Databricks Certified Data Engineer - Associate

Explanation

In Databricks architecture, the Data plane (also known as the customer's cloud environment) hosts the driver and worker nodes of a Databricks-managed cluster. Here's why:

Databricks Architecture Overview:

1. Control Plane: This is managed by Databricks and contains the web application, job scheduler, and management services. It does NOT host compute resources.
2. Data Plane: This is the customer's cloud environment (AWS, Azure, or GCP) where:
   • Driver nodes are deployed
   • Worker nodes are deployed
   • Data is stored and processed
   • Compute resources run

Key Points:

• Data plane is where actual computation happens
• Control plane manages and orchestrates but doesn't execute computations
• Databricks Filesystem (DBFS) is a distributed file system, not a location for compute nodes
• JDBC data source is a data connectivity interface
• Databricks web application is part of the control plane

Why other options are incorrect:

• B. Control plane: Only manages the cluster, doesn't host compute nodes
• C. Databricks Filesystem: Storage layer, not compute hosting
• D. JDBC data source: Data connectivity protocol
• E. Databricks web application: User interface component in control plane

This separation of control plane and data plane is fundamental to Databricks' security and architecture, ensuring customer data and compute remain in their own cloud environment.