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. Create 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 a Data pipeline that copies data to a staging area.

Answer: (B)

Creating a shortcut is the way to reference external data without duplicating it. A shortcut acts as a lightweight pointer to the data located in the external Azure Data Lake Storage Gen2 location, so the lakehouse can include and query that data as if it’s part of its own storage, while the original data stays in place. This avoids copying, reduces storage costs, and keeps the data up-to-date since no data movement is involved.

Pipelines that copy data or load it into a table or staging area would involve moving or duplicating the data, which isn’t what you want when the goal is to include external data without copying.