Data Engineering Associate with Databricks Practice Exam

What is the primary function of the control plane in Databricks?

1. Enabling data processing

2. Cluster management

3. Accessing data sources

4. Executing SQL queries

The correct answer is: Cluster management

The primary function of the control plane in Databricks is related to cluster management. The control plane is responsible for managing the lifecycle of clusters, including creating, scaling, and terminating them. This allows users to efficiently allocate resources for their workloads, optimize performance, and control costs. By managing clusters, the control plane ensures that resources are available when needed and that the environment is correctly configured for different tasks. It also provides features for monitoring cluster performance, managing permissions, and ensuring security protocols are followed. This centralized management plays a critical role in the overall functionality of Databricks, as it allows users to focus on their data processing and analytics tasks rather than worrying about the underlying infrastructure. In contrast, the other options focus on aspects that are not governed by the control plane. For instance, enabling data processing and executing SQL queries are tasks handled by the data plane, which is responsible for actually carrying out the computations on the data. Accessing data sources, while important, is mainly a function that involves connecting to various data storage services and is also outside the primary responsibilities of the control plane. Thus, the emphasis on cluster management highlights the control plane's essential role in the overall system architecture.