DP-600 is a new exam released in January 2024 as a beta exam, and couple months later (somewhere around April probably) was made generally available. What is it about, is it worth it and how to approach it – these are the question I will try to answer in this article. Grab a cup of coffee and let’s start.

What is DP-600 exam?

DP-600 is an exam you must take to get associate level certification: Microsoft Certified: Fabric Analytics Engineer Associate. If you would like to read more about certifications in generale, some time ago I wrote to posts about it:

• Test your skills with Microsoft Certifications – part 1
• Test your skills with Microsoft Certifications – part 2

In previous article I was just mentioning DP-600 and by that time my call was that it is not really a replacement for DP-500. Well, I changed my mind. They’re in fact much more similar than they are different. If we disregard the absence of Microsoft Purview topics in DP-600, they are very much alike, especially in Power BI part. If you recently took the DP-500, should you do the DP-600? If your daily work is Power BI related only, there is not much new topics for you to cover. News focus around Lakehouses and new Storage Mode for Power BI Semantic Models which is Direct Lake. Still, Microsoft Fabric seems to be the new normal, therefore, if only you have the chance to take – do it. If you didn’t get the DP-500 yet, then definitely you should take it 🙂 Why is it so important? Let’s find out in next section.

What is covered within DP-600?

If you managed to go through previous articles you know, that when I say that you should do this or other exam, I rather related to learning part, necessarily taking the exam itself. DP-600 covers wide range of skills:

1. Plan, implement, and manage a solution for data analytics (10–15%)
2. Prepare and serve data (40–45%)
3. Implement and manage semantic models (20–25%)
4. Explore and analyze data (20–25%)

For the sake of not making this article unnecessarily long, I am throwing only highest level of exam sections here, but I highly recommend checking the details in Microsoft’s Study guide for Exam DP-600.

If you go through that very long list of skills, you will notice that the scope of exam is pretty intimidating. But there are reasons why you shouldn’t be afraid of it: exam wasn’t that hard as I expected; since it covers a lot of topics it doesn’t go too deep in each of them (except Power BI maybe); and if you are a Power BI guy, you already have a great foundation to start preparing for DP-600. On top of that, exam doesn’t cover two of Microsoft Fabric workloads which are Synapse Data Science and Real-time Intelligence.

Who is this exam for?

In Microsoft Learning you will find that Fabric invites different data personas to cooperate in this unified data platform. Two of them are Data Analyst and Data Engineer. So, you might ask, who is Analytics Engineer Associate? Probably someone in between. However, on top of detailed knowledge on Power BI, and pretty substantial knowledge of Data Engineering, Data Warehouse and Data Factory solutions, you also must be familiar with administration and resource planning concept, understand in which scenario you could consider available technology, how to provision access following least privilege principle, etc. In this case you might say that this exam is a perfect choice for Solution Architects. And indeed, this is one of the roles listed in detailed list of roles eligible for the exam, although it may not be that clear by looking at the exam’s name. There are Solution Architects related exams positioned at Advanced Level, like for example Azure Solution Architect Expert, or Power Platform Solution Architect. Still, Microsoft decided to position DP-600 as Associate level exam, which kind of foreshadows that there might be more interesting certificates in future.

How to prepare for exam?

The most obvious choice would be to go through materials provided by Microsoft itself:

1. Course DP-600T00-A: Microsoft Fabric Analytics Engineer – Training | Microsoft Learn
   • 5 learning paths
   • 30 units
   • ~30 hours needed to complete
2. Microsoft Fabric documentation – Microsoft Fabric | Microsoft Learn
   • Official Microsoft product documentation
   • Go through required concepts: Power BI, OneLake, Data Factory, Data Engineering, Data Warehouse
   • Make sure to cover Platform admin and governance section as well
3. Microsoft Fabric Career Hub
   • Skill up with cloud skill challenges
   • Access practice exams
   • Watch “Learn Together” recorded sessions

Here I would stay that point 1 and 3 are obligatory, second point is very much recommended but mostly if you want to get down to nitty-gritty. Honestly, I could stop right there, but there is one external resource that I must highlight:

• Learn Microsoft Fabric (skool.com)

Will delivers a top-level content 100% for free. If you went through all the materials from Microsoft, Will’s resources will help you to organize your knowledge and prepare for the exam. Content creators who aim to up-skill community for free deserve huge shout out, so, if you decide to use it, remember to give Will a proper recognition.

I also feel obliged to mention available “shortcuts” to pass the exam. I tried Exam Topics; within free plan I was able to access only 27 questions out of 109 available on the website, so of course I don’t have full visibility into the quality, but from I was able to check I don’t recommend this resource for sure. I am in general very skeptical on the sole idea of such platforms, I feel they take away the spotlight from the actual learners, but it gets even worse when available answers are not correct and misleading. If you decide to use platform like this, make sure to check the answers on your own, or at least read the discussions under each question, as very often answers provided in comments are correct.

How does the exam look like?

If you go through Will’s videos on learning Fabric, he recommends taking the exam on-site. I actually never took it yet, as I was choosing the Pearson Vue online experience. Especially after taking couple of them, I must say that they are not that bad as they are often painted. I took the exams in my apartment as well as in the office and took so far 7 of them, therefore, I have some experience to share. For sure choose a peaceful location where you are lone as this is the most important. Bedroom (or office you have it :D) in your house or a small conference room in the office. Room can’t be too big, and you could be asked to choose a smaller place. You can’t have any snacks, drinks on your desk, all your additional screens must be unplugged, and you could be asked to demonstrate it. You can’t have your phone or watch with you either. You will be asked to take a photo of yourself, your ID (passport, driver license or other) and your room from 4 different angles. It’s good to take a system test before the exam to see if there is any issue with your connectivity or devices. The latter is important as well as you need a working microphone and a camera. You must be visible to your tutor, and make sure you don’t make any unauthorized moves. I was kicked out from exam once, because I stood up to turn the light on, even though I was visible in the camera, so… be careful 😀 You will need a laptop for exam (no VPN during exam) and a cell phone to complete check-in process (taking all the required photos).

When you schedule an exam you pick specific time, but check-in process starts 30 minutes before. Don’t wait and start immediately to avoid any issues. Total time needed for the exam is 120 minutes, but nothing stops you from finishing earlier. When exam starts, you have options to call for a short break or use Microsoft Learn during the exam. I didn’t use any of these yet, so I can’t tell much how it actually works.

I got a total of 58 questions. There were three question segments, which is quite important as once you decide to go to next segment, you can’t go back to previous one anymore. First segment was 8 questions related to a single Case Study. Case Studies are quite interesting questions, where you receive a scenario to go through and then you answer a set of questions related to that scenario. Questions then are describing the task you must complete, considering Security/Technical/Analytical (etc.) requirements provided in Case Study. After these 8 questions there was 47 standard ones, where you can go back and forth and correct the answers. Last 3 questions were like a small case study, but there is a short scenario described as well as a desired end result. Then you get three true/false questions asking if proposed answer would fulfill the requirements or not.

If you feel that the question is a bit ambiguous, which happens, make sure to mark the question to leave the feedback after your exam.

When you decided to finish the exam, you get immediate response if you passed or not. There are 1000 points to get in total, and you must get 700 to pass the exam. Everything above 700 means that you managed ot join the Fabricators Club 😀

Conclusion

By all means, Microsoft Fabric is not flawless, still, I see tremendous amount of potential in this platform. It may be a bit overwhelming to keep up with the current pace of updates and new features, but there is no doubt that Fabric (at least to some extent) will be new normal for many organizations. Having one more certificate in your resume will help you be prepared for the upcoming changes and send clear message to people in your organization that you are a decent partner for any kind of conversations around Fabric. If you decided to take it, I wish you good luck and remember to share the results.

Thank you for staying till the end and see you in next article 🙂