We’re excited to announce the Public Preview of Cross-Platform View Sharing. Obtainable in the present day, it permits knowledge suppliers to share views throughout totally different platforms, clouds, and areas, selling an open and interoperable knowledge ecosystem.
View sharing has been helpful; different distributors do it as effectively. However till now, it’s largely been restricted to the identical platform. You might share views inside one platform however not throughout a number of platforms and clouds. Databricks solves this drawback with cross-platform view sharing and allows you to share views seamlessly throughout totally different environments. It is a sport changer as a result of it expands knowledge suppliers’ attain and avoids vendor lock-in for knowledge shoppers, making collaboration simpler and quicker.
Cross-platform sharing aligns with Databricks’ open sharing imaginative and prescient by enabling safe and seamless knowledge alternate throughout totally different platforms, clouds, and areas
Understanding View Sharing
To grasp view sharing, let’s first perceive views. In Databricks, views are read-only representations of information created from tables or different views. They retailer question textual content however not the info itself. Views are a part of the Unity Catalog
View sharing permits customers to share views utilizing the Delta Sharing protocol. Delta Sharing is the business’s first open protocol for safe knowledge sharing, making it easy to share knowledge with different organizations no matter which knowledge platforms they use. View sharing promotes reusability and reduces redundancy, as a number of customers can entry and make the most of the identical views for evaluation.
Beforehand, when a view was shared between Databricks accounts, shoppers may question it utilizing solely Databricks Serverless SQL. Databricks Serverless SQL works throughout all three main cloud suppliers: AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud Platform (GCP), so views may very well be shared throughout clouds.
Now, with cross-platform view sharing, knowledge shoppers can leverage any kind of Databricks cluster and even make the most of open Delta Sharing shoppers to entry and question shared views. Open Delta Sharing shoppers are instruments or platforms that assist the Delta Sharing protocol, permitting customers to entry shared views without having to make use of Databricks. These shoppers embody widespread methods like Apache Spark™, Pandas, Energy BI, Tableau, and others. This makes it attainable for customers throughout platforms i.e., who will not be on Databricks, to nonetheless entry and question the shared views by way of Delta Sharing.
Let’s check out this demo to see Cross-Platform View Sharing in motion
Use Instances
Databricks to Databricks (D2D) Sharing
On this situation, two Databricks clients can share views seamlessly inside the Databricks ecosystem. Why is that this essential? Organizations collaborate with companions who could also be on totally different clouds and in numerous areas and need to share views with shoppers/companions throughout clouds and areas. By leveraging Delta Sharing know-how, they will seamlessly and securely share views, with out making duplicate copies of the info.
Databricks to Open (D2O) Sharing
On this situation, Databricks clients can share views with exterior recipients who will not be utilizing Databricks. Cross-platform view sharing helps open connectors (corresponding to Apache Spark™, Pandas, Energy BI, Tableau, and many others.), permitting recipients to entry shared views by way of the Delta Sharing protocol. This functionality is especially helpful for enterprise analysts and line of Enterprise Customers who require simplified entry to knowledge without having to work together immediately with advanced knowledge platforms
Databricks Market knowledge suppliers profit from cross-platform view sharing by considerably increasing their market attain and monetization alternatives. This functionality permits them to share views with a wider viewers, together with shoppers not utilizing Databricks, thereby rising their potential buyer base. Knowledge Shoppers will not be restricted to querying views from the Databricks Platform, avoiding lockin with Databricks.
Cross-Platform View Sharing is a game-changer for our clients. Bringing zero-copy knowledge sharing to advanced enterprises at scale requires flexibility. The flexibility to share views throughout platforms allows us to offer the safety and efficiency advantages of Delta Sharing to extra clients, serving to them unlock worth from their buyer knowledge quicker
— Derek Slager, CTO and Co-founder of Amperity
What’s forward
Within the coming months, readers can anticipate Databricks to introduce a number of superior data-sharing options. The upcoming options embody Sharing for Lakehouse Federation, which permits knowledge suppliers to share knowledge immediately from varied platforms (e.g., Amazon Redshift, Azure Synapse, Google BigQuery, Snowflake) with out the necessity for replication.
Moreover, D2O OAuth Assist will improve safety by enabling recipients to authenticate utilizing OAuth tokens from their trusted Identification Suppliers (IdPs). Moreover, the sharing of materialized views and Delta Stay Tables will enable for environment friendly distribution of pre-computed question outcomes and streaming knowledge, offering recent knowledge with higher efficiency and decrease prices.
Getting Began
Cross Platform View Sharing is obtainable in Public Preview in the present day to AWS, GCP and Azure clients. Study how you should utilize the Delta Sharing open-sharing protocol to share knowledge out of your Unity Catalog-enabled Databricks workspace with any person on any computing platform, wherever
