Databricks-Certified-Professional-Data-Engineer Sample Questions Answers

The libraries command group allows you to install, uninstall, and list libraries on Databricks clusters. You can use the libraries install command to install a custom Python Wheel on a cluster by specifying the --whl option and the path to the wheel file. For example, you can use the following command to install a custom Python Wheel named mylib-0.1-py3-none-any.whl on a cluster with the id 1234-567890-abcde123:

databricks libraries install --cluster-id 1234-567890-abcde123 --whl dbfs:/mnt/mylib/mylib-0.1-py3-none-any.whl

This will upload the custom Python Wheel to the cluster and make it available for use with a production job. You can also use the libraries uninstall command to uninstall a library from a cluster, and the libraries list command to list the libraries installed on a cluster.

In Databricks, using the Secrets module allows for secure management of sensitive information such as database credentials. Granting 'Read' permissions on a secret key that maps to database credentials for a specific team ensures that only members of that team can access these credentials. This approach aligns with the principle of least privilege, granting users the minimum level of access required to perform their jobs, thus enhancing security.

This is the correct answer because it will allow the developer to update their local repository with the latest changes from the remote repository and switch to the desired branch. Pulling changes will not affect the current branch or create any conflicts, as it will only fetch the changes and not merge them. Selecting the dev-2.3.9 branch from the dropdown will checkout that branch and display its contents in the notebook. Verified References: [Databricks Certified Data Engineer Professional], under “Databricks Tooling” section; Databricks Documentation, under “Pull changes from a remote repository” section.

This is the correct answer because it ensures that this requirement is met. The requirement is that all tables in the Lakehouse should be configured as external Delta Lake tables. An external table is a table that is stored outside of the default warehouse directory and whose metadata is not managed by Databricks. An external table can be created by using the location keyword to specify the path to an existing directory in a cloud storage system, such as DBFS or S3. By creating external tables, the data engineering team can avoid losing data if they drop or overwrite the table, as well as leverage existing data without moving or copying it. Verified References: [Databricks Certified Data Engineer Professional], under “Delta Lake” section; Databricks Documentation, under “Create an external table” section.

In Databricks, catalogs, schemas (or databases), and tables are managed through the Unity Catalog or Hive Metastore, depending on the environment. Permissions and ownership within these structures are governed by access control lists (ACLs).

Catalog and Schema Ownership: When a platform engineer creates a catalog (such as catalog_A) and schema (such as schema_A), they automatically become the owner of those entities. This ownership gives them control over granting permissions for those entities (i.e., granting the USE CATALOG and USE SCHEMA privileges to others). However, ownership of the catalog or schema does not automatically extend to ownership or permission of individual tables within that schema.

Table Permissions: For tables within a schema, the permission model is more granular. The table creator (i.e., whoever creates the table) is automatically assigned as the owner of that table. In this case, the platform engineer owns the schema but does not automatically inherit permissions to any table created within the schema unless explicitly granted by the table's owner or unless they grant permissions to themselves.

Why the Engineer Lacks Access: The platform engineer notices that they do not have access to the underlying tables in schema_A despite being the owner of the schema. This occurs because the schema's ownership does not cascade to the tables. The engineer must either:

Grant permissions to themselves for the tables in schema_A, or

Be granted permissions by whoever created the tables within the schema.

Resolution: As the owner of the schema, the platform engineer can easily grant themselves the required permissions (such as SELECT, INSERT, etc.) for the tables in the schema. This explains why the owner of a schema may not automatically have access to the tables and must take explicit steps to acquire those permissions.

References

Databricks Unity Catalog Documentation: Manage Permissions

[Databricks Permissions and Ownership](https://docs.databricks.com/security/access-control/workspace-acl.html#permissions

This is the correct answer because it is where in the Spark UI one can diagnose a performance problem induced by not leveraging predicate push-down. Predicate push-down is an optimization technique that allows filtering data at the source before loading it into memory or processing it further. This can improve performance and reduce I/O costs by avoiding reading unnecessary data. To leverage predicate push-down, one should use supported data sources and formats, such as Delta Lake, Parquet, or JDBC, and use filter expressions that can be pushed down to the source. To diagnose a performance problem induced by not leveraging predicate push-down, one can use the Spark UI to access the Query Detail screen, which shows information about a SQL query executed on a Spark cluster. The Query Detail screen includes the Physical Plan, which is the actual plan executed by Spark to perform the query. The Physical Plan shows the physical operators used by Spark, such as Scan, Filter, Project, or Aggregate, and their input and output statistics, such as rows and bytes. By interpreting the Physical Plan, one can see if the filter expressions are pushed down to the source or not, and how much data is read or processed by each operator. Verified References: [Databricks Certified Data Engineer Professional], under “Spark Core” section; Databricks Documentation, under “Predicate pushdown” section; Databricks Documentation, under “Query detail page” section.

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation From Exact Extract:

Exact extract: “A shallow clone creates a copy of the metadata that references the source data files; it is fast and inexpensive.”

Exact extract: “A deep clone copies the data.”

This is the correct answer because it describes what will happen with new records that have the same event_id as an existing record when the query is executed. The query uses the INSERT INTO command to append new records from the view new_events to the table events. However, the INSERT INTO command does not check for duplicate values in the primary key column (event_id) and does not perform any update or delete operations on existing records. Therefore, if there are new records that have the same event_id as an existing record, they will be ignored and not inserted into the table events. Verified References: [Databricks Certified Data Engineer Professional], under “Delta Lake” section; Databricks Documentation, under “Append data using INSERT INTO” section.

"If none of the WHEN MATCHED conditions evaluate to true for a source and target row pair that matches the merge_condition, then the target row is left unchanged." https://docs.databricks.com/en/sql/language-manual/delta-merge-into.html#:~:text=If%20none%20of%20the%20WHEN%20MATCHED%20conditions%20evaluate%20to%20true%20for%20a%20source%20and%20target%20row%20pair%20that%20matches%20the%20merge_condition%2C%20then%20the%20target%20row%20is%20left%20unchanged .

https://docs.delta.io/2.0.0/table-properties.html

 Delta Lake automatically collects statistics on the first 32 columns of each table, which are leveraged in data skipping based on query filters1. Data skipping is a performance optimization technique that aims to avoid reading irrelevant data from the storage layer1. By collecting statistics such as min/max values, null counts, and bloom filters, Delta Lake can efficiently prune unnecessary files or partitions from the query plan1. This can significantly improve the query performance and reduce the I/O cost.

The other options are false because:

Parquet compresses data column by column, not row by row2. This allows for better compression ratios, especially for repeated or similar values within a column2.

Views in the Lakehouse do not maintain a valid cache of the most recent versions of source tables at all times3. Views are logical constructs that are defined by a SQL query on one or more base tables3. Views are not materialized by default, which means they do not store any data, but only the query definition3. Therefore, views always reflect the latest state of the source tables when queried3. However, views can be cached manually using the CACHE TABLE or CREATE TABLE AS SELECT commands.

Primary and foreign key constraints can not be leveraged to ensure duplicate values are never entered into a dimension table. Delta Lake does not support enforcing primary and foreign key constraints on tables. Constraints are logical rules that define the integrity and validity of the data in a table. Delta Lake relies on the application logic or the user to ensure the data quality and consistency.

Z-order can be applied to any values stored in Delta Lake tables, not only numeric values. Z-order is a technique to optimize the layout of the data files by sorting them on one or more columns. Z-order can improve the query performance by clustering related values together and enabling more efficient data skipping. Z-order can be applied to any column that has a defined ordering, such as numeric, string, date, or boolean values.

In the Spark UI's Storage tab, an indicator that a cached table is not performing optimally would be the presence of the _disk annotation in the RDD Block Name. This annotation indicates that some partitions of the cached data have been spilled to disk because there wasn't enough memory to hold them. This is suboptimal because accessing data from disk is much slower than from memory. The goal of caching is to keep data in memory for fast access, and a spill to disk means that this goal is not fully achieved.

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation From Exact Extract:

Exact extract: “Change data feed (CDF) provides row-level change information for Delta tables.”

Exact extract: “Use table_changes to query the set of rows that were inserted, updated, or deleted between two versions (or timestamps).”

The scenario presented involves inconsistent microbatch processing times in a Structured Streaming job during peak hours, with the need to ensure that records are processed within 10 seconds. The trigger once option is the most suitable adjustment to address these challenges:

Understanding Triggering Options:

Fixed Interval Triggering (Current Setup): The current trigger interval of 10 seconds may contribute to the inconsistency during peak times as it doesn't adapt based on the processing time of the microbatches. If a batch takes longer to process, subsequent batches will start piling up, exacerbating the delays.

Trigger Once: This option allows the job to run a single microbatch for processing all available data and then stop. It is useful in scenarios where batch sizes are unpredictable and can vary significantly, which seems to be the case during peak hours in this scenario.

Implementation of Trigger Once:

Setup: Instead of continuously running, the job can be scheduled to run every 10 seconds using a Databricks job. This scheduling effectively acts as a custom trigger interval, ensuring that each execution cycle handles all available data up to that point without overlapping or queuing up additional executions.

Advantages: This approach allows for each batch to complete processing all available data before the next batch starts, ensuring consistency in handling data surges and preventing the system from being overwhelmed.

Rationale Against Other Options:

Option A and E (Decrease Interval): Decreasing the trigger interval to 5 seconds might exacerbate the problem by increasing the frequency of batch starts without ensuring the completion of previous batches, potentially leading to higher overhead and less efficient processing.

Option B (Increase Interval): Increasing the trigger interval to 30 seconds could lead to latency issues, as the data would be processed less frequently, which contradicts the requirement of processing records in less than 10 seconds.

Option C (Modify Partitions): While increasing parallelism through more shuffle partitions can improve performance, it does not address the fundamental issue of batch scheduling and could still lead to inconsistency during peak loads.

Conclusion:

By using the trigger once option and scheduling the job every 10 seconds, you ensure that each microbatch has sufficient time to process all available data thoroughly before the next cycle begins, aligning with the need to handle peak loads more predictably and efficiently.

References

Structured Streaming Programming Guide - Triggering

Databricks Jobs Scheduling

Given the information that the model is registered with MLflow and assuming predict is the method used to apply the model to a set of columns, we use the model.predict() function to apply the model to the DataFrame df using the specified columns. The model.predict() function is designed to take in a DataFrame and a list of column names as arguments, applying the trained model to these features to produce a predictions column. When working with PySpark, this predictions column needs to be selected alongside the customer_id to create a new DataFrame with the schema customer_id LONG, predictions DOUBLE.

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation From Exact Extract:

Exact extract: “window(timeColumn, windowDuration[, slideDuration]) returns a time window for grouping on event-time.”

Exact extract: “If slideDuration is not specified the windows are non-overlapping (tumbling) with length windowDuration.”

This is the correct answer because it accurately informs this decision. The decision is about where the Databricks workspace used by the contractors should be deployed. The contractors are based in India, while all the company’s data is stored in regional cloud storage in the United States. When choosing a region for deploying a Databricks workspace, one of the important factors to consider is the proximity to the data sources and sinks. Cross-region reads and writes can incur significant costs and latency due to network bandwidth and data transfer fees. Therefore, whenever possible, compute should be deployed in the same region the data is stored to optimize performance and reduce costs. Verified References: [Databricks Certified Data Engineer Professional], under “Databricks Workspace” section; Databricks Documentation, under “Choose a region” section.

This is the correct answer because spark.sql.files.maxPartitionBytes is a configuration parameter that directly affects the size of a spark-partition upon ingestion of data into Spark. This parameter configures the maximum number of bytes to pack into a single partition when reading files from file-based sources such as Parquet, JSON and ORC. The default value is 128 MB, which means each partition will be roughly 128 MB in size, unless there are too many small files or only one large file. Verified References: [Databricks Certified Data Engineer Professional], under “Spark Configuration” section; Databricks Documentation, under “Available Properties - spark.sql.files.maxPartitionBytes” section.

This is the correct answer because the window function is used to group streaming data by time intervals. The window function takes two arguments: a time column and a window duration. The window duration specifies how long each window is, and must be a multiple of 1 second. In this case, the window duration is “5 minutes”, which means each window will cover a non-overlapping five-minute interval. The window function also returns a struct column with two fields: start and end, which represent the start and end time of each window. The alias function is used to rename the struct column as “time”. Verified References: [Databricks Certified Data Engineer Professional], under “Structured Streaming” section; Databricks Documentation, under “WINDOW” section. https://www.databricks.com/blog/2017/05/08/event-time-aggregation-watermarking-apache-sparks-structured-streaming.html

https://spark.apache.org/docs/3.1.3/api/python/reference/api/pyspark.sql.functions.broadcast.html

The code block that should be used to create the date Python variable used in the above code block is:

dbutils.widgets.text(“date”, “null”) date = dbutils.widgets.get(“date”)

This code block uses the dbutils.widgets API to create and get a text widget named “date” that can accept a string value as a parameter1. The default value of the widget is “null”, which means that if no parameter is passed, the date variable will be “null”. However, if a parameter is passed through the Databricks Jobs API, the date variable will be assigned the value of the parameter. For example, if the parameter is “2021-11-01”, the date variable will be “2021-11-01”. This way, the notebook can use the date variable to load data from the specified path.

The other options are not correct, because:

Option A is incorrect because spark.conf.get(“date”) is not a valid way to get a parameter passed through the Databricks Jobs API. The spark.conf API is used to get or set Spark configuration properties, not notebook parameters2.

Option B is incorrect because input() is not a valid way to get a parameter passed through the Databricks Jobs API. The input() function is used to get user input from the standard input stream, not from the API request3.

Option C is incorrect because sys.argv1 is not a valid way to get a parameter passed through the Databricks Jobs API. The sys.argv list is used to get the command-line arguments passed to a Python script, not to a notebook4.

Option D is incorrect because dbutils.notebooks.getParam(“date”) is not a valid way to get a parameter passed through the Databricks Jobs API. The dbutils.notebooks API is used to get or set notebook parameters when running a notebook as a job or as a subnotebook, not when passing parameters through the API5.

This is the correct answer because it describes how data will be filtered when a query is run with the following filter: longitude < 20 & longitude > -20. The query is run on a Delta Lake table that has the following schema: user_id LONG, post_text STRING, post_id STRING, longitude FLOAT, latitude FLOAT, post_time TIMESTAMP, date DATE. This table is partitioned by the date column. When a query is run on a partitioned Delta Lake table, Delta Lake uses statistics in the Delta Log to identify data files that might include records in the filtered range. The statistics include information such as min and max values for each column in each data file. By using these statistics, Delta Lake can skip reading data files that do not match the filter condition, which can improve query performance and reduce I/O costs. Verified References: [Databricks Certified Data Engineer Professional], under “Delta Lake” section; Databricks Documentation, under “Data skipping” section.

The Databricks CLI provides a way to automate interactions with Databricks services. When dealing with pipelines, you can use the databricks pipelines get --pipeline-id command to capture the settings of an existing pipeline in JSON format. This JSON can then be modified by removing the pipeline_id to prevent conflicts and renaming the pipeline to create a new pipeline. The modified JSON file can then be used with the databricks pipelines create command to create a new pipeline with those settings.

This is the correct answer because it describes the behavior of Delta Lake Auto Compaction, which is a feature that automatically optimizes the layout of Delta Lake tables by coalescing small files into larger ones. Auto Compaction runs as an asynchronous job after a write to a table has succeeded and checks if files within a partition can be further compacted. If yes, it runs an optimize job with a default target file size of 128 MB. Auto Compaction only compacts files that have not been compacted previously. Verified References: [Databricks Certified Data Engineer Professional], under “Delta Lake” section; Databricks Documentation, under “Auto Compaction for Delta Lake on Databricks” section.

"Auto compaction occurs after a write to a table has succeeded and runs synchronously on the cluster that has performed the write. Auto compaction only compacts files that haven’t been compacted previously."

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/databricks/delta/tune-file-size

https://docs.databricks.com/en/delta/delta-change-data-feed.html

This is the correct answer because Databricks has a feature called Auto Optimize, which automatically optimizes the layout of Delta Lake tables by coalescing small files into larger ones and sorting data within each file by a specified column. However, Auto Optimize also considers the trade-off between file size and merge performance, and may choose a smaller target file size to reduce the duration of merge operations, especially for streaming workloads that frequently update existing records. Therefore, it is possible that Auto Optimize has autotuned to a smaller target file size based on the characteristics of the streaming production job. Verified References: [Databricks Certified Data Engineer Professional], under “Delta Lake” section; Databricks Documentation, under “Auto Optimize” section. https://docs.databricks.com/en/delta/tune-file-size.html#autotune-table 'Autotune file size based on workload'

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/databricks/delta/vacuum

To deduplicate data against previously processed records as it is inserted into a Delta table, you can use the merge operation with an insert-only clause. This allows you to insert new records that do not match any existing records based on a unique key, while ignoring duplicate records that match existing records. For example, you can use the following syntax:

MERGE INTO target_table USING source_table ON target_table.unique_key = source_table.unique_key WHEN NOT MATCHED THEN INSERT *

This will insert only the records from the source table that have a unique key that is not present in the target table, and skip the records that have a matching key. This way, you can avoid inserting duplicate records into the Delta table.

Databricks Auto Loader simplifies and automates the process of loading data into Delta Lake. The default execution mode of the Auto Loader identifies new files by listing the input directory. It incrementally and idempotently loads these new files into the target Delta Lake table. This approach ensures that files are not missed and are processed exactly once, avoiding data duplication. The other options describe different mechanisms or integrations that are not part of the default behavior of the Auto Loader.

To create an external or unmanaged Delta Lake table, you need to use the EXTERNAL keyword in the CREATE TABLE statement. This indicates that the table is not managed by the catalog and the data files are not deleted when the table is dropped. You also need to provide a LOCATION clause to specify the path where the data files are stored. For example:

CREATE EXTERNAL TABLE events ( date DATE, eventId STRING, eventType STRING, data STRING) USING DELTA LOCATION ‘/mnt/delta/events’;

This creates an external Delta Lake table named events that references the data files in the ‘/mnt/delta/events’ path. If you drop this table, the data files will remain intact and you can recreate the table with the same statement.

This is the correct answer because it indicates a bottleneck caused by code executing on the driver. A bottleneck is a situation where the performance or capacity of a system is limited by a single component or resource. A bottleneck can cause slow execution, high latency, or low throughput. A production cluster has 3 executor nodes and uses the same virtual machine type for the driver and executor. When evaluating the Ganglia Metrics for this cluster, one can look for indicators that show how the cluster resources are being utilized, such as CPU, memory, disk, or network. If the overall cluster CPU utilization is around 25%, it means that only one out of the four nodes (driver + 3 executors) is using its full CPU capacity, while the other three nodes are idle or underutilized. This suggests that the code executing on the driver is taking too long or consuming too much CPU resources, preventing the executors from receiving tasks or data to process. This can happen when the code has driver-side operations that are not parallelized or distributed, such as collecting large amounts of data to the driver, performing complex calculations on the driver, or using non-Spark libraries on the driver. Verified References: [Databricks Certified Data Engineer Professional], under “Spark Core” section; Databricks Documentation, under “View cluster status and event logs - Ganglia metrics” section; Databricks Documentation, under “Avoid collecting large RDDs” section.

In a Spark cluster, the driver node is responsible for managing the execution of the Spark application, including scheduling tasks, managing the execution plan, and interacting with the cluster manager. If the overall cluster CPU utilization is low (e.g., around 25%), it may indicate that the driver node is not utilizing the available resources effectively and might be a bottleneck.

This is the correct answer because skew is a common situation that causes increased duration of the overall job. Skew occurs when some partitions have more data than others, resulting in uneven distribution of work among tasks and executors. Skew can be caused by various factors, such as skewed data distribution, improper partitioning strategy, or join operations with skewed keys. Skew can lead to performance issues such as long-running tasks, wasted resources, or even task failures due to memory or disk spills. Verified References: [Databricks Certified Data Engineer Professional], under “Performance Tuning” section; Databricks Documentation, under “Skew” section.

DBFS is a file system protocol that allows users to interact with files stored in object storage using syntax and guarantees similar to Unix file systems1. DBFS is not a physical file system, but a layer over the object storage that provides a unified view of data across different data sources1. By default, the DBFS root is accessible to all users in the workspace, and the access to mounted data sources depends on the permissions of the storage account or container2. Mounted storage volumes do not need to have full public read and write permissions, but they do require a valid connection string or access key to be provided when mounting3. Both the DBFS root and mounted storage can be accessed when using %sh in a Databricks notebook, as long as the cluster has FUSE enabled4. The DBFS root does not store files in ephemeral block volumes attached to the driver, but in the object storage associated with the workspace1. Mounted directories will persist saved data to external storage between sessions, unless they are unmounted or deleted3. References: DBFS, Work with files on Azure Databricks, Mounting cloud object storage on Azure Databricks, Access DBFS with FUSE

The CHECK constraint is used to ensure that the data inserted into the table meets the specified conditions. In this case, the CHECK constraint is used to ensure that the latitude and longitude values are within the specified range. If the data does not meet the specified conditions, the write operation will fail completely and no records will be inserted into the target table. This is because Delta Lake supports ACID transactions, which means that either all the data is written or none of it is written. Therefore, the batch insert will fail when it encounters a record that violates the constraint, and the target table will not be updated. References:

Constraints: https://docs.delta.io/latest/delta-constraints.html

ACID Transactions: https://docs.delta.io/latest/delta-intro.html#acid-transactions

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation From Exact Extract:

Exact extract: “run_id: The canonical identifier of a run.”