Failing the 070-764 exam means paying the registration fee all over again, and those fees add up fast. Candidates in 2026 use the Microsoft Administering a SQL Database Infrastructure practice questions at ActualCollection to walk into the test already knowing what the real thing feels like.

Microsoft 070-764 Exam Overview:

Certification Vendor:	Microsoft
Exam Name:	Administering a SQL Database Infrastructure
Exam Number:	70-764
Available Languages:	Simplified Chinese, Spanish, German, English, French, Korean, Japanese
Certificate Validity Period:	Retired (certification no longer offered)
Related Certifications:	MCSA: SQL 2016 Database Administration MCSE: Data Management and Analytics (retired)
Exam Format:	Best answer selection, Multiple choice, Short answer, Case studies
Exam Duration:	120-150
Passing Score:	700 (on a 1000 scale)
Real Exam Qty:	40-60 (varies)
Exam Price:	$165 USD (varies by country)
Recommended Training:	Microsoft Learn SQL Server Training SQL Server Administration Documentation
Exam Registration:	Microsoft Certification Portal Pearson VUE Exam Registration
Sample Questions:
Exam Way:	Online proctored or test center (Pearson VUE)
Pre Condition:	No formal prerequisite required, but experience with SQL Server administration is recommended. Typically part of the MCSA SQL 2016 certification path.
Official Syllabus URL:	https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/credentials/certifications/exams/70-764/

Microsoft 070-764 Exam Syllabus Topics:

Answers Every 070-764 Candidate Should Read First

Microsoft Administering a SQL Database Infrastructure Sample Questions:

Question 1

You have a database named DB1.
You must ensure that DB1 is highly available. You implement a Windows cluster. You need to create a Cluster Shared Volume (CSV) for the database and log files.
Which three Windows Power Shell commands should you execute in sequence? To answer, move the appropriate Windows PowerShell commands from the list of Windows PowerShell commands to the answer area and arrange them in the correct order.

Question 2

Overview
General Overview
ADatum Corporation has offices in Miami and Montreal.
The network contains a single Active Directory forest named adatum.com. The offices connect to each other by using a WAN link that has 5-ms latency.
A: Datum standardizes its database platform by using SQL Server
2014 Enterprise edition.
Databases
Each office contains databases named Sales, Inventory, Customers, Products, Personnel, and Dev.
Servers and databases are managed by a team of database administrators. Currently, all of the database administrators have the same level of permissions on all of the servers and all of the databases.
The Customers database contains two tables named Customers and Classifications.
The following graphic shows the relevant portions of the tables:

The following table shows the current data in the Classifications table:

The Inventory database is updated frequently.
The database is often used for reporting.
A full backup of the database currently takes three hours to complete.
Stored Procedures
A stored procedure named USP_1 generates millions of rows of data for multiple reports. USP_1 combines data from five different tables from the Sales and Customers databases in a table named Table1.
After Table1 is created, the reporting process reads data from Table1 sequentially several times. After the process is complete, Table1 is deleted.
A stored procedure named USP_2 is used to generate a product list. The product list contains the names of products grouped by category.
USP_2 takes several minutes to run due to locks on the tables the procedure accesses. The locks are caused by USP_1 and USP_3.
A stored procedure named USP_3 is used to update prices. USP_3 is composed of several UPDATE statements called in sequence from within a transaction.
Currently, if one of the UPDATE statements fails, the stored procedure fails. A stored procedure named USP_4 calls stored procedures in the Sales, Customers, and Inventory databases.
The nested stored procedures read tables from the Sales, Customers, and Inventory databases. USP_4 uses an EXECUTE AS clause.
All nested stored procedures handle errors by using structured exception handling. A stored procedure named USP_5 calls several stored procedures in the same database. Security checks are performed each time USP_5 calls a stored procedure.
You suspect that the security checks are slowing down the performance of USP_5. All stored procedures accessed by user applications call nested stored procedures.
The nested stored procedures are never called directly.
Design Requirements
Data Recovery
You must be able to recover data from the Inventory database if a storage failure occurs. You have a Recovery Time Objective (RTO) of 5 minutes.
You must be able to recover data from the Dev database if data is lost accidentally. You have a Recovery Point Objective (RPO) of one day.
Classification Changes
You plan to change the way customers are classified. The new classifications will have four levels based on the number of orders. Classifications may be removed or added in the future. Management requests that historical data be maintained for the previous classifications. Security A group of junior database administrators must be able to manage security for the Sales database. The junior database administrators will not have any other administrative rights.
A: Datum wants to track which users run each stored procedure.
Storage
ADatum has limited storage. Whenever possible, all storage space should be minimized for all databases and all backups.
Error Handling
There is currently no error handling code in any stored procedure.
You plan to log errors in called stored procedures and nested stored procedures. Nested stored procedures are never called directly.
You need to recommend a change to USP_3 to ensure that the procedure completes only if all of the UPDATE statements complete. Which change should you recommend?

A. Set the IMPLICIT_TRANSACTIONS option to off.
B. Set the XACT_ABORT option to on.
C. Set the XACT_ABORT option to off
D. Set the IMPLICIT_TRANSACTIONS option to on.

Question 3

You administer a Microsoft SQL Server 2012 instance.
You need to configure a new database to support FILETABLES.
What should you do? Choose all that apply.

A. Disable FILESTREAM on the Database.
B. Set the FILESTREAM directory name on the Database.
C. Enable Contained Databases on the Server Instance.
D. Configure the Database for Partial Containment.
E. Enable FILESTREAM on the Server Instance.
F. Create a non-empty FILESTREAM file group.

Question 4

Note: This question is part of a series of questions that use the same scenario. For your convenience, the scenario is repeated in each question. Each question presents a different goal and answer choices, but the text of the scenario is exactly the same in each question in this series.
You have five servers that run Microsoft Windows 2012 R2. Each server hosts a Microsoft SQL Server instance. The topology for the environment is shown in the following diagram.

You have an Always On Availability group named AG1. The details for AG1 are shown in the following table.

Instance1 experiences heavy read-write traffic. The instance hosts a database named OperationsMain that is four terabytes (TB) in size. The database has multiple data files and filegroups. One of the filegroups is read_only and is half of the total database size.
Instance4 and Instance5 are not part of AG1. Instance4 is engaged in heavy read-write I/O.
Instance5 hosts a database named StagedExternal. A nightly BULK INSERT process loads data into an empty table that has a rowstore clustered index and two nonclustered rowstore indexes.
You must minimize the growth of the StagedExternal database log file during the BULK INSERT operations and perform point-in-time recovery after the BULK INSERT transaction. Changes made must not interrupt the log backup chain.
You plan to add a new instance named Instance6 to a datacenter that is geographically distant from Site1 and Site2. You must minimize latency between the nodes in AG1.
All databases use the full recovery model. All backups are written to the network location \\SQLBackup\. A separate process copies backups to an offsite location. You should minimize both the time required to restore the databases and the space required to store backups. The recovery point objective (RPO) for each instance is shown in the following table.

Full backups of OperationsMain take longer than six hours to complete. All SQL Server backups use the keyword COMPRESSION.
You plan to deploy the following solutions to the environment. The solutions will access a database named DB1 that is part of AG1.
* Reporting system: This solution accesses data inDB1with a login that is mapped to a database user that is a member of the db_datareader role. The user has EXECUTE permissions on the database. Queries make no changes to the data. The queries must be load balanced over variable read-only replicas.
* Operations system: This solution accesses data inDB1with a login that is mapped to a database user that is a member of the db_datareader and db_datawriter roles. The user has EXECUTE permissions on the database. Queries from the operations system will perform both DDL and DML operations.
The wait statistics monitoring requirements for the instances are described in the following table.

You need to analyze the wait type and statistics for specific instanced in the environment.
Which object should you use to gather information about each instance? To answer, drag the appropriate objects to the correct instances. Each object may be used once, more than once, or not at all. You may need to drag the split bar between panes or scroll to view content.
NOTE: Each correct selection is worth one point.

Question 5

Note: This question is part of a series of questions that present the same scenario. Each question in the series contains a unique solution that might meet the stated goals. Some question sets might have more than one correct solution, while others might not have a correct solution.
After you answer a question in this sections, you will NOT be able to return to it. As a result, these questions will not appear in the review screen.
You have a data warehouse that stored sales data. One fact table has 100 million rows.
You must reduce storage needs for the data warehouse.
You need to implement a solution that uses column-based storage and provides real-time analytics for the operational workload.
Solution: You load the data in a heap table.
Does the solution meet the goal?

A. No
B. Yes

Solutions: