDInsight, Hadoop, Spark, etc.
iii) Publish: To load data into Azure data lake storage, Azure SQL
data warehouse, Azure SQL databases, Azure Cosmos DB, etc.
iv)Monitor: Azure Data Factory has built-in support for pipeline
monitoring via Azure Monitor, API, PowerShell, Azure Monitor logs,
and health panels on the Azure portal.
16. If you want to use the output by executing a query,
which activity shall you use?
Look-up activity can return the result of executing a query or stored
procedure.
The output can be a singleton value or an array of attributes, which
can be consumed in subsequent copy data activity, or any
transformation or control flow activity like ForEach activity.
Download Azure Data Factory Interview Questions and
Answers PDF
17. Can we pass parameters to a pipeline run?
Yes, parameters are a first-class, top-level concept in Data Factory.
We can define parameters at the pipeline level and pass arguments
as you execute the pipeline run on demand or using a trigger.
18. Have you used Execute Notebook activity in Data
Factory? How to pass parameters to a notebook activity?
We can execute notebook activity to pass code to our databricks
cluster. We can pass parameters to a notebook activity using
the baseParameters property. If the parameters are not defined/
specified in the activity, default values from the notebook are
executed.
19. What are some useful constructs available in Data
Factory?
 parameter: Each activity within the pipeline can consume
the parameter value passed to the pipeline and run
with the @parameter construct.
 coalesce: We can use the @coalesce construct in the
expressions to handle null values gracefully.
 activity: An activity output can be consumed in a
subsequent activity with the @activity construct.
20. Can we push code and have CI/CD (Continuous
Integration and Continuous Delivery) in ADF?
Data Factory fully supports CI/CD of your data pipelines using Azure
DevOps and GitHub. This allows you to develop and deliver your ETL
processes incrementally before publishing the finished product.
After the raw data has been refined into a business-ready
consumable form, load the data into Azure Data Warehouse or
Azure SQL Azure Data Lake, Azure Cosmos DB, or whichever
analytics engine your business uses can point to from their business
intelligence tools.

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21. What do you mean by variables in the Azure Data

Factory?
Variables in the Azure Data Factory pipeline provide the
functionality to hold the values. They are used for a similar reason
as we use variables in any programming language and are available
inside the pipeline.
Set variables and append variables are two activities used for
setting or manipulating the values of the variables. There are two
types of variables in a data factory: -
i) System variables: These are fixed variables from the Azure
pipeline. For example, pipeline name, pipeline id, trigger name, etc.
You need these to get the system information required in your use
case.
ii) User variable: A user variable is declared manually in your code
based on your pipeline logic.
22. What are mapping data flows?
Mapping data flows are visually designed data transformations in
Azure Data Factory. Data flows allow data engineers to develop a
graphical data transformation logic without writing code. The
resulting data flows are executed as activities within Azure Data
Factory pipelines that use scaled-out Apache Spark clusters. Data
flow activities can be operationalized using Azure Data Factory
scheduling, control flow, and monitoring capabilities.
Mapping data flows provides an entirely visual experience with no
coding required. Data flows run on ADF-managed execution clusters
for scaled-out data processing. Azure Data Factory manages all the
code translation, path optimization, and execution of the data flow
jobs.
23. What is copy activity in the Azure Data Factory?
Copy activity is one of the most popular and universally used
activities in the Azure data factory. It is used for ETL or Lift and Shift,
where you want to move the data from one data source to another.
While you copy the data, you can also do the transformation; for
example, you read the data from the TXT/CSV file, which contains 12
columns; however, while writing to your target data source, you
want to keep only seven columns. You can transform it and send
only the required columns to the destination data source.
24. Can you elaborate more on the Copy activity?
The copy activity performs the following steps at high-level:
i) Read data from the source data store. (e.g., blob storage)
ii) Perform the following tasks on the data:
 Serialization/deserialization
 Compression/decompression
 Column mapping
iii) Write data to the destination data store or sink. (e.g., azure data
lake)
This is summarized in the below graphic:

Source: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/learn/modules/intro-to-
azure-data-factory/3-how-azure-data-factory-works
Azure Data Factory Interview Questions for
Experienced Professionals

Experienced professionals must understand its capabilities and

features with the growing demand for ADF. Check out some of the
most commonly asked Azure Data Factory interview questions for
experienced professionals based on years of experience, providing
insights into what employers are looking for and what you can
expect in your next job interview.
ADF Interview Questions For 3 Years
Experience
Below are the most likely asked interview questions on Azure Data
Factory for 3 years of experience professionals:
25. What are the different activities you have used in Azure
Data Factory?
Here you can share some of the significant activities if you have
used them in your career, whether your work or college project.
Here are a few of the most used activities :
1. Copy Data Activity to copy the data between datasets.
2. ForEach Activity for looping.
 3. Get Metadata Activity that can provide metadata about any
data source.
4. Set Variable Activity to define and initiate variables within
pipelines.
5. Lookup Activity to do a lookup to get some values from a
table/file.
6. Wait Activity to wait for a specified amount of time before/in
between the pipeline run.
7. Validation Activity will validate the presence of files within
the dataset.
8. Web Activity to call a custom REST endpoint from an ADF
pipeline.
26. How can I schedule a pipeline?
You can use the time window or scheduler trigger to schedule a
pipeline. The trigger uses a wall-clock calendar schedule, which can
schedule pipelines periodically or in calendar-based recurrent
patterns (for example, on Mondays at 6:00 PM and Thursdays at
9:00 PM).
Currently, the service supports three types of triggers:
 Tumbling window trigger: A trigger that operates on a
periodic interval while retaining a state.
 Schedule Trigger: A trigger that invokes a pipeline on a wall-
clock schedule.
 Event-Based Trigger: A trigger that responds to an event.
e.g., a file getting placed inside a blob.
Pipelines and triggers have a many-to-many relationship
(except for the tumbling window trigger). Multiple triggers
can kick off a single pipeline, or a single trigger can kick off
numerous pipelines.
27. When should you choose Azure Data Factory?
One should consider using Data Factory-
  When working with big data, there is a need for a data
warehouse to be implemented; you might require a cloud-
based integration solution like ADF for the same.
 Not all team members are experienced in coding and may
prefer graphical tools to work with data.
 When raw business data is stored at diverse data sources,
which can be on-prem and on the cloud, we would like to
have one analytics solution like ADF to integrate them all in
one place.
 We would like to use readily available data movement and
processing solutions and be light regarding infrastructure
management. So, a managed solution like ADF makes more
sense in this case.
28. How can you access data using the other 90 dataset
types in Data Factory?
The mapping data flow feature allows Azure SQL Database, Azure
Synapse Analytics, delimited text files from Azure storage account
or Azure Data Lake Storage Gen2, and Parquet files from blob
storage or Data Lake Storage Gen2 natively for source and sink data
source.
Use the Copy activity to stage data from any other connectors and
then execute a Data Flow activity to transform data after it's been
staged.
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29. What is the difference between mapping and wrangling
data flow (Power query activity)?
Mapping data flows transform data at scale without requiring
coding. You can design a data transformation job in the data flow
canvas by constructing a series of transformations. Start with any
number of source transformations followed by data transformation
steps. Complete your data flow with a sink to land your results in a
destination. It is excellent at mapping and transforming data with
known and unknown schemas in the sinks and sources.
Power Query Data Wrangling allows you to do agile data preparation
and exploration using the Power Query Online mashup editor at
scale via spark execution.
It supports 24 SQL data types from char, nchar to int, bigint and
timestamp, xml, etc.
Refer to the documentation here for more
details: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/data-factory/frequen
tly-asked-questions#supported-sql-types
Azure Data Factory Interview Questions For 4
Years Experience
If you’re a professional with 4 years of experience in Azure Data
Factory, check out the list of these common ADF interview questions
that you may encounter during your job interview.
30. Can a value be calculated for a new column from the
existing column from mapping in ADF?
We can derive transformations in the mapping data flow to generate
a new column based on our desired logic. We can create a new
derived column or update an existing one when developing a
derived one. Enter the name of the column you're making in the
Column textbox.
Assessing Knowledge on Azure Data
Factory: Comprehensive Interview
Questions and Answers

1. What is Azure Data Factory primarily used for?

Cloud-based data storage

Machine learning model development
Data integration and transformation
Web hosting services
Previous 1 / 7 Next
You can use the column dropdown to override an existing column in
your schema. Click the Enter expression textbox to start creating
the derived column’s expression. You can input or use the
expression builder to build your logic.
31. How is the lookup activity useful in the Azure Data
Factory?
In the ADF pipeline, the Lookup activity is commonly used for
configuration lookup purposes, and the source dataset is available.
Moreover, it retrieves the data from the source dataset and then
sends it as the activity output. Generally, the output of the lookup
activity is further used in the pipeline for making decisions or
presenting any configuration as a result.
Simply put, lookup activity is used for data fetching in the ADF
pipeline. The way you would use it entirely relies on your pipeline
logic. Obtaining only the first row is possible, or you can retrieve the
complete rows depending on your dataset or query.
32. Elaborate more on the Get Metadata activity in Azure
Data Factory.
The Get Metadata activity is used to retrieve the metadata of any
data in the Azure Data Factory or a Synapse pipeline. We can use
the output from the Get Metadata activity in conditional expressions
to perform validation or consume the metadata in subsequent
activities.
It takes a dataset as input and returns metadata information as
output. Currently, the following connectors and the corresponding
retrievable metadata are supported. The maximum size of returned
metadata is 4 MB.
Please refer to the snapshot below for supported metadata which
can be retrieved using the Get Metadata activity.
Source: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/data-factory/control-
flow-get-metadata-activity#metadata-options
33. How to debug an ADF pipeline?
Debugging is one of the crucial aspects of any coding-related
activity needed to test the code for any issues it might have. It also
provides an option to debug the pipeline without executing it.
Azure Data Factory Interview Questions For 5
Years Experience
Here are some of the most likely asked Azure Data Factory interview
questions for professionals with 5 years of experience to help you
prepare for your next job interview and feel confident in showcasing
your expertise.
34. What does it mean by the breakpoint in the ADF
pipeline?
To understand better, for example, you are using three activities in
the pipeline, and now you want to debug up to the second activity
only. You can do this by placing the breakpoint at the second
activity. To add a breakpoint, click the circle present at the top of
the activity.
35. What is the use of the ADF Service?
ADF primarily organizes the data copying between relational and
non-relational data sources hosted locally in data centers or the
cloud. Moreover, you can use ADF Service to transform the ingested
data to fulfill business requirements. In most Big Data solutions, ADF
Service is used as an ETL or ELT tool for data ingestion.
36. Explain the data source in the Azure data factory.
The data source is the source or destination system that comprises
the data intended to be utilized or executed. The data type can be
binary, text, CSV, JSON, image files, video, audio, or a proper
database.
Examples of data sources include Azure data lake storage, azure
blob storage, or any other database such as MySQL DB, Azure SQL
database, Postgres, etc.
37. Can you share any difficulties you faced while getting
data from on-premises to Azure cloud using Data Factory?
One of the significant challenges we face while migrating from on-
prem to the cloud is throughput and speed. When we try to copy the
data using Copy activity from on-prem, the process rate could be
faster, and hence we need to get the desired throughput.
There are some configuration options for a copy activity, which can
help in tuning this process and can give desired results.
i) We should use the compression option to get the data in a
compressed mode while loading from on-prem servers, which is
then de-compressed while writing on the cloud storage.
ii) Staging area should be the first destination of our data after we
have enabled the compression. The copy activity can decompress
before writing it to the final cloud storage buckets.
iii) Degree of Copy Parallelism is another option to help improve the
migration process. This is identical to having multiple threads
processing data and can speed up the data copy process.
There is no right fit-for-all here, so we must try different numbers
like 8, 16, or 32 to see which performs well.
iv) Data Integration Unit is loosely the number of CPUs used, and
increasing it may improve the performance of the copy process.
38. How to copy multiple sheet data from an Excel file?
When using an Excel connector within a data factory, we must
provide a sheet name from which we must load data. This approach
is nuanced when we have to deal with a single or a handful of
sheets of data, but when we have lots of sheets (say 10+), this may
become a tedious task as we have to change the hard-coded sheet
name every time!
However, we can use a data factory binary data format connector
for this and point it to the Excel file and need not provide the sheet
name/s. We’ll be able to use copy activity to copy the data from all
the sheets present in the file.
39. Is it possible to have nested looping in Azure Data
Factory?
There is no direct support for nested looping in the data factory for
any looping activity (for each / until). However, we can use one for
each/until loop activity which will contain an execute pipeline
activity that can have a loop activity. This way, when we call the
looping activity, it will indirectly call another loop activity, and we'll
be able to achieve nested looping.

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Azure Data Factory Interview Questions for 6

Years Experience
Below are some of the most commonly asked Azure Data Factory
advanced interview questions for professionals with 6 years of
experience, helping to ensure that you are well-prepared for your
next job interview.
40. How to copy multiple tables from one datastore to
another datastore?
An efficient approach to complete this task would be:
 Maintain a lookup table/ file containing the list of tables and
their source, which needs to be copied.
 Then, we can use the lookup activity and each loop activity
to scan through the list.
 Inside the for each loop activity, we can use a copy activity
or a mapping dataflow to copy multiple tables to the
destination datastore.
41. What are some performance-tuning techniques for
Mapping Data Flow activity?
We could consider the below set of parameters for tuning the
performance of a Mapping Data Flow activity we have in a pipeline.
i) We should leverage partitioning in the source, sink, or
transformation whenever possible. Microsoft, however, recommends
using the default partition (size 128 MB) selected by the Data
Factory as it intelligently chooses one based on our pipeline
configuration.
Still, one should try out different partitions and see if they can have
improved performance.
ii) We should not use a data flow activity for each loop activity.
Instead, we have multiple files similar in structure and processing
needs. In that case, we should use a wildcard path inside the data
flow activity, enabling the processing of all the files within a folder.
iii) The recommended file format to use is ‘. parquet’. The reason
being the pipeline will execute by spinning up spark clusters, and
Parquet is the native file format for Apache Spark; thus, it will
generally give good performance.
iv) Multiple logging modes are available: Basic, Verbose, and None.
We should only use verbose mode if essential, as it will log all the
details about each operation the activity performs. e.g., It will log all
the details of the operations performed for all our partitions. This
one is useful when troubleshooting issues with the data flow.
The basic mode will give out all the necessary basic details in the
log, so try to use this one whenever possible.
v) Try to break down a complex data flow activity into multiple data
flow activities. Let’s say we have several transformations between
source and sink, and by adding more, we think the design has
become complex. In this case, try to have it in multiple such
activities, which will give two advantages:
  All activities will run on separate spark clusters, decreasing
the run time for the whole task.
 The whole pipeline will be easy to understand and maintain
in the future.
42. What are some of the limitations of ADF?
Azure Data Factory provides great functionalities for data movement
and transformations. However, there are some limitations as well.
i) We can’t have nested looping activities in the data factory, and we
must use some workaround if we have that sort of structure in our
pipeline. All the looping activities come under this: If, Foreach,
switch, and until activities.
ii) The lookup activity can retrieve only 5000 rows at a time and not
more than that. Again, we need to use some other loop activity
along with SQL with the limit to achieve this sort of structure in the
pipeline.
iii) We can have 40 activities in a single pipeline, including inner
activity, containers, etc. To overcome this, we should modularize the
pipelines regarding the number of datasets, activities, etc.
44. How are all the components of Azure Data Factory
combined to complete an ADF task?
The below diagram depicts how all these components can be
clubbed together to fulfill Azure Data Factory ADF tasks.
Source: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/learn/modules/intro-to-
azure-data-factory/3-how-azure-data-factory-works
45. How do you send email notifications on pipeline failure?
There are multiple ways to do this:
1. Using Logic Apps with Web/Webhook activity.
Configure a logic app that, upon getting an HTTP request,
can send an email to the required set of people for failure. In
the pipeline, configure the failure option to hit the URL
generated by the logic app.
2. Using Alerts and Metrics from pipeline options.
We can set up this from the pipeline itself, where we get
numerous options for email on any activity failure within the
pipeline.
46. Can we integrate Data Factory with Machine learning
data?
Yes, we can train and retrain the model on machine learning data
from the pipelines and publish it as a web service.
Checkout:https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/data-factory/
transform-data-using-machine-learning#using-machine-learning-
studio-classic-with-azure-data-factory-or-synapse-analytics
47. What is an Azure SQL database? Can you integrate it
with Data Factory?
Part of the Azure SQL family, Azure SQL Database is an always up-
to-date, fully managed relational database service built for the cloud
for storing data. Using the Azure data factory, we can easily design
data pipelines to read and write to SQL DB.
Checkout:https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/data-factory/
connector-azure-sql-database?tabs=data-factory
48. Can you host SQL Server instances on Azure?
Azure SQL Managed Instance is the intelligent, scalable cloud
database service that combines the broadest SQL Server instance or
SQL Server database engine compatibility with all the benefits of a
fully managed and evergreen platform as a service.
50. What is Azure Data Lake Analytics?
Azure Data Lake Analytics is an on-demand analytics job service
that simplifies storing data and processing big data.
Azure Data Factory Scenario-Based Interview
Questions

If you are preparing for an interview for an Azure Data Factory role,
it is essential to be familiar with various real-time scenarios that you
may encounter on the job. Scenario-based interview questions are a
popular way for interviewers to assess your problem-solving abilities
and practical knowledge of Azure Data Factory. Check out these
common Azure data factory real-time scenario interview questions
to help you prepare for your interview and feel more confident. So,
let's dive in and discover some of the most commonly asked Azure
Data Factory scenario-based interview questions below:
51. How would you set up a pipeline that extracts data from
a REST API and loads it into an Azure SQL Database while
managing authentication, rate limiting, and potential errors
or timeouts during the data retrieval?
You can use the REST-linked Service to set up authentication and
rate-limiting settings. To handle errors or timeouts, you can
configure a Retry Policy in the pipeline and use Azure Functions or
Azure Logic Apps to address any issues during the process.
52. Imagine merging data from multiple sources into a single
table in an Azure SQL Database. How would you design a
pipeline in Azure Data Factory to efficiently combine the
data and ensure it is correctly matched and deduplicated?
You can use several strategies to efficiently merge and deduplicate
data from multiple sources into a single table in an Azure SQL
Database using Azure Data Factory. One possible approach involves
using the Lookup and Join activities to combine data from different
sources and the Deduplicate activity to remove duplicates. For
performance optimization, you can use parallel processing by
partitioning the data and processing each partition in parallel using
the For Each activity. You can use a key column or set of columns to
join and deduplicate the data to ensure that the data is correctly
matched and deduplicated.
Upskill yourself in Big Data tools and frameworks by
practicing exciting Spark Projects with Source Code!
53. Imagine you must import data from many files stored in
Azure Blob Storage into an Azure Synapse Analytics data
warehouse. How would you design a pipeline in Azure Data
Factory to efficiently process the files in parallel and
minimize processing time?
Here is the list of steps that you can follow to create and design a
pipeline in Azure Data Factory to efficiently process the files in
parallel and minimize the processing time:
1. Start by creating a Blob storage dataset in Azure Data
Factory to define the files' source location.
2. Create a Synapse Analytics dataset in Azure Data Factory to
define the destination location in Synapse Analytics where
the data will be stored.
3. Create a pipeline in Azure Data Factory that includes a copy
activity to transfer data from the Blob Storage dataset to the
Synapse Analytics dataset.
4. Configure the copy activity to use a binary file format and
enable parallelism by setting the "parallelCopies" property.
5. You can also use Azure Data Factory's built-in monitoring
and logging capabilities to track the pipeline's progress and
diagnose any issues that may arise.
54. Suppose you work as a data engineer in a company that
plans to migrate from on-premises infrastructure to
Microsoft Azure cloud. As part of this migration, you intend
to use Azure Data Factory (ADF) to copy data from a table in
the on-premises Azure cloud. What actions should you take
to ensure the successful execution of this pipeline?
One approach is to utilize a self-hosted integration runtime. This
involves creating a self-hosted integration runtime that can connect
to your on-premises servers.
55. Imagine you need to process streaming data in real time
and store the results in an Azure Cosmos DB database. How
would you design a pipeline in Azure Data Factory to
efficiently handle the continuous data stream and ensure it
is correctly stored and indexed in the destination database?
Here are the steps to design a pipeline in Azure Data Factory to
efficiently handle streaming data and store it in an Azure Cosmos
DB database.
1. Set up an Azure Event Hub or Azure IoT Hub as the data
source to receive the streaming data.
2. Use Azure Stream Analytics to process and transform the
data in real time using Stream Analytics queries.
3. Write the transformed data to a Cosmos DB collection as an
output of the Stream Analytics job.
4. Optimize query performance by configuring appropriate
indexing policies for the Cosmos DB collection.
5. Monitor the pipeline for issues using Azure Data Factory's
monitoring and diagnostic features, such as alerts and logs.
ADF Interview Questions and Answers Asked
at Top Companies

What questions do interviewers ask at top companies like TCS,

Microsoft, or Mindtree? Check out these commonly asked data
factory questions and answers to help you prepare.
TCS Azure Data Factory Interview Questions
Listed below are the most common Azure data factory interview
questions asked at TCS:
56. How can one combine or merge several rows into one
row in ADF? Can you explain the process?
In Azure Data Factory (ADF), you can merge or combine several
rows into a single row using the "Aggregate" transformation.
57. How do you copy data as per file size in ADF?
You can copy data based on file size by using the "FileFilter"
property in the Azure Data Factory. This property allows you to
specify a file pattern to filter the files based on size.
Here are the steps you can follow to copy data based on the file
size:
 Create a dataset for the source and destination data stores.
 Now, set the "FileFilter" property to filter the files based on
their size in the source dataset.
 In the copy activity, select the source and destination
datasets and configure the copy behavior per your
requirement.
 Run the pipeline to copy the data based on the file size
filter.
58. How can you insert folder name and file count from blob
into SQL table?
You can follow these steps to insert a folder name and file count
from blob into the SQL table:
 Create an ADF pipeline with a "Get Metadata" activity to
retrieve the folder and file details from the blob storage.
 Add a "ForEach" activity to loop through each folder in the
blob storage.
 Inside the "ForEach" activity, add a "Get Metadata" activity
to retrieve the file count for each folder.
  Add a "Copy Data" activity to insert the folder name and file
count into the SQL table.
 Configure the "Copy Data" activity to use the folder name
and file count as source data and insert them into the
appropriate columns in the SQL table.
 Run the ADF pipeline to insert the folder name and file count
into the SQL table.
Microsoft Azure Data Factory Interview
Questions
Below are the commonly asked ADF interview questions and
answers asked at Microsoft:
59. Why do we require Azure Data Factory?
Azure Data Factory is a valuable tool that helps organizations
simplify moving and transforming data between various sources and
destinations, including on-premises data sources, cloud-based data
stores, and software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications. It also
provides a flexible and scalable platform for managing data
pipelines, allowing users to create, schedule, and monitor complex
data workflows easily. It also provides a variety of built-in
connectors and integration options for popular data sources and
destinations, such as Azure Blob Storage and Azure SQL Database.
60. Can you explain how ADF integrates with other Azure
services, such as Azure Data Lake storage, Azure Blob
Storage, and Azure SQL Database?
Azure Data Factory (ADF) can integrate with other Azure services
such as Azure Data Lake Storage, Azure Blob Storage, and Azure
SQL Database by using linked services. Linked services provide a
way to specify the account name and credentials for the first two
data sources to establish a secure connection. The 'Copy' activity
can then transfer and transform data between these sources. With
the 'Copy' activity, data can be moved between various source and
sink data stores, including Azure Data Lake Storage, Azure Blob
Storage, and Azure SQL Database. The 'Copy' activity also
transforms the data while it is transferred.
Mindtree Azure Data Factory Interview
Questions
Here are a few commonly asked ADF questions asked at Mindtree:
62. What are the various types of loops in ADF?
Loops in Azure Data Factory are used to iterate over a collection of
items to perform a specific action repeatedly. There are three major
types of loops in Azure Data Factory:
 For Each Loop: This loop is used to iterate over a collection
of items and perform a specific action for each item in the
collection. For example, if you have a list of files in a folder
and want to copy each file to another location, you can use
a For Each Loop to iterate over the list of files and copy each
file to the target location.
 Until Loop: This loop repeats a set of activities until a
specific condition is met. For example, you could use an
Until Loop to keep retrying an operation until it succeeds or
until a certain number of attempts have been made.
 While Loop: This loop repeats a specific action while a
condition is true. For example, if you want to keep
processing data until a specific condition is met, you can use
a While Loop to repeat the processing until the condition is
no longer true.
63. Can you list all the activities that can be performed in
ADF?
Here are some of the key activities that can be performed in ADF:
 Data Ingestion
 Data Transformation
 Data Integration
  Data Migration
 Data Integration
 Data Orchestration
 Data Enrichment
Here we shared top ADF interview questions and hope they will help
you prepare for your next data engineer interview.
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FAQs on ADF Interview Questions
1. Is Azure Data Factory an ETL tool?
Yes, ADF is an ETL tool that helps to orchestrate and automate data
integration workflows between data sources and destinations.
2. Which three types of activities can you run in Microsoft
Azure Data Factory?
The three types of activities that you can run in the Azure factory
are data movement activities, data transformation activities, and
control activities.
3. What is the primary use of Azure Data Factory?
The primary use of Azure Data Factory is to help organizations
manage their data integration workflows across various data
sources and destinations. With Azure Data Factory, you can ingest
data from multiple sources, transform and process it, and then load
it into various destinations such as databases, data warehouses, and
data lakes.

1. What is azure data factory used for ?

Azure Data factory is the data orchestration service provided by the
Microsoft Azure cloud. ADF is used for following use cases mainly :

1. Data migration from one data source to other

2. On Premise to cloud data migration
3. ETL purpose
4. Automated the data flow.
There is huge data laid out there and when you want to move the data
from one location to another in automated way within the cloud or
from on-premises to the azure cloud azure data factory is the best
service we have available.

2. What are the main components of the azure data factory ?

These are the main components of the the azure data factory:

1. Pipeline
2. Integration Runtime
3. Activities
4. DataSet
5. Linked Services
6. Triggers
3. What is the pipeline in the adf ?
Pipeline is the set of the activities specified to run in defined sequence. For achieving any task
in the azure data factory we create a pipeline which contains the various types of activity as
required for fulfilling the business purpose. Every pipeline must have a valid name and optional
list of parameters.
Real-time Scenario Based Interview Questions for Azure Data Factory
4. What is the data source in the azure data factory ?
It is the source or destination system which contains the data to be
used or operate upon. Data could be of anytype like text, binary, json,
csv type files or may be audio, video, image files, or may be a proper
database. Data source examples are : Azure blob storage, azure data
lake storage, any database like azure sql database, mysql
db, postgres and etc. There are 80+ different data source connector
provided by the azure data factory to get in/out data from the data
source.
5. What is the integration runtime in Azure data factory :
It is the powerhouse of the azure data pipeline. Integration runtime is
also knows as IR, is the one who provides the computer resources for
the data transfer activities and for dispatching the data transfer
activities in azure data factory. Integration runtime is the heart of the
azure data factory.
In Azure data factory the pipeline is made up of activities. An activity is
represents some action that need to be performed. This action could
be a data transfer which acquired some execution or it will be dispatch
action. Integration runtime provides the area where this activity can
execute.
6. What are the different types of integration runtime ?
There are 3 types of the integration runtime available in the Azure data
factory. We can choose based upon our requirement the specific
integration runtime best fitted in specific scenario. The three types
are :

Azure IR
 Self-hosted
 Azure-SSIS
7. What is Azure Integration Runtime ?
As the name suggested azure integration runtime is the runtime
which is managed by the azure itself. Azure IR represents the
infrastructure which is installed, configured, managed and maintained
by the azure itself. Now as the infrastructure is managed by the azure
it can’t be used to connect to your on premise data sources. Whenever
you create the data factory account and create any linked services you
will get one IR by default and this is
called AutoResolveIntegrationRuntime.

When you create the azure data factory you mentioned

the region along with it. This region specifies where the meta data of
the azure data factory would be saved. This is irrespective of the which
data source and from which region you are accessing.
For example if you have created the adf account in the US East and
you have data source in US West region, then still it is completely ok
and data transfer would be possible.

8. What is the main advantage of the

AutoResolveIntegrationRuntime ?
Advantage of AutoResolveIntegrationRuntime is that it will
automatically try to run the activities in the same region if possible or
close to the region of the sink data source. This can improve the
performance a lot.
9. What is Self Hosted Integration Runtimes in azure data
factory?
Self hosted integration runtime as the name suggested, is the IR
managed by you itself rather than azure. This will make you
responsible for the installation, configuration, maintenance, installing
updates and scaling. Now as you host the IR , it can access the on
premises network as well.
10. What is the Azure-SSIS Integration Runtimes
As the name suggested the azure-SSIS integration runtimes are
actually the set of vm running the SQL Server Integration Services
(SSIS) engine, managed by Microsoft. Again the responsibility of the
installation, maintenance, are of azure only. Azure Data Factory uses
azure-SSIS integration runtime for executing SSIS packages.

11. How to install Self Hosted Integration Runtimes in azure

data factory ?
Steps to install the self-hosted integration runtime is as follows :
1. Create self hosted integration runtime by simply giving
general information like name description.
2. Create Azure VM (If u already have then you can skip this
step)
3. Download the integration runtime software on azure virtual
machine. and install it.
4. Copy the autogenerated key from step 1 and paste it newly
installed integration runtime on azure vm.
12. What is use of lookup activity in azure data factory ?
Lookup activity in adf pipeline is generally used for configuration
lookup purpose. It has the source dataset. Lookup activity used to pull
the data from source dataset and keep it as the output of the activity.
Output of the lookup activity generally used further in the pipeline for
making some decision, configuration accordingly.

×
You can say that lookup activity in adf pipelines is just for fetching the data. How you will use
this data will totally depends on your pipeline logic. You can fetch first row only or you can
fetch the entire rows based on your query or dataset.
Example of the lookup activity could be : Lets assume we want to
run a pipeline for incremental data load. We want to have copy activity
which will pull the data from source system based on the last fetched
date. Now the last fetched date we are saving inside
the HighWaterMark.txt file. Here lookup activity will read the
HighWaterMark.txt data and then based on the date copy activity will
fetch the data.

13. What is copy activity in azure data factory

×
Copy activity is one of the most popular and highly used activity in the azure data factory.
Copy activity is basically used for ETL purpose or lift and shift where
you want to move the data from one data source to the other data
source. While you copy the data you can also do the transformation for
example you read the data from csv file which contains 10 columns
however while writing to your target data source you want to keep only
5 columns. You can transform it and you can send only the required
number of columns to the the destination data source.
For creating the copy activity you need to have your source and
destination ready. Here destination is called as sink. Copy activity
requires:
 1. Linked service
2. Datasets
Assume you already have a linked service and data service created in
case not you can please refer these links to create link service and
datasets

How to create Linked service in Azure data factory

What is dataset in azure data factory
14. What do you mean by variables in the azure data factory ?
Variables is the adf pipeline provide the functionality to temporary hold
the values. They are used for similar reason like we do use variables in
the programming language. They are available inside the pipeline and
there is set inside the pipeline. Set Variable and append
variable are two type of activities used for the setting or manipulating
the variables values. There are two types of the variable :
 System variable
 User Variables
System variable: These are some kind of the fixed variable from the
azure pipeline itself. For example pipeline name, pipeline id, trigger
name etc. You mostly need this to get the system information which
might be needed in your use case.
User variable : User variable is something which you declared
manually based on your logic of the pipeline.

15. What is the linked service in the azure data factory ?

×
Linked service in azure data factory are basically the connection mechanism to connect to the
external source. It works as the connection string to hold the user authentication information.
For example you want to connect to copy the data from the azure blob
storage to azure sql server. In this case you need to build the 2 Linked
service. One which is connect to blob storage and other to connect to
azure sql database.

There are two ways to create the Linked Service :

1. Using the Azure Portal

2. ARM template way
16. What is the Dataset in the adf ?
In azure data factory as we create the data pipelines for ETL / Shift and
load / Analytics purpose we need to create the
dataset. Dataset connects to the datasource via linked service. It is
created based upon the type of the data and data source you want to
connect. Dataset resembles the type of the data holds by data source.
For example if we want to pull the csv file from the azure blob storage
in the copy activity, we need linked service and the dataset for it.
Linked service will be used to make connection to the azure blob
storage and dataset would hold the csv type data.

17. Can we debug the pipeline ?

×
Debugging is one of the key feature for any developer. To solve and test issue in the code
developers uses the debug feature in general. Azure data factory also provide the debugging
feature. In this tutorial I will take you through each and every minute details which would help
you to understand the debug azure data factory pipeline feature and how you can utilize the same
in your day to day work.

When you go to the data pipeline tab there on the top you can see the
‘Debug’ link to click. Like this :

When you click on the Debug it will start running the pipeline like
you are executing it. Its not testing. If you are doing deleting
the data or inserting the data in your pipeline activity, it will
get update respectively. Debugging the pipeline can make
permanent change.
Warning : Do not consider the pipeline debugging just as testing it will
impact immediately to your data based on the type of activity.
However you can use the ‘Preview‘ option available in some of the
activity, that is available for the read purpose only.

18. What is the breakpoint in the adf pipeline ?

Debug part of the pipeline using the break points : While doing if
you want to check the pipeline up to certain activity you can do it by
using the breakpoints.
For example you have 3 activities in the pipeline and you want to
debug up to 2nd activity only. You can do this by putting the break
point at the 2nd activity. There is circle on the top of the activity you
can just click to add break point :

Once you click the hollow red circle you can see next activity
will get disables and hollow circle converted to filled one :

Now if you debug the pipeline it will get executed up to breakpoint

only.

Question 1 : Assume that you are a data engineer for company

ABC The company wanted to do cloud migration from their on-
premises to Microsoft Azure cloud. You probably will use the
Azure data factory for this purpose. You have created a
pipeline that copies data of one table from on-premises to
Azure cloud. What are the necessary steps you need to take to
ensure this pipeline will get executed successfully?
The company has taken a very good decision of moving to the cloud
from the traditional on-premises database. As we have to move the
data from the on-premise location to the cloud location we need to
have an Integration Runtime created. The reason being the auto-
resolve Integration runtime provided by the Azure data factory cannot
connect to your on-premises. Hence in step 1, we should create our
own self-hosted integration runtime. Now this can be done in two
ways:
The first way is we can have one virtual Machine ready in
the cloud and there we will install the integration runtime of our own.

×
The second way, we could take a machine on the on-premises network and install the
integration runtime there.
Once we decided on the machine where integration runtime needs to
be installed (let’s take the virtual machine approach). You need to
follow these steps for Integration runtime installation.

×
 1. Go to the azure data factory portal. In the manage tab
select the Integration runtime.
2. Create self hosted integration runtime by simply giving
general information like name description.
3. Create Azure VM (If u already have then you can skip this
step)
4. Download the integration runtime software on azure virtual
machine. and install it.
5. Copy the autogenerated key from step 2 and paste it
newly installed integration runtime on azure vm.
You can follow this link for detailed step by step guide to understand
the process of how to install sefl-hosted Integration runtime. How to
Install Self-Hosted Integration Runtime on Azure vm – AzureLib
Once your Integration runtime is ready we go to linked service
creation. Create the linked service which connect to the your data
source and for this you use the integration runtime created above.
After this we will create the pipeline. Your pipeline will have copy
activity where source should be the database available on the on-
premises location. While sink would be the database available in the
cloud.

Once all of these done we execute the pipeline and this will be the
one-time load as per the problem statement. This will successfully
move the data from a table on on-premises database to the cloud
database.

You can also find this pdf very useful.

Question 2: Assume that you are working for a company ABC
as a data engineer. You have successfully created a pipeline
needed for migration. This is working fine in your development
environment. how would you deploy this pipeline in
production without making any or very minimal changes?
When you create the pipeline for migration or for any other purposes
like ETL, most of the time it will use the data source. In the above
mentioned scenario, we are doing the migration hence it is definitely
using a data source at the source side and similarly a data source at
the destination side and we need to move the data from source to
destination. It is also described in the in the question itself data
engineer has developed the pipeline successfully in the development
environment. Hence it is safe to assume that source side data
source and destination side data source both probably will be
pointing to the development environment only. Pipeline would
have copy activity which uses the dataset with the help of linked
service for source and sink.
 Linked service provides way to connect to the data source by
providing the data source details like the server address, port number,
username, password, key, or other credential related information.

In this case, our linked services probably pointing to the development

environment only.

As we want to do production deployment before that we may need to

do a couple of other deployments as well like deployment for the
testing environment or UAT environment.

Hence we need to design our Azure data factory pipeline components

in such a way that we can provide the environment related information
dynamic and as a part of a parameter. There should be no hard coding
of these kind of information.

We need to create the arm template for our pipeline. ARM

template needs to have a definition defined for all the
constituents of the pipeline like Linked services, dataset,
activities and pipeline.
Once the ARM template is ready, it should be checked-in into the GIT
repository. Lead or Admin will create the devops pipeline which will
take up this arm template and parameter file as an
input. Devops pipeline will deploy this arm template and create all the
resources like linked service, dataset, activities and your data pipeline
into the production environment.
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Question 3: Assume that you have around 1 TB of data stored
in Azure blob storage . This data is in multiple csv files. You
are asked to do couple of transformations on this data as per
business logic and needs, before moving this data into the
staging container. How would you plan and architect the
solution for this given scenario. Explain with the details.
First of all, we need to analyze the situation. Here if you closely look at
the size of the data, you find that it is very huge in the size. Hence
directly doing the transformation on such a huge size of data could be
very cumbersome and time consuming process. Hence we should think
about the big data processing mechanism where we can leverage the
parallel and distributed computing advantages.. Here we have two
choices.
1. We can use the Hadoop MapReduce through
HDInsight capability for doing the transformation.
2. We can also think of using the spark through the Azure
databricks for doing the transformation on such a huge
scale of data.
Out of these two, Spark on Azure databricks is better choice because
Spark is much faster than Hadoop due to in memory computation. So
let’s choose the Azure databricks as the option.

×
Next we need to create the pipeline in Azure data factory. A pipeline should use the
databricks notebook as an activity.

×
We can write all the business related transformation logic into the Spark notebook. Notebook
can be executed using either python, scala or java language.
When you execute the pipeline it will trigger the Azure databricks
notebook and your analytics algorithm logic runs an do transformations
as you defined into the Notebook. In the notebook itself, you can write
the logic to store the output into the blob storage Staging area.
 ×
That’s how you can solve the problem statement.
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Question 4: Assume that you have an IoT device enabled on
your vehicle. This device from the vehicle sends the data every
hour and this is getting stored in a blob storage location in
Microsoft Azure. You have to move this data from this storage
location into the SQL database. How would design the solution
explain with reason.

×
This looks like an a typical incremental load scenario. As described in the problem statement,
IoT device write the data to the location every hour. It is most likely that this device is sending
the JSON data to the cloud storage (as most of the IoT device generate the data in JSON format).
It will probably writing the new JSON file every time whenever the data from the device sent to
the cloud.
 ×
Hence we will have couple of files available in the storage location generated on hourly basis
and we need to pull these file into the azure sql database.
we need to create the pipeline into the Azure data factory
which should do the incremental load. we can use the
conventional high watermark file mechanism for solving this
problem.
Highwater mark design is as follows :

1. Create a file named lets say HighWaterMark.txt and stored

in some place in azure blob storage. In this file we will put
the start date and time.
2. Now create the pipeline in the azure data factory. Pipeline
has the first activity defined as lookup activity. This will read
the date from the HighWaterMark.txt
3. Add a one more lookup activity which will return the current
date time.
4. Add the copy activity in the pipeline which will pull the file
JSON files having created timestamp greater than High
Water Mark date. In the sink push the read data into
the azure sql database.
5. After copy activity add the another copy activity which will
update the current date time generated in the step 2, to the
High Water Mark file.
6. Add the trigger to execute this pipeline on hourly basis.
That’s how we can design the incremental data load solution for the
above described scenario.

Question 5: Assume that you are doing some R&D over the
data about the COVID across the world. This data is available
by some of the public forum which is exposed as REST api. How
would you plan the solution in this scenario?
 ×
You would also like to see these interview questions as well for your Azure Data engineer
Interview :

Azure Devops Interview Questions and Answers

Azure Data lake Interview Questions and Answers
Azure Active Directory Interview Questions and Answers
Azure Databricks Spark Interview Questions and Answers
Azure Data Factory Interview Questions and Answers
I would recommend you to must this YouTube channel once,
there is very good source available on azure data factory and
Azure.
Final Thoughts :
Azure data factory is the new field and due to this there is shortage of
resources available on the internet which needed for preparing for
azure data factory (adf) interviews. In this blog I tried to provide many
real world scenario based interview questions and answers for
experienced adf developer and professionals. I will on adding few more
questions in near time I would recommend you, to also grow the
theoretical questions sum up in this linked article. Here : Mostly asked
Azure Data Factory Interview Questions and Answers

Data Integration and ETL (Azure Data Factory, Databricks)

1. Design a pipeline for multiple sources: Use Azure Data Factory to ingest data from
sources (e.g., SQL, APIs) into Azure Data Lake, using pipelines with copy activities.
Transform data with data flows or Databricks as needed.
2. Copy activity vs. data flow: Copy activity is for simple data movement, while data
flows are for complex transformations. Use data flows for advanced ETL.
3. Schema drift in ADF: Enable schema drift in data flows to allow dynamic handling of
column changes without hardcoding.
4. Incremental loading: Use watermark columns and a query with dynamic ranges to only
load new or updated data.
5. Troubleshooting pipelines: Use the ADF monitoring tab to analyze activity logs, resolve
errors, and rerun failed activities.
6. ADF vs. Databricks: Use Databricks for complex computations or large-scale data
transformations. ADF is better for orchestrating workflows.
7. Optimizing pipelines: Use staging, parallelism, and partitioning. Limit data movements
between services.
8. Process JSON in Databricks: Use PySpark to flatten and parse JSON files, then save as
structured formats (e.g., Parquet).
9. Parameterization in ADF: Use parameters for dynamic inputs (e.g., file names or
paths). Pass them via pipeline triggers or activities.
10. Event triggers: Configure Event Grid or Blob storage event triggers to invoke pipelines
when new data arrives.

Data Storage and Management (Azure Data Lake, Azure SQL, Cosmos DB)

11. Design a data lake: Organize data in zones: raw, cleansed, and curated. Partition by time
or other dimensions.
12. Secure data in ADLS: Use RBAC, ACLs, and private endpoints. Encrypt data with keys
in Azure Key Vault.
13. Partitioning in ADLS: Store data by logical partitions (e.g., by date) to improve query
performance.
 14. Migrate to Azure SQL: Use Data Migration Assistant or Azure Database Migration
Service for minimal downtime.
15. Real-time ingestion in Cosmos DB: Use Event Hubs to capture streams and process
with Azure Stream Analytics or Functions.
16. Read replica: Enable read replicas in Azure SQL via the portal or CLI for load
balancing.
17. Optimizing ADLS costs: Use lifecycle management to move rarely accessed data to
Cool/Archive tiers.
18. Blob storage tiers: Hot: Frequently accessed. Cool: Infrequent access. Archive: Long-
term storage.
19. High availability in Cosmos DB: Use multi-region writes and automatic failover.
20. Gen2 over Gen1: Gen2 offers hierarchical namespace and improved integration with big
data tools.

Data Modeling and Warehousing (Azure Synapse Analytics, SQL)

21. Star schema design: Create fact tables for measurable data and dimension tables for
descriptive data.
22. Indexing in Synapse: Use clustered columnstore indexes for large tables and regular
indexes for selective queries.
23. Slowly changing dimensions (SCD): Implement SCD Type 1 (overwrite) or Type 2
(track history) in ETL pipelines.
24. Data deduplication: Use window functions (ROW_NUMBER or RANK) to identify
duplicates and delete them.
25. Table partitioning: Partition tables by date or regions to improve query performance.
26. Materialized views: Pre-computed views for repetitive queries. Use for aggregations like
monthly sales reports.
27. IoT data warehouse: Use time-series data modeling and scalable storage in Synapse.
28. PolyBase: Load external data into Synapse from sources like ADLS or Blob storage
using T-SQL.
29. Serverless vs. dedicated pools: Serverless is pay-per-query, while dedicated pools are
for consistent workloads.
30. Data consistency: Use CDC (Change Data Capture) or Data Factory to sync
transactional and warehouse data.

Big Data and Real-Time Analytics

31. Streaming with Event Hubs and Analytics: Event Hubs ingests data, and Stream
Analytics processes it in near real-time.
32. Distributed computing in Databricks: Apache Spark distributes data processing across
nodes for scalability.
 33. Real-time fraud detection: Use Event Hubs for data ingestion, Stream Analytics for
anomaly detection, and alert services.
34. Optimizing Spark jobs: Partition data, cache frequently used datasets, and tune the
cluster size.
35. Synapse vs. Databricks: Synapse is better for warehousing, while Databricks excels at
big data and ML.
36. Log analytics: Use Azure Monitor or Log Analytics Workspace to query and visualize
logs.
37. Batch vs. stream processing: Batch is for historical data, stream is for real-time data.
38. High-throughput Event Hubs: Enable partitioning and auto-scaling.
39. Azure Time Series Insights: Visualize and analyze time-series data, like IoT sensor
data.
40. Integrating Azure Monitor: Use diagnostic settings to send logs to Monitor and set
alerts.

Data Security and Governance

41. RBAC in ADLS: Assign roles like Data Reader or Contributor to control access.
42. Encrypting data: Use encryption-at-rest with Azure-managed keys or customer-
managed keys (via Key Vault).
43. Azure Purview: Use for metadata scanning, lineage tracking, and data classification.
44. Securing Synapse: Enable network isolation, secure managed identity, and limit public
endpoints.
45. Key Vault: Store secrets, keys, and certificates securely for use in pipelines.
46. Disaster recovery: Enable geo-redundancy and automated backups for Azure SQL
Database.
47. Data masking: Use static or dynamic data masking to hide sensitive information during
queries.
48. Auditing for ADLS: Enable diagnostic logs and send them to Log Analytics for review.
49. GDPR compliance: Anonymize PII data, implement data retention policies, and enable
user consent tracking.
50. Securing pipelines: Use managed identities, private endpoints, and secure keys in Key
Vault.

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1. Normalization
Normalization is a database design technique used to organize data into tables and reduce
redundancy while ensuring data integrity. It involves dividing a database into smaller, related
tables and defining relationships between them.

 Purpose in your project:

o You used normalization to eliminate redundancy, ensuring that each piece of data
is stored in only one place.
o This minimizes inconsistencies and optimizes storage by reducing duplicate data
across tables.
 Key Steps of Normalization:
o 1NF (First Normal Form): Ensures all table columns have atomic (indivisible)
values and each row is unique.
o 2NF (Second Normal Form): Removes partial dependencies by ensuring non-
key attributes depend on the entire primary key.
o 3NF (Third Normal Form): Removes transitive dependencies, ensuring non-key
attributes depend only on the primary key.
 Example:
In an e-commerce platform, if you had a table containing both customer and order details,
you might split it into two tables:
o Customers: Stores customer information like CustomerID, Name, Email.
o Orders: Stores order-specific information like OrderID, OrderDate,
CustomerID.
This eliminates redundancy and allows for easier updates and retrievals.

2. Partitioning

Partitioning divides a large table into smaller, more manageable pieces, called partitions, without
affecting how the data is queried. Azure SQL Database supports horizontal partitioning.

 Purpose in your project:

o Partitioning large tables in your e-commerce platform improved query
performance by restricting data scans to relevant partitions, especially useful for
high-traffic platforms.
o For instance, querying recent transactions would only scan the relevant partition
containing recent data rather than the entire table.
 Types of Partitioning:
o Range Partitioning: Divides data into partitions based on a range of values in a
column (e.g., OrderDate or CustomerRegion).
o List Partitioning: Divides data into partitions based on predefined lists of values.
o Hash Partitioning: Distributes rows across partitions using a hash function for
load balancing.
 Example:
If your order table had millions of rows, you could partition it by OrderDate.
o Partition 1: Orders from January 2024
 o Partition 2: Orders from February 2024
This ensures that queries for February orders only access Partition 2, reducing
query time.

3. Indexing

An index is a data structure that improves the speed of data retrieval operations on a database
table, similar to an index in a book.

 Purpose in your project:

o You used indexes to speed up searches on large datasets, critical for an e-
commerce platform handling large volumes of queries.
o For example, creating an index on the ProductID column in the product catalog
table helped accelerate product lookups.
 Types of Indexes:
o Clustered Index: Sorts and stores the data rows in the table based on the index
key. A table can have only one clustered index.
o Non-Clustered Index: Creates a separate structure for the index while keeping
the data rows unsorted. You can create multiple non-clustered indexes.
o Unique Index: Ensures that indexed columns have unique values.
 Example:
If users frequently searched for products by name, you might create a non-clustered index
on the ProductName column. This allows the database to locate rows faster instead of
scanning the entire table.
 Benefits in Query Performance:
o Faster retrieval of search results for user queries like "Show me all orders from
February 2024."
o Optimized JOIN operations in queries, such as combining product and order
tables to display order details with product names.

How They Work Together in Your Project:

 Normalization ensured that the database structure was efficient and consistent,
preventing redundant data storage.
 Partitioning allowed the system to manage large tables and target specific data ranges
for faster processing.
 Indexing provided quick access to frequently queried data, reducing the response time
for customer queries and operations.