So, You Want to Pass the DP-600 Exam.

 Beta is over. Here comes the Live Exam.

Based on Pearson Vue the exam is going to go live at the start of April. So there is plenty of time - nicely aligned to a trial subscription length - to crack open the exam content. The exams seem to be going live the first few days of April (not the 1st ) .

Based on my experience with the Beta version I have compiled the following help.

Things to consider when sitting this exam.

1. MS Learn is available.
2. If you have sat the PL-300 on Power BI there is a lot of useful content overlap.
3. The exam will cover technical capability and "what should you do/use in this situation" type questions.

Technical things to know.

1. SQL - a good deal of questions were on this - typically select the correct keyword to add to this statement.
1. Know your SQL functions
2. Know your SDC types
2. Pyspark - again, some keyword selection typically
1. how to load to a delta table - overwrite and append
2. Look at this code and this output - evaluate
3. How to Transform data and add new columns
3. DAX - Keywords again
1. Time Intelligence
2. Other functions. tip - you have options: how many clauses after the function are specified? MS Learn might be you friend here.
4. M. I spent a lot of time looking at M. I got one question I knew the answer but MS Learn is available.

Platform.

1. Security - Lakehouse and Warehouse and SKU
2. Semantic Model Ingestion - direct query, import , direct lake
3. Semantic Model maintenance
1. power bi performance analyzer
2. DAX Studio
3. Tabular Editior
4. Semantic Models
1. Calculation Groups
5. Data Factory Pipelines
1. how to get stored procedure values back to the pipeline
2. Types of activities
3. How to chain activities.
6. A bit of data science but literally what type of analysis is this? 2 questions that were fairly easy. These were not data science methods but how to use 

As with all MS Exams I've signed an NDA so keeping this vague.
 

What and how to study.

There are lots of good guides appearing providing links for each topic in the study guide use those.

My personal favourite is this one from Serverless SQL. 

Link Dump

In no particular order

https://www.mssqltips.com/sqlservertip/7833/microsoft-fabric-build-data-warehouse/

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/credentials/certifications/resources/study-guides/dp-600#transform-data

https://data-mozart.com/dp-600-certification/

https://www.kevinrchant.com/2024/01/10/checklist-for-the-beta-version-of-the-dp-600-beta-exam-for-microsoft-fabric/

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/fabric/data-warehouse/tutorial-introduction

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/create-reports/desktop-performance-analyzer

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/fabric/data-warehouse/monitor-using-dmv

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/fabric/data-warehouse/query-insights

https://community.fabric.microsoft.com/t5/custom/page/page-id/CareerHubPage?ocid=fabric24_careerhub_blog_wwl

OneLake security - Microsoft Fabric | Microsoft Learn

M

https://bengribaudo.com/blog/2017/11/17/4107/power-query-m-primer-part1-introduction-simple-expressions-let

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/powerquery-m/quick-tour-of-the-power-query-m-formula-language

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/powerquery-m/m-spec-basic-concepts

Free M Code Class from Basic to Advanced: Power Query Excel & Power BI, Custom Functions 365 MECS 12

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/powerquery-m/power-query-m-language-specification

Exercises 

Medallion

https://microsoftlearning.github.io/mslearn-fabric/Instructions/Labs/03b-medallion-lakehouse.html

Warehouse

https://microsoftlearning.github.io/mslearn-fabric/Instructions/Labs/06a-data-warehouse-load.html

https://microsoftlearning.github.io/mslearn-fabric/Instructions/Labs/06b-data-warehouse-query.html

https://microsoftlearning.github.io/mslearn-fabric/Instructions/Labs/06c-monitor-data-warehouse.html

DP-500 

On the course but nothing like Fabric Semantic Models

https://microsoftlearning.github.io/DP-500-Azure-Data-Analyst/Instructions/labs/04-create-a-star-schema-model.html

Nothing replaces hard work.

Do the work:

Get Started

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/training/paths/get-started-fabric/

Introduction to end-to-end analytics using Microsoft Fabric

Get started with lakehouses in Microsoft Fabric

Use Apache Spark in Microsoft Fabric

Work with Delta Lake tables in Microsoft Fabric

Use Data Factory pipelines in Microsoft Fabric

Ingest Data with Dataflows Gen2 in Microsoft Fabric

Get started with data warehouses in Microsoft Fabric

Get started with Real-Time Analytics in Microsoft Fabric

Get started with data science in Microsoft Fabric

Get started with Data Activator in Microsoft Fabric

Administer Microsoft Fabric 

The Guts

Ingest data with Microsoft Fabric

Implement a Lakehouse with Microsoft Fabric

Work with data warehouses using Microsoft Fabric

Work with semantic models in Microsoft Fabric

Design and build tabular models

Manage the analytics development lifecycle

Be organised

Everyone has a different style but I found it useful to work through each area of the study guide and plot this in a notebook.

I'd been using Fabric in earnest since GA and a bit since Beta so I had an edge I also have a lot of Synapse experience so this too gave me an edge. I have DP-203 and PL-300 as well. However, I spent 2 weeks (about 2 hours a day and 5 hours each weekend day) very focused on the study guide. This last push was a  big help - obviously, pending results in April.  There's is plenty of time but in the last stretch, I advise some serious revision.