A daily load occasionally contains records with an unexpected extra field. Which handling approach best preserves both data quality and continuity?
Select an answer to reveal the explanation.
Short Explanation
Notice it, decide deliberately, and write it down. You need a defined policy that either evolves the schema or quarantines affected records, not silent drops or blanket failures.
Full Explanation
The correct approach is to detect the deviation, apply a defined policy—evolve the schema deliberately or quarantine affected records—and record what happened. Sound pipelines detect deviation and respond according to a defined policy, whether that is evolving the schema to accept the new field or quarantining affected records for review. Recording the event means the decision is visible rather than buried.
Silently dropping the unexpected field so the load always completes is incorrect because silently discarding data hides a real upstream change and loses information nobody knows was lost.
Failing the entire load every time, until the source team stops changing anything, is incorrect because failing every load makes the pipeline brittle against normal source evolution and pressures teams to bypass it.
Disabling schema checking on the table so any structure is accepted is incorrect because disabling checking removes the ability to detect the deviation at all—it converts a handled event into silent contamination.
For the exam, prefer explicit detection with a defined response over both silent tolerance and blanket failure.