6.4.3. Non-Relational Data Questions

Question 10

A media company needs to store 10 million video files with different access patterns: promotional videos accessed daily, archived content accessed yearly. Which Azure service and feature should they use?

• A. Azure SQL Database with filestream
• B. Azure Cosmos DB with attachments
• C. Azure Blob Storage with access tiers
• D. Azure Files with premium tier

Answer: C. Azure Blob Storage with access tiers

Explanation: Blob Storage is designed for large unstructured files. Access tiers (Hot, Cool, Archive) optimize costs based on access frequency—Hot for promotional videos, Archive for yearly content. This can reduce storage costs by up to 90%.

Question 11

A content creation team needs shared storage that can be mounted as a network drive (Z:) on their Windows workstations. The existing application reads files using standard file paths. Which Azure service should you recommend?

• A. Azure Blob Storage
• B. Azure Data Lake Gen2
• C. Azure Files
• D. Azure Cosmos DB

Answer: C. Azure Files

Explanation: Azure Files provides SMB protocol support, allowing Windows workstations to mount the share as a network drive. Blob Storage uses REST API (HTTP) and cannot be mounted as a drive without additional software. The SMB protocol keyword is the key indicator.

Question 12

A global e-commerce platform needs a database that serves customers in Tokyo, London, and New York with sub-10ms response times. Data must be consistent across regions. Which service and consistency level should they use?

• A. Azure SQL Database with geo-replication, Read Committed
• B. Azure Cosmos DB with Strong consistency
• C. Azure Cosmos DB with Session consistency
• D. Azure Table Storage with geo-redundancy

Answer: C. Azure Cosmos DB with Session consistency

Explanation: Cosmos DB provides global distribution with configurable consistency. Session consistency (the default) ensures users see their own writes consistently while allowing global distribution with low latency. Strong consistency would increase latency significantly for global deployments.

Question 13

A social media company needs to store relationships between users (friends, follows, blocks) and efficiently query "friends of friends" connections. Which Cosmos DB API should they use?

• A. Core (SQL) API
• B. MongoDB API
• C. Gremlin API
• D. Table API

Answer: C. Gremlin API

Explanation: Gremlin API is designed for graph databases where relationships between entities are first-class citizens. "Friends of friends" is a classic graph traversal query. SQL API stores documents; it can't efficiently traverse relationship networks.