DP-300: Administering Microsoft Azure SQL Solutions
Plan, implement, and manage relational database solutions on Azure SQL Database, Azure SQL Managed Instance, and SQL Server on Azure Virtual Machines, ensuring high availability, security, and performance tuning.
Official Exam Specification & Quick Facts
Question Difficulty Breakdown
Recommended Study Guides & Exam Preparation Blueprints
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Exam Guidelines & Simulation Rules
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
The DP-300 exam contains 45-60 scenario, T-SQL, and database configuration questions over 120 minutes. Cost is $165 USD with a passing threshold of 700/1000 (70%).
Domains include: (1) Plan and implement data platform resources (~20-25%), (2) Implement a secure environment (~15-20%), (3) Monitor and optimize operational resources (~20-25%), (4) Optimize query performance (~15-20%), and (5) Perform automation of tasks (~15-20%).
General Purpose separates compute and storage with remote premium storage. Business Critical co-locates super-fast local NVMe SSD storage with compute and deploys an Always On Availability Group with 1 read replica for ultra-low latency.
Hyperscale separates compute nodes from a multi-tiered cached storage architecture (Page Servers and Log Service), supporting databases up to 100 TB with rapid scale-out read replicas.
PITR uses automated continuous transaction log backups to restore to any specific second within 1 to 35 days. LTR archives full weekly/monthly/yearly backups in Azure Blob storage for up to 10 years.
Auto-failover groups asynchronously replicate databases to a secondary region under a single read-write listener endpoint that automatically fails over during regional outages.
Query Store captures history of query execution plans, runtime metrics, and wait statistics, allowing DBAs to detect regressed queries and force optimal execution plans.
Automatic Tuning uses machine learning to continuously monitor database performance, automatically creating helpful indexes, dropping unused indexes, and forcing last good plans.
TDE encrypts database files, log files, and backups at rest on physical media. Always Encrypted protects sensitive data in-flight, at rest, and in-memory by encrypting columns on the client application.
Elastic Pools allow multiple databases with unpredictable usage spikes to share a collective pool of compute resources (eDTUs or vCores), significantly reducing costs.
DP-300 is valid for one year and renewable annually for free via Microsoft Learn.
DP-300 certifies Senior Database Administrators, Cloud Database Engineers, and Data Platform Architects earning average US salaries between $125,000 and $165,000.