Storage credentials

Applies to: check marked yes Databricks SQL check marked yes Databricks Runtime check marked yes Unity Catalog only

Unity Catalog and the built-in Azure Databricks Hive metastore use default locations for managed tables. Unity Catalog introduces several new securable objects to grant privileges to data in cloud object storage.

Storage credential

A storage credential is a securable object representing an Azure managed identity or Microsoft Entra ID service principal.

Once a storage credential is created access to it can be granted to principals (users and groups).

Storage credentials are primarily used to create external locations, which scope access to a specific storage path.

Storage credential names are unqualified and must be unique within the metastore.

Graphical Representation of relationships

The following diagram describes the relationship between:

  • storage credentials
  • external locations
  • external tables
  • storage paths
  • IAM entities
  • Azure service accounts

External location ER diagram

Examples

Using CLI create a storage credential my_azure_storage_cred for a Microsoft Entra ID service principal.

databricks storage-credentials create --json '{"name": "my_azure_storage_cred", "azure_service_principal": {"directory_id": "12345678-9abc-def0-1234-56789abcdef0", "application_id": "23456789-9abc-def0-1234-56789abcdef0", "client_secret": "Cli3nt5ecr3t"}}'

The rest of the commands can be run within SQL.

-- Grant access to the storage credential
> GRANT READ FILES ON STORAGE CREDENTIAL my_azure_storage_cred TO ceo;

-- ceo can directly read from any storage path using myazure_storage_cred
> SELECT count(1) FROM `delta`.`abfss://container@storageaccount.dfs.core.windows.net/depts/finance/forecast/somefile` WITH (CREDENTIAL my_azure_storage_cred);
  100
> SELECT count(1) FROM `delta`.`abfss://container@storageaccount.dfs.core.windows.net/depts/hr/employees` WITH (CREDENTIAL my_azure_storage_cred);
  2017

-- Create an external location on specific path to which `my_azure_storage_cred` has access
> CREATE EXTERNAL LOCATION finance_loc URL 'abfss://container@storageaccount.dfs.core.windows.net/depts/finance'
    WITH (CREDENTIAL my_azure_storage_cred)
    COMMENT 'finance';