You want to query data in another team's lakehouse without copying it. What do you create?
Why A is the answer
A OneLake shortcut
A shortcut references data in place, so there is one copy and no sync job.
In detail
- A OneLake shortcut reads data in place, with no copy.
- Access still depends on permissions, so plan who can read the target.
Use case
An illustrative scenario, not a real incident.
Finance needs the sales team's customer table. A shortcut shows it in the finance lakehouse, with no pipeline and no second copy.
See it in different ways
flowchart LR A["Lakehouse in your workspace"] -->|"Shortcut"| B["Another OneLake location"] A -->|"Shortcut"| C["Amazon S3 or Azure storage"]
sequenceDiagram participant P as Pipeline participant S as Source participant T as Delta table P->>P: Reads the last watermark P->>S: Rows newer than the watermark S-->>P: Changed rows P->>T: MERGE P->>P: Saves the new watermark
stateDiagram-v2 state "Sales lakehouse" as s0 state "Shortcut in finance" as s1 state "Finance query" as s2 [*] --> s0 s0 --> s1: reference s1 --> s2: read in place s2 --> [*]
Key point: Shortcuts reference data in place.
Why the other options are wrong
- B. A new warehouse copy
- A warehouse copy is a copy.
- C. A semantic model refresh
- A refresh does not link the data.
- D. A nightly export
- An export is a copy.