Free Microsoft DP-800 Practice Exam with Questions & Answers

Microsoft documents that DriftReport creates an XML report showing changes that have been made to the registered database since it was last registered . That is the action intended to detect whether the production schema has diverged from the expected model baseline in your deployment workflow.

This is different from DeployReport , which shows the changes that would be made by a publish action . In other words:

DriftReport answers: Has the deployed database drifted from the registered state/model?

DeployReport answers: What changes would be applied if I published now?

The other options are not the right fit:

Extract creates a DACPAC from an existing database, not a drift analysis report.

Script generates a deployment script, not a schema-drift report.

So to generate a report that shows whether production has diverged from the model in source control , add:

SqlPackage.exe /Action:DriftReport

The first statement is Yes . The query filters on CustomerId, applies a range predicate on OrderDate, and sorts by OrderDate DESC. Microsoft’s index design guidance recommends putting equality predicates first in the key, followed by columns used for ordering/range access, because the order of key columns determines seek and sort support. A nonclustered index on (CustomerId, OrderDate DESC) can support an ordered seek for this query and avoid the explicit sort. Including Status and TotalAmount helps cover the query, and OrderId is already available because the clustered key is stored with nonclustered index rows.

The second statement is No . Adding CustomerId as an included column to IX_Orders_OrderDate does not make it part of the index’s navigational structure. Microsoft states that included columns are nonkey columns used to cover queries; they do not provide the seek and ordering characteristics that key columns do. So an index keyed only on OrderDate still is not the right ordered access path for WHERE CustomerId = @CustomerId ... ORDER BY OrderDate DESC.

The third statement is Yes . The described actual plan shows an index seek on the wrong access path for the workload, followed by clustered key lookups and an explicit sort before TOP (50). That is characteristic of a suboptimal query/index plan . Query Store and Query Performance Insight are designed to surface plan-related performance regressions, while locking/blocking problems are typically identified through waits/DMVs and blocking-session indicators, not from a plan shape like seek + lookup + sort alone.

This does not meet the goal. A row-by-row DELETE against the oldest month is not the lowest-impact way to purge data from a monthly partitioned table. Microsoft’s partitioning guidance specifically says partitioning lets you perform maintenance and retention operations more efficiently by targeting just the relevant partition, including the ability to truncate data in a single partition .

The proposed statement:

DELETE FROM dbo.Orders

WHERE OrderDate < DATEADD(month, -36, SYSUTCDATETIME());

would log row deletions and can hold locks longer, creating more overhead for other queries than a partition-level maintenance operation. Since the table is already partitioned by month , the expected low-impact approach is to operate on the oldest partition directly, not issue a broad delete predicate over rows. Microsoft explicitly highlights partition-targeted truncation as a faster, more efficient retention operation than working against the whole table or rowset.

For an Azure App Service using a user-assigned managed identity to connect to Azure SQL Database with Microsoft Entra authentication , the required database-side step is to create a database user from the external provider , then grant the needed database roles. Microsoft’s Azure SQL documentation for managed identities states that to let a managed identity access the target database, you create a SQL user for that identity by using:

CREATE USER [ < identity-name > ] FROM EXTERNAL PROVIDER;

and then assign the appropriate roles.

That makes db_datareader and db_datawriter the right role grants here, because the requirement says the identity must have read and write permissions to SalesDB.

The other options are incorrect:

A uses CREATE LOGIN ... FROM EXTERNAL PROVIDER, which is not the right choice for this Azure SQL Database scenario; the documented pattern is to create a database user from the external provider.

B and D create SQL-authentication principals with passwords, which does not meet the Microsoft Entra managed-identity requirement.

D also grants sysadmin, which is a server-level overgrant and not appropriate for the stated read/write requirement.

The correct answer is D because the policy explicitly prohibits sharing customer PII, secrets, and query result sets with any AI service. The safe way to use GitHub Copilot Chat here is to provide only schema-level information such as table names, column names, relationships, and the required procedure behavior, without sharing actual table contents or result sets. That lets Copilot help generate and review the Transact-SQL while avoiding disclosure of customer data. This is consistent with Microsoft and GitHub guidance that content provided in prompts is what the AI can use, so avoiding real data in the prompt is the appropriate control.

The other options violate the requirement:

A pastes real rows containing email addresses, which is direct PII disclosure.

B shares actual query result sets, which the policy forbids.

C provides the connection string so Copilot can validate against the database, which is inappropriate because it exposes connection details and could enable access beyond schema-only assistance.

So the correct approach is to ask Copilot to generate the stored procedure using only the schema and requirements, not real customer data.

Because the SQL Server 2025 instance has no outbound network connectivity , the embedding model cannot rely on a remote REST endpoint such as Azure AI Foundry or Azure OpenAI. Microsoft’s CREATE EXTERNAL MODEL documentation includes a local deployment pattern using ONNX Runtime running locally with local runtime/model paths . That is the right design when embeddings must be generated inside the SQL Server instance without external network access. Microsoft explicitly documents a local ONNX Runtime example for SQL Server 2025 and notes the required local runtime setup and model path configuration.

The permission requirement is handled by granting the application user access to use the external embeddings model. Microsoft’s AI_GENERATE_EMBEDDINGS documentation states that, as a prerequisite, you must create an external model of type EMBEDDINGS that is accessible via the correct grants, roles, and/or permissions . Among the choices, the exam-appropriate action is to grant execute permission on the external model project to AlApplicationUser so only that database user can run embedding generation through the model.

The correct SARGable pattern for filtering a single calendar day is to use a half-open date range :

o.CreateDate > = @StartDate

AND o.CreateDate < @EndDate

with:

SET @EndDate = DATEADD(day, 1, @StartDate)

This is the correct design because it keeps the function off the column and applies it only to the parameter. That allows SQL Server and Azure SQL to use an index on CreateDate efficiently, which is the key requirement for a SARGable predicate. Microsoft documents DATEADD as the standard function for adding one day to a date value, which makes it the right way to derive the exclusive upper boundary for the next day.

The incorrect choices are the ones that wrap CreateDate in CONVERT(...), because expressions like:

CONVERT(char(10), CreateDate, 121) = ...

make the predicate non-SARGable and typically prevent efficient seeks on an index over CreateDate.

So the completed procedure is:

CREATE PROCEDURE dbo.usp_SearchOrders

@StartDate date

AS

BEGIN

SET NOCOUNT ON;

DECLARE @EndDate date;

SET @EndDate = DATEADD(day, 1, @StartDate);

SELECT o.CreateDate,

o.OrderId,

o.ShipDate

FROM dbo.Orders AS o

WHERE o.CreateDate > = @StartDate

AND o.CreateDate < @EndDate;

END;

Azure Functions’ Azure SQL trigger requires change tracking to be enabled on the source table. Microsoft’s SQL trigger documentation states that setting up change tracking for the Azure SQL trigger requires two steps : enable change tracking on the database and enable change tracking on the table being monitored. Since the question asks specifically which database configurations you should perform, enabling change tracking on dbo.Employee is one of the required database-side steps.

To meet the latency requirement that changes trigger the function within five seconds , the relevant trigger setting is Sql_Trigger_PollingIntervalMs . Microsoft documents this setting as the delay, in milliseconds, between processing each batch of changes, and a value of 5000 means the trigger polls every 5 seconds .

A few clarifications about the other options:

B is not the documented setting name. The documented app setting is Sql_Trigger_BatchSize or host setting MaxBatchSize , not “SetSql Trigger MaxBatchSize”. The screenshot wording suggests a distractor.

D is also required in practice for the trigger to work, but the question asks for two answers and includes the polling setting plus the table-level CT setting as the actionable choices presented.

F is wrong because the Azure SQL trigger uses change tracking , not CDC.

The correct answer is D because the scalar UDF must return the number of whole years from the input @OrderDate to the current date/time as a single positive integer . The correct DATEDIFF order is:

DATEDIFF(year, @OrderDate, GETDATE())

Microsoft documents that DATEDIFF(datepart, startdate, enddate) returns the count of specified datepart boundaries crossed between the start and end values. Since @OrderDate is the earlier date and GETDATE() is the later date, this ordering returns a positive result for past order dates.

The other choices are incorrect:

A reverses the arguments and would return a negative value for a past order date.

B is missing RETURN, and converting month difference to years by dividing by 12 is not the direct whole-year expression the question asks for.

C subtracts year parts only, which can be off around anniversary boundaries because it ignores whether the full year has actually elapsed.

So the correct insertion at line 05 is:

RETURN DATEDIFF(year, @OrderDate, GETDATE());

The best recommendation is to use an MCP server . In the official DP-800 study guide , Microsoft explicitly lists skills such as configuring Model Context Protocol (MCP) tool options in a GitHub Copilot session and connecting to MCP server endpoints, including Microsoft SQL Server and Fabric Lakehouse . That makes MCP the exam-aligned mechanism for enabling AI-assisted tools to work with live database context rather than static snapshots.

This also matches the stated development requirement: the team will use Visual Studio Code and GitHub Copilot and needs to retrieve live metadata from the databases . Microsoft’s documentation for GitHub Copilot with the MSSQL extension explains that Copilot works with an active database connection , provides schema-aware suggestions , supports chatting with a connected database, and adapts responses based on the current database context . Microsoft also documents MCP as the standard way for AI tools to connect to external systems and data sources through discoverable tools and endpoints.

The other options do not satisfy the “live metadata” requirement as well:

A .dacpac is a point-in-time schema artifact, not live metadata.

A Copilot instruction file provides guidance, not live database discovery.

Including the database project in the repository helps source control and deployment, but it still does not provide live database metadata by itself.