50 IBM Cloud Pak for Data V4.x Data Engineer Practice Questions: Question Bank 2025

An engineer is asked to explain how IBM Cloud Pak for Data services are delivered on the platform. Which statement best describes the architecture of services in Cloud Pak for Data?

A team needs to build a repeatable pipeline to ingest daily CSV files from an SFTP server into a curated table. They want scheduling, monitoring, and simple transformations. Which Cloud Pak for Data capability best fits this requirement?

A data steward wants business users to search for data assets, see business context, and understand approved definitions (for example, what 'Customer' means). Which feature should be used to provide standardized business terminology?

A developer wants analysts to query data from multiple sources using a single SQL endpoint without copying the data into a new repository. Which approach best meets the requirement?

A pipeline loads a target table each night. Some nights it fails mid-run, leaving partial data. The team wants the load to be restartable and to avoid partially committed results. What is the best practice design?

A cataloged data asset contains sensitive identifiers. The business requires that only a restricted group can view those columns, while other users can still query non-sensitive columns. Which combination best satisfies this requirement?

A DataStage job reads from a database source and writes to a target. The job is slow and the database team reports high load on the source system. Which change is most likely to reduce source impact while improving throughput?

A team virtualizes multiple data sources and creates a set of virtual tables for analysts. They notice the same query sometimes returns inconsistent performance. What is a recommended approach to stabilize and improve query performance in a virtualized environment?

A regulated enterprise requires that workloads run in separate environments: development, test, and production. They also require controlled promotion of assets (such as DataStage jobs and connections) with auditability. Which approach best supports this in Cloud Pak for Data?

A data engineer virtualizes a source table that includes personally identifiable information (PII). They apply masking rules in governance, but analysts still see unmasked values when querying the virtual table. What is the most likely cause?

A data engineer needs to confirm that a Cloud Pak for Data service is correctly deployed and ready before creating projects and pipelines. Which component provides the primary user interface to view platform status and access services?

A team wants to minimize duplicated data movement across multiple pipelines by creating reusable connections to enterprise sources (Db2, Oracle, S3-compatible storage). Where should these connections be created to be reused within a project's assets?

A data steward wants to ensure only approved, curated datasets are easily discoverable by analysts across teams. Which Cloud Pak for Data feature is designed to publish and search for governed data assets with business context?

A pipeline loads data from object storage into a target table. The job succeeds, but downstream queries show duplicate rows each run. The requirement is to make the load idempotent (safe to rerun). What is the best approach?

A team wants to run SQL across multiple data sources without copying data into a central warehouse. They also want fine-grained access control applied consistently. Which capability best fits this requirement?

A catalog contains sensitive customer attributes. The organization requires that analysts can see aggregated insights but must not see raw values for specific columns (for example, masking SSN). Which governance capability is most appropriate?

A DataStage job intermittently fails when writing to Cloud Object Storage. The error indicates authentication/authorization issues. The connection test succeeds for one user but fails for service runs. What is the most likely cause?

A data engineer wants to speed up data discovery by automatically collecting technical metadata, column profiles, and relationships for assets added to a catalog. Which feature should be configured?

A company virtualizes data from several sources. They notice inconsistent query performance because the same expensive joins are executed repeatedly. They want to improve performance without fully replicating all source data. What is the best Data Virtualization approach?

A regulated enterprise requires that policies (classification, masking, and access rules) are consistently applied across catalogs and virtualized access, and that terms are managed centrally with stewardship workflows. Which architecture choice best meets this requirement in Cloud Pak for Data?

A data engineer is onboarding a new source system into Cloud Pak for Data and needs to confirm which OpenShift namespace the platform services are deployed into to troubleshoot a routing issue. Where should they look first?

A team wants to create a repeatable ingestion process from object storage into a curated zone with minimal coding. They also want to schedule runs and capture runtime logs. Which Cloud Pak for Data capability best fits?

A data steward wants all analysts to see business definitions and ownership information for datasets across the organization, but access to the underlying data should still be controlled by data source permissions. What is the recommended approach?

A DataStage job writes to a target table but occasionally fails with duplicate key errors when rerun after a partial failure. The requirement is to make reruns idempotent without manually cleaning the target. Which design is most appropriate?

A project uses credentials embedded in multiple ETL jobs to connect to a database. Security requires rotating the database password regularly with minimal pipeline changes. What is the best practice in Cloud Pak for Data?

A user can see a dataset in the catalog but cannot add it to their project due to insufficient permissions. The dataset is governed and requires approval. Which capability addresses this requirement while maintaining governance controls?

An analytics team wants to query data across multiple external databases without moving the data, but they also need consistent SQL access and the ability to create virtual views for downstream tools. Which capability should be used?

A DataStage flow reads a large file and performance is poor. The job is running with a single processing partition even though the cluster has sufficient resources. Which change is most likely to improve throughput while keeping the same functional logic?

A company needs analysts to use data virtualization for ad-hoc SQL, but also requires that sensitive columns (for example, national identifiers) are masked consistently regardless of which underlying source is queried. What is the best approach?

A team has hundreds of cataloged data assets and wants to ensure that new assets cannot be published unless they include required business metadata (owner, sensitivity classification, and a linked business term). What is the most appropriate solution?

A data engineer needs to connect to an external JDBC source from within IBM Cloud Pak for Data to build ETL flows. The connection must be centrally managed so multiple projects can reuse it. Where should this connection be created?

A team is standardizing how datasets are discovered and understood across the organization. They want business users to search for data assets, see descriptions and owners, and request access. Which Cloud Pak for Data capability best addresses this?

A user can log in to Cloud Pak for Data but cannot create a new project. Other users can create projects successfully. What is the most likely cause?

A data engineer needs to profile a dataset to understand missing values and basic statistics before building a transformation flow. Which feature in Cloud Pak for Data is most appropriate?

A company wants analysts to run SQL across multiple databases without copying data into a new repository. The solution must present a single logical view while leaving data in place. What should the data engineer implement?

A governed data catalog requires that certain columns (e.g., national ID) are consistently identified and classified across many assets. What is the best way to automate this classification at scale?

A DataStage job succeeds sometimes but fails intermittently when writing to a target database with errors indicating too many connections. Which change is the most appropriate first step?

A team needs to ensure only a specific group can access a governed catalog and its assets, while another group can only view a subset of assets. What mechanism best supports this in Cloud Pak for Data governance?

A company uses data virtualization to query multiple sources. For a critical BI workload, query performance is inconsistent due to repeated remote source access. They want to improve performance while keeping the logical virtual layer. What is the best approach?

An organization must enforce that sensitive data is masked for most users but remains visible to a restricted group, even when accessed through virtualized SQL. Which design best meets this requirement?

A data engineer needs to expose curated datasets to analytics users while ensuring compute workloads are isolated from other platform services. Which Cloud Pak for Data architectural approach best supports this requirement?

A team wants to build an ETL flow that loads a daily file into a target table. They need to ensure the job is idempotent (re-running the same day does not duplicate records). Which design is the BEST fit?

A data pipeline in Cloud Pak for Data is failing with an authentication error when writing to an object storage bucket. Other jobs can access the same bucket successfully. What is the MOST likely cause?

A governance team wants to ensure that when a dataset is published to the catalog, it automatically requires a business glossary term assignment and a data classification before it can be shared broadly. Which feature should be used to enforce this?

A data engineer creates a DataStage flow that reads from a database connection. The job fails intermittently with timeouts during peak hours. Which action is the BEST first step to improve reliability without changing the source system?

A data consumer uses Data Virtualization to query multiple remote sources. Queries are slow and frequently re-read the same reference tables. What is the BEST approach to improve performance while keeping data in place?

A company wants to ensure personally identifiable information (PII) columns are masked for most users when queried through Data Virtualization, but a small group can see full values. Which capability is most appropriate?

A data engineer needs to publish a dataset to the catalog and ensure that lineage from source ingestion to curated tables is visible to auditors. Which approach BEST supports end-to-end lineage in Cloud Pak for Data?

A team virtualizes a remote database and joins it with an internal table. The join produces incorrect results due to inconsistent data types and collation rules between sources. What is the BEST remediation approach within Data Virtualization?

A regulated organization requires that only approved datasets can be used to train analytics models. Data scientists work in projects and frequently add new assets. What is the BEST design to enforce this control consistently?