Databricks

Last updated on Nov 28, 2023

Databricks is an open-source storage layer that allows you to operate a data lakehouse architecture. This architecture provides data warehousing performance at data lake costs. Databricks runs on top of your existing data lake and is fully compatible with Apache Spark APIs. Apache Spark is an open-source data analytics engine that can perform analytics and data processing on very large data sets. Read A Gentle Introduction to Apache Spark on Databricks.

Hevo can load data from any of your Sources into a Databricks data warehouse. You can set up the Databricks Destination on the fly, while creating the Pipeline, or independently from the Navigation bar. The ingested data is first staged in Hevo’s S3 bucket before it is batched and loaded to the Databricks Destination. Additionally, Hevo supports Databricks on the AWS, Azure, and GCP platforms.

Hevo supports Databricks on the AWS, Azure, and GCP platforms. You can connect your Databricks warehouse hosted on any of these platforms to Hevo using one of the following methods:

Using the Databricks Partner Connect (Recommended Method)
Using the Databricks credentials

Getting Started

Setup

Prerequisites

An active AWS account is available.
A Databricks workspace is created.
The workspace allows connections from the Hevo IP addresses of your region only if the IP access lists feature is enabled.

Note: You must have Admin access to create an IP access list.
The URL of your Databricks workspace is available. It is in the format https://<deployment name>.cloud.databricks.com. For example, if the deployment name is dbc-westeros, the workspace URL is https://dbc-westeros.cloud.databricks.com.
The following requirements are met, if you want to connect to the workspace using your Databricks credentials:
- The Databricks cluster or SQL warehouse is created.
- The database hostname, port number, and HTTP Path are available.
- The Personal Access Token (PAT) is available.
You are assigned the Team Collaborator or any administrator role except the Billing Administrator role in Hevo, to create the Destination.

Connect Databricks as a Destination using either of the following methods:

Connect Using the Databricks Partner Connect (Recommended Method)

Perform the following steps to configure Databricks as the Destination using the Databricks Partner Connect:

Note: You need to allow connections from the Hevo IP addresses of your region to your workspace if you have enabled the IP access lists feature for it.

Log in to your Databricks account.
In the left navigation pane, click Partner Connect.
In the Partner Connect page, under Data Ingestion, click HEVO.
In the Connect to partner pop-up window, select the options as per your requirements, and click Next.
Specify your Email, and click Connect to Hevo Data.
Sign up for Hevo or log in to your Hevo account. Post-login, you are redirected to the Configure your Databricks Destination page.
In the Configure your Databricks Destination page, specify the following:
- Destination Name: A unique name for the Destination, not exceeding 255 characters.
- Schema Name: The name of the Destination database schema. Default value: default.
- Advanced Settings:
  - Populate Loaded Timestamp: If enabled, Hevo appends the ___hevo_loaded_at_ column to the Destination table to indicate the time when the Event was loaded.
  - Sanitize Table/Column Names: If enabled, Hevo sanitizes the column names to remove all non-alphanumeric characters and spaces in the table and column names and replaces them with an underscore (_). Read Name Sanitization.
  - Create Delta Tables in External Location (Optional) (Non-editable): If enabled, Hevo creates the external Delta tables in the /{schema}/{table} path, which is the default Databricks File System location registered with the cluster.
    
    Note: This option is disabled as Databricks automatically configures this option when connecting using the Databricks Partner Connect.
  - Vacuum Delta Tables: If enabled, Hevo runs the Vacuum operation every weekend to delete the uncommitted files and clean up your Delta tables. Read VACUUM | Databricks on AWS. Databricks charges additional costs for these queries.
  - Optimize Delta Tables: If enabled, Hevo runs the Optimize queries every weekend to optimize the layout of the data and improve the query speed. Read OPTIMIZE (Delta Lake on Databricks). Databricks charges additional costs for these queries.
Click TEST CONNECTION. This button is enabled once all the mandatory fields are specified.
Click SAVE & CONTINUE. This button is enabled once all the mandatory fields are specified.

Connect Using the Databricks Credentials

Refer to the steps in this section to create a Databricks workspace, connect to a warehouse, and obtain the Databricks credentials.

(Optional) Create a Databricks workspace

A workspace refers to your Databricks deployment in the cloud service account. Within the workspace, you can create clusters and SQL warehouses and generate the credentials for configuring Databricks as a Destination in Hevo.

To create a workspace:

Log in to your Databricks account.
Create a workspace.

You are automatically assigned the Admin access to the workspace that you create.

(Optional) Add Members to the Workspace

Once you have created the workspace, add your team members who can access the workspace and create and manage clusters in it.

Log in to your Databricks account with Admin access.
Follow these steps to add users to the workspace.
Follow these steps to assign the required privileges to the user(s) for creating clusters.

Create a Databricks Cluster or Warehouse

You must create a cluster or SQL warehouse to allow Hevo to connect to your Databricks workspace and load data. To do so, perform the steps in one of the following:

Create a Databricks cluster

A cluster is a computing resource that can be created within a Databricks workspace and be used for loading the objects to this workspace. You can use an existing Databricks cluster or create a new one for loading data.

Note: Apache Spark jobs are available only for clusters.

To create a Databricks cluster:

Log in to your Databricks workspace. URL: [https://<workspace-name><env>.databricks.com/]
In the left navigation pane, click New, and then click Cluster.
Specify a Cluster name and select the required configuration, such as the Databricks runtime version and Node type.
Expand the Advanced options section and click the Spark tab.

In the Spark Config box, paste the following code:

spark.databricks.delta.alterTable.rename.enabledOnAWS true
spark.hadoop.fs.s3a.impl shaded.databricks.org.apache.hadoop.fs.s3a.S3AFileSystem
spark.hadoop.fs.s3n.impl shaded.databricks.org.apache.hadoop.fs.s3a.S3AFileSystem
spark.hadoop.fs.s3n.impl.disable.cache true
spark.hadoop.fs.s3.impl.disable.cache true
spark.hadoop.fs.s3a.impl.disable.cache true
spark.hadoop.fs.s3.impl shaded.databricks.org.apache.hadoop.fs.s3a.S3AFileSystem

The above code snippet specifies the configurations required by Hevo to read the data from your AWS S3 account where the data is staged.

Click Create compute to create your cluster.

Create a Databricks SQL warehouse

An SQL warehouse is a computing resource that allows you to run only SQL commands on the data objects.

To create a Databricks SQL warehouse:

Log in to your Databricks account.
In the left navigation pane, click New, and then click SQL Warehouse.
In the New SQL Warehouse window, do the following:
- Specify a Name for the warehouse.
- Select your Cluster Size.
- Configure other warehouse options, as required.
- Click Create.

Obtain Databricks Credentials

Once you have created the cluster or warehouse for data loading, you must obtain its details for configuring Databricks in Hevo. Depending on the resource (cluster or warehouse) you created in Step 3 above, perform the steps in one of the following:

Obtain cluster details

In the left navigation pane of the databricks console, click Compute.
Click the cluster that you created above.
In the Configuration tab, scroll down to the Advanced Options section and click JDBC/ODBC.
Copy the Server Hostname, Port, and HTTP Path, and save them securely like any other password. You can use these credentials while configuring your Databricks Destination.

Obtain SQL warehouse details

In the left navigation pane of the databricks console, click Compute.
In the Compute page, click SQL warehouses.
Click the SQL warehouse that you created above.
In the <SQL_Warehouse_Name> page, click Connection details.
Click the Copy icon corresponding to the Server hostname, Port, and HTTP path fields, to copy them and save them securely like any other password. You can use these credentials while configuring your Databricks Destination.

Create a Personal Access Token (PAT)

Hevo requires a Databricks Personal Access Token (PAT) to authenticate and connect to your Databricks instance and use the Databricks REST APIs.

To generate the PAT:

Click on the top right of your Databricks console, and in the drop-down, click User Settings.
In the left navigation pane, under Settings, click Developer.
In the Developer page, click Manage corresponding to the Access tokens.
In the Access tokens page, click Generate new token.
Optionally, in the Generate new token dialog box, provide a description in the Comment field and specify the token Lifetime (expiration period).
Click Generate.
Copy the generated token and save it securely like any other password. Use this token to connect Databricks as a Destination in Hevo.

Note: PATs are similar to passwords; store these securely.

(Optional) Allow connections from Hevo IP addresses to the Databricks workspace

Perform the steps in this section if the IP access lists feature is enabled for your workspace.

Note: You must have the Admin access role in your Databricks workspace to perform these steps.

To add an IP access list:

Obtain the personal access token for your workspace. Use this as the Bearer Token in your API call.
Call the add an IP access list API with the POST method from any API client, such as Postman or a Terminal window. Specify the following in the JSON request body:
- label: A string value to identify the access list. For example, Hevo if you create the list to add Hevo IP addresses.
- list_type: A string value to identify the type of list created. This parameter can take one of these values:
  - ALLOW: Add the specified IP addresses to the access list.
  - BLOCK: Remove the specified IP addresses from the access list or block connections from them.
- ip_addresses: A JSON array of IP addresses and CIDR ranges, given as string values. Use the Hevo IP addresses of your region and their CIDR ranges in this parameter.

The base path for the API endpoint is https://<deployment name>.cloud.databricks.com/api/2.0. For example, if the deployment name is dbc-westeros, the base path for the API endpoint is https://dbc-westeros.cloud.databricks.com/api/2.0, and the URL to call the add an IP access list API is https://dbc-westeros.cloud.databricks.com/api/2.0/ip-access-lists.

The following example adds an access list to allow Hevo IP addresses for the Asia region:

curl -X POST -n \
    -H "Authorization: Bearer <your personal access token>"
    -H "Content-Type: application/json"
    -H "Accept: application/json"
        https://<deployment-name>.cloud.databricks.com/api/2.0/ip-access-lists
        -d '{
          "label": "HEVO",
          "list_type": "ALLOW",
          "ip_addresses": [
              "13.228.214.171/32", 
              "52.77.50.136/32" 
            ]
          }'

Note: Replace the placeholder values in the commands above with your own. For example, <deployment-name> with dbc-westeros.

Configure Databricks as a Destination

Perform the following steps to configure Databricks as a Destination in Hevo:

Click DESTINATIONS in the Navigation Bar.
Click + CREATE in the Destinations List View.
On the Add Destination page, select Databricks.
In the Configure your Databricks Destination page, specify the following:
- Destination Name: A unique name for the Destination, not exceeding 255 characters.
- Server Hostname: The server hostname that you obtained from your Databricks account.
- Database Port: The port that you obtained from your Databricks account. Default value: 443.
- HTTP Path: The HTTP path that you obtained from your Databricks account.
- Personal Access Token (PAT): The PAT that you created from your databricks account.
- Schema Name (Optional): The name of the Destination database schema. Default value: default.
- Advanced Settings:
  - Populate Loaded Timestamp: If enabled, Hevo appends the ___hevo_loaded_at_ column to the Destination table to indicate the time when the Event was loaded.
  - Sanitize Table/Column Names: If enabled, Hevo sanitizes the column names to remove all non-alphanumeric characters and spaces in the table and column names and replaces them with an underscore (_). Read Name Sanitization.
  - Create Delta Tables in External Location (Optional): If enabled, you can create tables in a different location than the Databricks file system location registered with the cluster. Read Identifying the External Location for Delta Tables.
    
    If disabled, the default Databricks File System location registered with the cluster is used. Hevo creates the external Delta tables in the /{schema}/{table} path.
  - Vacuum Delta Tables: If enabled, Hevo runs the Vacuum operation every weekend to delete the uncommitted files and clean up your Delta tables. Read VACUUM | Databricks on AWS.
    
    Note: Databricks charges additional costs for these queries.
  - Optimize Delta Tables: If enabled, Hevo runs the Optimize queries every weekend to optimize the layout of the data and improve the query speed. Read OPTIMIZE (Delta Lake on Databricks).
    
    Note: Databricks charges additional costs for these queries.
Click TEST CONNECTION. This button is enabled once all the mandatory fields are specified.
Click SAVE & CONTINUE. This button is enabled once all the mandatory fields are specified.

Identifying the External Location for Delta Tables

If the Create Delta tables in an external location option is enabled, Hevo creates the Delta tables in the {external-location}/{schema}/{table} path specified by you.

To locate the path of the external location, do one of the following

If you have DBFS access in Databricks:
1. In the databricks console, click Data in the left navigation bar.
2. Click the DBFS tab on the top of the sliding sidebar.
3. Select/view the path where the tables must be created. For example, in the above image, /demo/default is the path, and the external location is derived as /demo/default/{schema}/{table}.
If you do not have DBFS access:
- Run the following command in your Databricks instance or the Destination workbench in Hevo:
```
   DESCRIBE TABLE EXTENDED <table-name>;
```
Read Describe Table.

Additional Information

Read the detailed Hevo documentation for the following related topics:

Limitations

Destination Considerations

None.

Limitations

Hevo currently does not support Databricks as a Destination in the US-GCP region.

Revision History

Refer to the following table for the list of key updates made to this page:

Date	Release	Description of Change
Nov-28-2023	NA	- Renamed section Connect your Databricks Warehouse to Create a Databricks Cluster or Warehouse. - Updated section, Obtain Databricks Credentials to add subsections, Obtain cluster details and Obtain SQL warehouse details.
Aug-10-2023	NA	- Added a prerequisite about adding Hevo IP addresses to an access list. - Added the subsection Allow connections from Hevo IP addresses to the Databricks workspace for the steps to create an IP access list.
Apr-25-2023	2.12	Updated section, Connect Using the Databricks Partner Connect (Recommended Method) to add information that you must specify all fields to create a Pipeline.
Nov-23-2022	2.02	- Added section, Connect Using the Databricks Partner Connect to mention about Databricks Partner Connect integration. - Updated screenshots in the page to reflect the latest Databricks UI.
Oct-17-2022	NA	Updated section, Limitations to add limitation regarding Hevo not supporting Databricks on Google Cloud.
Jan-03-2022	1.79	New document.