Book Image

Business Intelligence with Databricks SQL

By : Vihag Gupta
Book Image

Business Intelligence with Databricks SQL

By: Vihag Gupta

Overview of this book

In this new era of data platform system design, data lakes and data warehouses are giving way to the lakehouse – a new type of data platform system that aims to unify all data analytics into a single platform. Databricks, with its Databricks SQL product suite, is the hottest lakehouse platform out there, harnessing the power of Apache Spark™, Delta Lake, and other innovations to enable data warehousing capabilities on the lakehouse with data lake economics. This book is a comprehensive hands-on guide that helps you explore all the advanced features, use cases, and technology components of Databricks SQL. You’ll start with the lakehouse architecture fundamentals and understand how Databricks SQL fits into it. The book then shows you how to use the platform, from exploring data, executing queries, building reports, and using dashboards through to learning the administrative aspects of the lakehouse – data security, governance, and management of the computational power of the lakehouse. You’ll also delve into the core technology enablers of Databricks SQL – Delta Lake and Photon. Finally, you’ll get hands-on with advanced SQL commands for ingesting data and maintaining the lakehouse. By the end of this book, you’ll have mastered Databricks SQL and be able to deploy and deliver fast, scalable business intelligence on the lakehouse.
Table of Contents (21 chapters)
1
Part 1: Databricks SQL on the Lakehouse
9
Part 2: Internals of Databricks SQL
13
Part 3: Databricks SQL Commands
16
Part 4: TPC-DS, Experiments, and Frequently Asked Questions

Connecting from non-validated BI tools

There are plenty of popular SQL database tools that are not (yet) validated – that is, they do not have a named Databricks connector. In this section, we will learn how to connect these non-validated BI tools to Databricks SQL using Databricks JDBC and ODBC drivers.

Non-validated BI tools do not come with bundled driver connectors and may or may not support all three authentication mechanisms supported by validated BI tools. However, Databricks SQL Warehouses support JDBC and ODBC connections. We can leverage these connections to connect from non-validated tools. Full documentation on JDBC and ODBC connections is available at https://docs.databricks.com/integrations/bi/jdbc-odbc-bi.html. They are straightforward and do not warrant detailed unpacking.

There are three steps:

  1. Download the JDBC or ODBC driver as applicable.
  2. Install the driver in the BI/SQL database tool.
  3. Configure the SQL Warehouse connection.
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