Build Data Pipelines with Lakeflow Spark Declarative Pipelines

This course introduces users to the essential concepts and skills needed to build data pipelines using Lakeflow Spark Declarative Pipelines (SDP) in Databricks for incremental batch or streaming ingestion and processing through multiple streaming tables and materialized views. Designed for data engineers new to Spark Declarative Pipelines, the course provides a comprehensive overview of core components such as incremental data processing, streaming tables, materialized views, and temporary views, highlighting their specific purposes and differences.

Topics covered include:

- Developing and debugging ETL pipelines with the multi-file editor in Spark Declarative Pipelines using SQL (with Python code examples provided)

- How Spark Declarative Pipelines track data dependencies in a pipeline through the pipeline graph

- Configuring pipeline compute resources, data assets, trigger modes, and other advanced options

Next, the course introduces data quality expectations in Spark Declarative Pipelines, guiding users through the process of integrating expectations into pipelines to validate and enforce data integrity. Learners will then explore how to put a pipeline into production, including scheduling options, and enabling pipeline event logging to monitor pipeline performance and health.

Finally, the course covers how to implement Change Data Capture (CDC) using the AUTO CDC INTO syntax within Spark Declarative Pipelines to manage slowly changing dimensions (SCD Type 1 and Type 2), preparing users to integrate CDC into their own pipelines.

Note: Databricks Academy is transitioning from video lectures to a more streamlined PDF format with slides and notes for all self-paced courses. Please note that demo videos will still be available in their original format. We would love to hear your thoughts on this change, so please share your feedback through the course survey at the end. Thank you for being a part of our learning community!

Skill Level

Associate

Duration

Prerequisites

⇾ Basic understanding of the Databricks Data Intelligence platform, including Databricks Workspaces, Apache Spark, Delta Lake, the Medallion Architecture and Unity Catalog.

⇾ Experience ingesting raw data into Delta tables, including using the read_files SQL function to load formats like CSV, JSON, TXT, and Parquet.

⇾ Proficiency in transforming data using SQL, including writing intermediate-level queries and a basic understanding of SQL joins.

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Upcoming Public Classes

Get Started with Lakebase

This get started course introduces Databricks Lakebase, a fully managed PostgreSQL service built into the Databricks Data Intelligence Platform that brings operational (OLTP) and analytical (OLAP) workloads closer together.

The course begins with a conceptual lecture that compares OLTP and OLAP systems, explaining their different performance characteristics, storage models, and typical use cases. You will also explore the challenges organizations face when maintaining separate transactional databases and analytical platforms, including data movement, latency, and architectural complexity.

You will then learn how Databricks Lakebase helps address these challenges by providing a PostgreSQL-compatible operational database that integrates directly with the Databricks Lakehouse, enabling operational applications and analytics to work together within a unified platform.

Through hands-on labs, you will:

Create and explore a Lakebase project using autoscaling compute

• Navigate the Lakebase UI, including branching, monitoring, and configuration settings

• Create and query tables using the Lakebase SQL Editor

• Query Lakebase data from Databricks using Lakehouse Federation and foreign catalogs

• Perform Reverse ETL by synchronizing Delta tables to Lakebase

• Connect to Lakebase from Python and perform basic CRUD operations

This is a Get Started course, so the focus is on understanding the core concepts and basic workflows for working with Lakebase. Building full production applications on top of Lakebase is outside the scope of this course.

Note: For SCORM lecture files, please ensure that you close the SCORM window after completing the content. Do not click the ‘Next Lesson’ button, as doing so may prevent the SCORM module from being marked as complete.

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Lab

Onboarding

Agent Evaluation on Databricks

This course teaches students how to systematically evaluate AI agents using MLflow's evaluation framework, addressing the unique challenges of non-deterministic AI systems that traditional software testing cannot handle. Students learn to implement various evaluation approaches including built-in judges for common criteria like correctness and safety, guideline judges for business-specific requirements, and custom judges for specialized needs. The course covers both offline evaluation using curated datasets and online production monitoring, with hands-on experience using MLflow's tracing capabilities to understand agent execution patterns and collect human feedback from different stakeholder types. Through practical demonstrations and labs, students develop skills in creating evaluation workflows that drive continuous quality improvements throughout the AI agent development lifecycle.

Data Interoperability with Unity Catalog

This course explores how to achieve seamless data interoperability between systems using Databricks Unity Catalog as a unified governance layer, using both Delta and Iceberg open table formats. Participants will learn to implement, manage and optimize a data environment where tables can be accessed by both Delta and Iceberg clients, enabling cross platform analytics and eliminating data silos.

Paid & Subscription

Lab

Associate