I just took the new Fabric DP-700 Data Engineering Exam: here's what you should know

I took the new DP-700 exam, released just hours ago in beta, and I’m here to share my experience along with some tips to help you prepare.

What is the DP-700 exam?

The DP-700 exam is a new certification exam from Microsoft for data engineers. It’s the second Fabric-focused exam after the previously released DP-600 certification. I already took and passed the DP-600 exam a few months ago, so I was excited to see what the new DP-700 exam would be like.

The exam is titled Exam DP-700: Implementing Data Engineering Solutions Using Microsoft Fabric.

The corresponding certification is called Microsoft Certified: Fabric Data Engineer Associate.

How does it compare to the existing DP-203 exam?

Microsoft already had a certification track aimed at data engineers, the DP-203 exam. The DP-203 exam is titled Data Engineering on Microsoft Azure and passing it gains you the Microsoft Certified: Azure Data Engineer Associate certification.

In contrast, the DP-700 is exclusively focused on Microsoft Fabric, with no emphasis on Azure services except for a few mentions, like using Azure Data Lake Storage (ADLS) and Azure SQL Database as data sources within Fabric.

The DP-203 covers services like Azure Data Factory, Azure Synapse, and Azure Databricks — none of which are part of DP-700.

How I prepared for the DP-700

Having worked with Microsoft Fabric for over a year as a Microsoft Data Platform MVP, I’ve stayed up-to-date with the constant updates and new features Microsoft releases. This hands-on experience has been critical in preparing for the exam.

To stay current, I closely followed Fabric blogs and video tutorials. In addition to my practical experience, I used two key resources:

1. Microsoft’s official DP-700 study guide .
2. A Microsoft Learn collection that covers all the exam topics in detail.

Between these resources, my hands-on practice, and a few quick lookups in the official documentation during the exam, I felt well-prepared.

I have been working with Microsoft Fabric for over a year now and have been deeply involved with it as a Microsoft Data Platform MVP. It’s sometimes a bit challenging to keep up with all the new features and changes in Fabric, as Microsoft is releasing them at a rapid pace.

I have been following the Fabric blogs, and videos closely to stay up to date with the latest features and best practices. I also have a lot of hands-on experience with Fabric, which is crucial for passing the exam.

The differences between DP-600 and DP-700

The DP-600 exam covers a broad range of tools and services in Microsoft Fabric, with a particular focus on Power BI, DAX, and Power Query.

The DP-700 exam is much more focused on the data engineering part of Fabric, and does not cover Power BI too much.

The exam experience

The DP-700 exam experience was consistent with other Microsoft certification exams. As usual, there were a number of case studies, where you analyze scenarios and answer questions based on them. The question formats included multiple-choice, multiple-answer, drag-and-drop, and DOMC (Discrete Option Multiple Choice) questions, where you can’t revisit previous questions.

What to focus on

The exam covers all things data engineering on Microsoft Fabric, which is a lot of ground to cover. Based on my experience, here are the most important topics to focus on:

• Medallion architecture
• Real-Time Intelligence (do not underestimate this, it’s a big part of the exam)
  • KQL syntax
  • EventHouse, EventStream
• Permissions and roles in Fabric
  • Workspace level roles
  • Item Sharing
• Deployment to multiple environments
  • Deployment Pipelines
    • What is supported
    • What is not transferred
    • Item pairing
  • Git integration
• Monitoring and troubleshooting
  • Data Pipelines
  • Semantic Models
  • Data Warehouse (DMVs)
  • Real-Time Intelligence
• Data ingestion
  • Data Pipelines
  • Dataflows (both Gen1 and Gen2, not in depth, but you should know what purpose they serve)
  • Shortcuts
    • different types
    • caching
    • when to use them
• Data tranformations
  • T-SQL syntax
  • Using the Delta Lake APIs in Python
• Delta Lake
  • Optimizing for performance
  • V-Order
  • VACUUM
  • OPTIMIZE

Personally, I found the questions on Real-Time Intelligence particularly challenging, as I typically work with batch data processing. These real-time features are also relatively new in Fabric, so I recommend dedicating extra time to them.

What to skip

Since the DP-600 exam already covers Power BI, DAX, and related topics, you can safely skip studying those areas for DP-700. Detailed knowledge about Capacities and costs also doesn’t seem necessary for this exam.

What I expect from future exams

It seems Microsoft’s Fabric certifications are aligning with their Azure counterparts. The DP-600 mirrors the DP-500 exam (also a bit similar to PL-300), while DP-700 is positioned as a counterpart to DP-203. I wouldn’t be surprised if Microsoft eventually releases an exam focused on Fabric administration, governance, and networking—similar to the AZ-104 exam for Azure administration. Time will tell if this prediction holds true!

Conclusion

While I’m fairly confident I passed the exam, I won’t know for sure until the beta results are released. This post is based on my own experience and can’t guarantee completeness or accuracy—always refer to the official study guide. I hope this post helps you in your preparation for the DP-700 exam.

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