Which approach allows referencing an external lakehouse location without copying the data?

• A. A Data pipeline that uses a Copy Data activity to load the external data into a file
• B. Create a shortcut
• C. Create a Dataflow Gen2 that extracts the data and loads it into a table
• D. Create an external table

Answer: (B)

Referencing data where it already resides without duplicating it is achieved by creating a shortcut. A shortcut serves as a lightweight metadata pointer to a dataset located in another lakehouse, so you can query and use the data in place without moving or copying it. This keeps data governance intact, reduces storage costs, and lets you seamlessly reuse external data across lakehouses.

The other options involve moving or duplicating data—loading data into a file or into a table—which contradicts the goal of not copying data. An external table can reference data without copying, but a shortcut is the designed mechanism in this context for direct, no-copy access to an external lakehouse location.