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Serverless Compute

Focus on data workloads, not infrastructure

Fully managed, versionless Spark for all your data and AI workloads
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TOP COMPANIES USE SERVERLESS COMPUTE
BENEFITS

Choose your business goal, not the infra

Run data and AI workloads on compute that automatically scales, upgrades, and optimizes without infrastructure management.

Fully managed

One compute. No CPU-optimized vs memory-optimized vs instance-class decisions, no cluster configuration to manage. Choose Standard or Performance-Optimized mode, and Databricks automatically selects the right instance and compute types (single VM or Spark cluster) for you, so your team can ship data products rather than manage compute.

Performant

Serverless starts in seconds, not minutes, loads environments from cache, and automatically right-sizes to workload demand. Standard mode delivers cost-efficient batch processing, while Performance-Optimized mode typically runs latency-sensitive jobs 2x faster than classic clusters.

Versionless

Databricks continuously upgrades the runtime while staying fully backward-compatible. Regression detection pins workloads to stable versions automatically. With 25+ upgrades per year and 99.998% workload success, teams save up to 20% of engineering time.

FEATURES

Compute that just works

Stop managing infrastructure and start running your data and AI workloads on fully managed, autoscaling, versionless compute.

Serverless upgrades continuously and automatically while staying fully backward-compatible, keeping workloads running without intervention.

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Choose Standard mode for cost-optimized batch workloads or Performance-Optimized mode for latency-sensitive jobs, typically running jobs 2x faster than classic clusters.

serverless compute feature 2

When a task runs out of memory, serverless automatically detects the failure and restarts it on a larger VM, with no job failures or manual intervention required.

serverless compute features 3

Library environments are cached globally, so once a user in your org runs with a specific set of packages, the environment is ready in seconds for everyone else.

serverless compute features 4

Serverless scales compute up or down in seconds, not minutes, automatically right-sizing to workload demand without cluster configuration.

horizontal autoscaling

Serverless automatically retries failed tasks and reroutes around cloud-level failures, keeping pipelines on schedule without on-call intervention.

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More features

GPU support (A10s, H100s)

Serverless GPU compute enables ML training and GenAI workloads without the need for infrastructure management.

More about Serverless GPU compute

Lakeguard

Each user's code runs in a sandboxed container, preventing access to other users' data or network connections, giving every team enterprise-grade isolation without requiring separate clusters.

Learn more about serverless security

Predictive optimization

Databricks automatically optimizes table data layouts in the background for better performance and cost-efficiency, without manual tuning.

More about predictive optimization

Predictive I/O

Serverless analyzes query patterns and automatically prefetches and indexes data in the background, accelerating query performance without any configuration.

More about predictive I/O

SparkML support

Run distributed ML training on serverless compute using SparkML, without managing clusters, environments, or infrastructure.

More about SparkML support

AI infrastructure selection

Databricks automatically selects the optimal instance type for each workload. No CPU-optimized vs memory-optimized vs instance-class decisions, no manual VM selection, no need to decide between single VMs, warehouses, or Spark clusters, no infrastructure tuning.

More about AI infra selection

Workload-level spend visibility

Track compute spend at the workload level through system.billing.usage, giving platform teams full visibility into which jobs, pipelines, and notebooks drive cost.

More on spend visibility

Real-time performance data

Monitor execution in real time with Query History and Query Profile, giving engineers and analysts instant visibility into performance and bottlenecks.

More on real-time performance data
USE CASES

Serverless for every workload

serverless compute use case 1

Query data without managing warehouse compute

Databricks serverless SQL warehouses start in seconds and scale automatically to match demand, so analysts always have compute ready. No sizing decisions, no idle clusters, and no infrastructure overhead. Just fast, reliable queries.

PRICING

Usage-based pricing keeps spending in check

Only pay for the products you use at per second granularity.
RELATED PRODUCTS

Discover more

Learn more about products powered by serverless compute

Lakeflow Jobs

Equip teams to better automate and orchestrate any ETL, analytics, and AI workflow with deep observability, high reliability, and broad task type support.

Databricks SQL

An intelligent, self-optimizing data warehouse built on lakehouse architecture, offering the best price/performance in the market.

Spark Declarative Pipelines

Simplify batch and streaming ETL with automated data quality, change data capture (CDC), data ingestion, transformation, and unified governance.

Notebooks

Boost team productivity with Databricks Collaborative Notebooks, enabling real-time collaboration and streamlined data science workflows.

Databricks Apps

Create applications using popular frameworks, serverless deployment and built-in governance. Deliver impactful solutions to users without complex infrastructure management.

Lakebase

Postgres integrated with the lakehouse, built for modern operational workloads.

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