DP-800 study resources

The best DP-800 resources are Microsoft’s study guide, the documentation for each SQL feature it names, and a database you build things in. Add realistic practice questions to find your weak domain. Because the exam covers features that are new and still changing, be careful with older tutorials.

Start with the official material

The study guide. It lists the three domains with weights, every sub-area, the audience profile and a change log. The current version is the one dated for October 19, 2026. Read it before anything else and keep it open while you study.

The certification page. It lists duration, languages, retake rules and the exam sandbox. At the time of writing it lists the sandbox under practice but no dedicated practice assessment, so check whether one has been added before you book.

The exam sandbox. It shows the exam interface and question types in about ten minutes, with no DP-800 content.

The official course. Microsoft lists course DP-800T00, Develop AI-enabled database solutions, as a three-day instructor-led course with self-paced material on Microsoft Learn. It follows the three domains of the exam.

Exam Readiness Zone and Data Exposed. The study guide points to these video series on Microsoft Learn for preparation and for database news.

Documentation worth reading

For each topic in the outline, the product documentation is the most reliable source:

• Temporal, ledger, graph, memory-optimized and external tables; JSON, regular expression and fuzzy-matching functions in T-SQL.
• Always Encrypted, Dynamic Data Masking, Row-Level Security and auditing.
• Query Store, execution plans, isolation levels and deadlocks.
• SQL Database Projects, including SDK-style projects.
• Data API builder.
• Change Tracking, change data capture and change event streaming.
• The vector data type, vector indexes, vector functions, full-text search and external models.
• The sp_invoke_external_rest_endpoint stored procedure.
• GitHub Copilot instruction files and MCP.

Lab work is the differentiator

DP-800 describes a requirement and asks which feature fits. Six labs cover most of it:

1. Schema. A temporal table, a JSON column, a sequence, a partitioned table and a graph table, queried with MATCH.
2. Programmability. A view, an inline table-valued function, a stored procedure with TRY...CATCH, and a trigger that handles many rows.
3. Security. Row-level security with SESSION_CONTEXT, masking with UNMASK, and an Always Encrypted column.
4. Tuning. Capture a slow query, read its plan, fix it with an index, find a regression in Query Store, reproduce and fix a deadlock.
5. Delivery. A database project in GitHub with a build and deploy workflow, a drift check and a Data API builder instance.
6. AI. Create an external model, generate and store embeddings, run exact and approximate vector search, add full-text search, fuse with RRF and answer a question with RAG.

Practice questions

Realistic practice questions weighted like the exam help you find the domain that needs work. Start with the free 20-question practice test and the sample questions. Read the explanation for every option, not only the correct one.

Sources to treat with care

• Anything written before the vector type and the new T-SQL functions reached your platform.
• Question dumps. Using real exam content breaks the Microsoft exam agreement, and the exam changes too often for memorised answers to help.
• Tutorials that use an API key in code. The exam prefers managed identities.

For the cost side, see certification costs, and for terminology, the glossary.