Unity catalog

Question

Hi, Is it possible to use unity catalog in free trial version.. And what is the main difference between unity catalog metadata and normal one... Reframe the last question

Answer 1

Hi @Vineet S
Thank you for your question and using Microsoft Q&A platform.
Yes, you can use Unity Catalog in Databricks during the free trial version. This allows you to explore its features and understand how it can benefit your data governance and management needs. Trial version allows you to create premium workspace which is required for unity catalog.

1. Built-in Auditing and Lineage:
   • Unity Catalog: Automatically captures user-level audit logs and lineage data, tracking how data assets are created and used. This is crucial for compliance and understanding data flow.
   • Normal Metadata: May require additional tools or manual processes to achieve similar auditing and lineage tracking.
2. Centralized Governance:
   • Unity Catalog: Provides centralized access control, auditing, lineage, and data discovery capabilities across Databricks workspaces. This means you can manage permissions and policies from a single place, ensuring consistent governance.
   • Normal Metadata: Typically managed separately for each workspace, leading to potential inconsistencies and more complex management.
3. Data Discovery:
   • Unity Catalog: Allows tagging and documentation of data assets, providing a search interface to help data consumers find data easily.
   • Normal Metadata: Typically lacks advanced data discovery features, making it harder for users to find and understand data assets.
4. Security Model:
   • Unity Catalog: Based on standard ANSI SQL, allowing administrators to grant permissions using familiar syntax. It also supports fine-grained access control at the row and column level.
   • Normal Metadata: May not support such detailed access control and might require custom implementations for advanced security needs.

For more information you can refer to below links:
https://docs.databricks.com/en/data-governance/unity-catalog/index.html#how-do-i-set-up-unity-catalog-for-my-organization
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/databricks/data-governance/unity-catalog/get-started
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/databricks/catalogs/
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/databricks/getting-started/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZpwpMeMy1Ww

Hope this helps. Do let us know if you any further queries.

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