October 2023

These features and Azure Databricks platform improvements were released in October 2023.

Note

Releases are staged. Your Azure Databricks workspace might not be updated until a week or more after the initial release date.

Serverless secure connectivity for Databricks SQL Serverless (Public Preview)

October 31, 2023

New serverless secure connectivity tools help you control network access from serverless SQL warehouses to your data sources in Azure Storage. You can choose either a storage firewall using subnet IDs or enable private connectivity with Azure Private Link. To join the Public Preview, contact your Azure Databricks account team. See Serverless compute plane networking.

If you have storage firewalls that were configured using subnet IDs that were listed in Azure Databricks documentation before October 31, 2023, Databricks recommends that you update your firewall configurations for each of your workspace regions using one of the new tools. This can help you to apply a consistent deployment across all workspaces. If you choose to not update existing configurations, workspaces will continue to work.

View the YAML source for a Azure Databricks job

October 30, 2023

You can now view and copy the YAML source for a job by clicking on the job details page and selecting View YAML/JSON. You can use the YAML source to create CI/CD workflows with Databricks Asset Bundles. See What are Databricks Asset Bundles?.

Add conditional logic to your Azure Databricks workflows

October 30, 2023

You can now use the If/else condition task to conditionally run tasks in a Azure Databricks job based on the results of a boolean expression. See Add branching logic to your job with the If/else condition task.

Configure parameters on a Azure Databricks job that can be referenced by all job tasks

October 30, 2023

You can now add parameters to your Azure Databricks jobs that are automatically passed to all job tasks that accept key-value pairs. See Add parameters for all job tasks. Additionally, you can now use an expanded set of value references to pass context and state between job tasks. See Pass context about job runs into job tasks.

Auto-enable deletion vectors

October 30, 2023

You can now enable deletion vectors on all new Delta tables in Databricks Runtime 14.0 and above with the workspace admin setting Auto-Enable Deletion Vectors. This behavior is currently opt-in but will change to opt-out in the future. Databricks recommends manually configuring an option for this setting. See Auto-enable deletion vectors.

Unity Catalog support for UNDROP TABLE is GA

October 25, 2023

You can undrop a dropped managed or external table in an existing schema within seven days of dropping. Requires Databricks Runtime 12.1 and above. See UNDROP TABLE and SHOW TABLES DROPPED.

Partner Connect supports Dataiku

October 25, 2023

You can now use Partner Connect to connect your Azure Databricks workspace to Dataiku. See Connect to Dataiku.

Databricks AutoML generated notebooks are now saved as MLflow artifacts

October 24, 2023

Databricks AutoML generated notebooks are now saved as MLflow artifacts in all Databricks Runtime for Machine Learning versions.

New region: Qatar Central

October 23, 2023

Azure Databricks is now available in Qatar Central. See Azure Databricks regions.

Unity Catalog volumes supported with Azure Firewall and Private Link

October 23, 2023

You can now use Unity Catalog volumes in conjunction with Azure storage accounts configured with Azure Firewall or Private Link. This removes a previous limitation.

Predictive optimization (Public Preview)

October 24, 2023

Predictive optimization removes the need to manually manage maintenance operations for Delta tables. Maintenance operations are only run as necessary, eliminating both unnecessary runs for maintenance operations and burden associated with tracking and troubleshooting performance. See Predictive optimization for Delta Lake.

Compute system tables are now available (Public Preview)

October 23, 2023

The system.compute schema contains two new tables you can use to monitor the compute resources in your account: clusters and node_types.

The clusters table is a slow-changing dimension table that contains the full history of cluster configurations over time for all-purpose and jobs clusters. The node types table captures the currently available node types with their basic hardware information. If you don’t have access to these system tables, ensure you have enabled the compute schema in your account (see Enable system table schemas).

For more information on compute system tables, see Compute system tables reference.

On-demand feature computation is GA

October 19, 2023

Machine learning features can now be computed on-demand at inference time. This enables models to compute features using inputs that are only available at inference time, such as a user’s current location, or to use features that are cost-prohibitive to precompute, store, and refresh. Model training code can define an arbitrary graph of feature lookups and computations that are executed during model training and inference.

Feature computation logic, models, and data are all governed by Unity Catalog. For more information, see Compute features on demand using Python user-defined functions.

Feature Engineering in Unity Catalog is GA

October 19, 2023

With Feature Engineering in Unity Catalog, Unity Catalog becomes your feature store. You can use any Delta table with a primary key as a feature table for model training or inference. Unity Catalog provides feature discovery and governance.

AI-generated table comments (Public Preview)

October 18, 2023

As part of the initiative to use AI to assist you as you work with Azure Databricks, Azure Databricks is introducing AI-generated table and column comments to Public Preview. In Catalog Explorer, you can view, edit, and add an AI-generated comment for any table or table column managed by Unity Catalog. AI-generated comments may use external model partners to provide responses. Data sent to these services is not used for model training.

See Add AI-generated comments to a table.

Models in Unity Catalog is GA

October 17, 2023

ML Models in Unity Catalog are now generally available. Unity Catalog provides centralized access control, auditing, lineage, model sharing across workspaces, and better MLOps deployment workflows. Azure Databricks recommends using Models in Unity Catalog instead of the Workspace Model Registry. See Manage model lifecycle in Unity Catalog for details.

Libraries now supported in compute policies (Public Preview)

October 17, 2023

Workspace admins can now add libraries to compute policies. Compute that use the policy will automatically install the library. Users can’t install or uninstall compute-scoped libraries on compute that use the policy. Previously installed libraries will be uninstalled.

Databricks recommends migrating all libraries installed with init scripts to use compute policies. See Add libraries to a policy.

Partner Connect supports Monte Carlo

October 16, 2023

You can now use Partner Connect to connect your Azure Databricks workspace to Monte Carlo. For more information, see Connect Azure Databricks to Monte Carlo.

Semantic search (Public Preview)

October 16, 2023

You can now use natural language to search Unity Catalog tables in the advanced Search dialog. See Semantic search.

Enable Databricks Assistant at the workspace level

October 11, 2023

A workspace admin can now enable or disable Databricks Assistant for an individual workspace if the account admin has allowed it. For details, see How do I enable Databricks Assistant?.

New Photon defaults

October 11, 2023

When creating a new cluster through the UI, the default Databricks Runtime engine is Photon enabled. This applies to all-purpose and job clusters.

New clusters created with a cluster policy that is Photon-compatible have Photon enabled by default. A cluster policy is Photon-compatible if Databricks Runtime supports it, node type is supported, and the runtime_engine is not explicitly set to STANDARD.

Databricks Runtime 14.1 is GA

October 11, 2023

Databricks Runtime 14.1 and Databricks Runtime 14.1 ML are now generally available.

See Databricks Runtime 14.1 and Databricks Runtime 14.1 for Machine Learning.

Developer tools release notes have moved

October 10, 2023

Release notes for Azure Databricks developer tools after October 10, 2023 are now posted in the Azure Databricks developer tools and SDKs release notes instead of the Azure Databricks platform release notes.

Databricks extension for Visual Studio Code updated to version 1.1.5

October 9, 2023

The Databricks extension for Visual Studio Code version 1.1.5 contains a few minor fixes. For details, see the changelog for version 1.1.5.

Predictive I/O for updates is GA

October 9, 2023

Predictive I/O for updates is now generally available on Databricks Runtime 14.0 and above. See What is predictive I/O?.

Deletion vectors are GA

October 9, 2023

Deletion vectors are now generally available on Databricks Runtime 14.0 and above. See What are deletion vectors?.

Partner Connect supports RudderStack

October 5, 2023

You can now use Partner Connect to connect your Azure Databricks workspace to RudderStack. For more information, see Connect to RudderStack.

Databricks CLI updated to version 0.207.0 (Public Preview)

October 4, 2023

The Databricks command-line interface (Databricks CLI) has been updated to version 0.207.0. This release contains feature updates and fixes for Databricks Asset Bundles, makes additions and changes to several command groups and commands, and more. For details, see the changelog for version 0.207.0.

Run selected cells in a notebook

October 4, 2023

You can now run only selected cells in a notebook. See Run selected cells.

Use workspace-catalog binding to give read-only access to a catalog

October 4, 2023

When you use workspace-catalog binding to limit catalog access to specific workspaces in your account, you can now make that access read-only. Read-only workspace-catalog binding is helpful for scenarios like giving users read-only access to production data from a developer workspace to enable development and testing.

This update also deprecates the /api/2.1/unity-catalog/workspace-bindings/ API endpoint and replaces it with /api/2.1/unity-catalog/bindings/.

See (Optional) Assign a catalog to specific workspaces.

Databricks extension for Visual Studio Code updated to version 1.1.4

October 2, 2023

The Databricks extension for Visual Studio Code version 1.1.4 adds support for custom Azure Databricks workspace URLs, and more. For details, see the changelog for version 1.1.4.

Databricks SDK for Python updated to version 0.10.0 (Beta)

October 3, 2023

Databricks SDK for Python version 0.10.0 introduces 7 breaking changes, adds 10 dataclasses, adds 6 fields, and adds one service. For details, see the changelog for version 0.10.0.

Databricks SDK for Go updated to version 0.22.0 (Beta)

October 3, 2023

Databricks SDK for Go version 0.22.0 introduces one breaking API change and adds one API. For details, see the changelog for version 0.22.0.

Unity Catalog volumes now in Public Preview for Azure China

October 2, 2023

Unity Catalog volumes are now available as a Public Preview feature in Azure China regions. See Create and work with volumes.