I am a Databricks service partner, and my customers use Azure Databricks and Data Factory.

It's very simple to use Databricks Apache Spark. It's really good for parallel execution to scale up the workload. In this context, the usage is more about virtual machines.

Using meta-stores like Hive was optional, and the solution is good for data science use cases. With the Authenticator Log, Databricks is good for data transformation and BI usage. We have a platform.

I would like more integration with SQL for using data in different workspaces. We use the user interface for some functionalities, while for others, we have to use SQL to create data sets and grant permissions. For example, when creating a cluster, we have to create it with some API or user interface. Creating a cluster with some properties using SQL grants the possibility of using SQL syntax. Integration with SQL will make Databricks easier to use by people who have experience with databases like Lakehouse, and they would be able to use the data lake and BI. More integration will help have one point of view for everyone using SQL syntax.

Integration with Kubernetes could also be good for minimizing the price because you can use Kubernetes instead of virtual machines. But that won't be easy.

I have worked with the solution for four or five years, with some experience since 2016.

The solution is stable. The only problem with stability would be that people are not using it efficiently.

The solution is good for scalability.

When we have administration experience, the solution is not difficult to deploy. Technically, however, it's difficult because governance is more complex. For example, I have two warehouses on Databricks, which are clusters in this workspace, and we have to switch from workspace to workspace to have all this information. There is a system table that has all this, but I don't know if everyone can use these tables.

Databricks are not costly when compared with other solutions' prices.

Databricks's functionalities are as good as solutions like Snowflake, BigQuery, and Redshift.

People sometimes do not use the solution efficiently. They misunderstand databases, the usage of tables, and the performance. Many data engineers are very junior and don't have skills in that. Stability is more a customer problem than a problem with the product itself. One possible problem with the product is that there's no method to pause the usage of something. For example, we have to use the meta server or the data catalog in Synapse. But in Databricks, we have a choice to use a catalog or not, or Hive, which is always integrated, but we have to choose whether to use it or not. Many customers directly use the passes on Databricks, which causes performance and governance problems.

I can offer a lot of advice on Databricks, and one is to use meta stores like Unity Catalog or Hive Metastore. For incoming use cases, it's better to use Unity Catalog.

I rate Databricks a nine out of ten.

I worked with Databricks pretty recently. The particular design processes involved in Databricks were also a part of that specific design/architectural process.

We have used the solution for the overall data foundation ecosystem for processing and storage on a Delta format. We have also seen use cases where we were trying to establish advanced analytics models and data sharing where we leverage the Delta Sharing capabilities from Databricks.

A very valuable feature is the data processing, and the solution is specifically good at using the Spark ecosystem.

There are some aspects of Databricks, like generative AI, where they are positioning things like DALL-E. They're a little bit late to the game, but I think there are some things that they are working on. Generative AI is catching up in areas like data governance and enterprise flavor. Hence, these are places where Databricks has to be faster, and even though they are fast, I'm not sure how they'll catch up and get adopted because there are strong players in the market.

Databricks is coming up with a few good things in terms of integration. But I have to put one point forward that covers multiple aspects, which is the ease of use for the end user while operating this particular tool. For example, a tool like ADS gives you a GUI-based development, which is good for the end user who does development or maintenance. Looking at the complexities of data integration, a GUI might not be easy, but Databricks should embrace something on the graphical user development front because it is currently notebook-driven. Also, in terms of accessing the data for the end user, Databricks has an SQL interface, similar to earlier tools like SQL Management Studio. Since people are mostly comfortable with SSMS already or not, Databricks can build integration to known tools for data access, and that also helps, apart from what they're doing. I would like to see improvements with respect to user enablement, which is a good part of enterprise strategy. I would like to see their integration with a broader ecosystem of products. If you have to do data governance in tools like Microsoft Purview, it's manual and difficult. Now, I'm unsure if that momentum must be from Databricks or Microsoft. But it would be good if Databricks had some open interfaces to share metadata, which could be viewed in tools enabling data governance like Collibra, Purview, or Informatica. The improvement has to do with user and metadata integration for tools.

I've worked with Databricks for over five or six years, but it's been on and off.

The solution is scalable. In this particular ecosystem, there is no one else who can catch up with Databricks for now.

Databricks' customer support is very good. They have a lot of ways in which they interact with vendors and service partners across the globe. They have periodic touch-up sessions with vendors, where their engineers answer your questions.

The implementation is not challenging because the solution integrates well with the platforms on which they are established, whether it's Azure, AWS, or GCP. The solution is not difficult to set up, but you'd probably need a technical user to operate it.

It's the same story with maintenance, where you'd need a technically proficient person with programming knowledge to maintain it.

Databricks integrates many enterprise processes because data processing and AIML are a small part of a larger ecosystem. Databricks has been a part of other platforms, and they are trying to establish their platform, which is a good direction.

Most of the capabilities of the underlying platform can be leveraged there. But the setup isn't difficult if the database lacks some capability, you can't find it in the database, or you're not comfortable with a certain feature in the database. It integrates well with the underlying platform. For example, with scheduling, let's say you are uncomfortable with workflow management. You can utilize integrations with EDA for any other tool and probably perform scheduling. Even if what you're trying to do is not easy, it is enabled with integration. Either they build a required feature in their tool later on, like a GUI, or you perform integrations to make the features possible.

We did evaluate licensing costs, but it had more to do with the Azure ecosystem pricing since whatever we are doing has more to do with Azure Databricks. Many optimizations are recommended, but we haven't exercised those for now. But considering that the processing is a bit more efficient, the overall price won't be much different from what it could be for any other similar component or technology. We haven't had specific discussions with Databricks' folks on pricing.

My advice to users who would like to start working with Databricks is that it is a good solution to work with for data integration and machine learning. Databricks is maturing for other use cases, so there are two points to be considered. One is that you need to evaluate how they will mature, which will be on a case-to-case basis. Second, how will it align with the overall platform story? There will be many overlapping aspects over there as Databricks expands its capabilities. In that case, it must be considered that if those capabilities overlap, how will the underlying platform vendors handle it? How would that interplay happen if many of Databricks' new capabilities align with Microsoft Fabric? That has to be very carefully considered. Otherwise, if you utilize those new capabilities, there might be a discontinuity where you cannot use Databricks because the platform does not support that.

If I specifically talk about Spark-based processing transformations, the data integration story, and advanced stability, I would rate Databricks around eight out of ten. However, with respect to new capabilities like cataloging, data governance, and security integration, I rate Databricks around five because it has to establish these features. And since Databricks integrates with platforms, we must see the interplay with the platforms' capabilities.

I overall rate Databricks a seven out of ten.

It's mainly used for data science, data analytics, visualization, and industrial analytics.

Specifically for data science and data analytics purposes, it can handle large amounts of data in less time. I can compare it with Teradata. If a job takes five hours with Teradata databases, Databricks can complete it in around three to three and a half hours.

So that's why it's quite convenient to use for data science, for training machine learning models. By using more computing power, you can make it even faster.

There is room for improvement in visualization.

I used it for two years. I worked with the latest update. 

I would rate the stability a nine out of ten. I didn't face performance drops.

I would rate the scalability an eight out of ten.

Databrick's support is great. If we need any support, they are very quick with it. And they genuinely want you to use Databricks. So, whatever we ask them, they come up with multiple solutions to problem statements. That's really good.

Overall, the customer service and support are very good.

Positive

I personally prefer using Databricks. However, we also considered using Snowflake, but the pricing was different. It's  price per query.

So, as per your storage, a data scientist or a data analytics team needs to query again and again, which does not suit a data-heavy organization.

It's a good return on investment for Databricks from a delivery perspective. Delivered multiple dashboards. So, it's quite a good return on investment. And being a small organization, everyone can use Databricks, and cost-wise, it's also good for small organizations.

If the company is a startup, Databricks might be suitable. If a big company needs a lot of storage, Teradata might be best for them. It depends on the situation.

Overall, I would rate the solution a eight out of ten. I would definitely recommend this solution for small organizations.