You want to include data in an external Azure Data Lake Store Gen2 location in your lakehouse, without the requirement to copy the data. What should you do?

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

Answer: (D)

The concept being tested is bringing external data into a lakehouse without duplicating it by using a lightweight pointer. Creating a shortcut to the Azure Data Lake Storage Gen2 location serves exactly this need: it provides a metadata reference to data that already lives in ADLS Gen2, so the lakehouse can access and query it directly without copying the data into the lakehouse storage. The data remains in its original location, preserving storage costs and avoiding duplication, while still making it available for analysis through the lakehouse interface and governance surface.

Other options involve moving or duplicating data: a data pipeline or dataflow would copy data into a table or file in the lakehouse, which contradicts the requirement to avoid copying. An external table could reference external data, but shortcuts are the intended, simpler mechanism in this scenario to integrate external ADLS Gen2 data into the lakehouse without copying.