Manage databases

Preview

This feature is in Public Preview in the following regions: us-east-1, us-west-2, eu-west-1.

Lakebase Autoscaling is the new version of Lakebase with autoscaling compute, scale-to-zero, branching, and instant restore. For feature comparison with Lakebase Provisioned, see choosing between versions.

A database is a container for SQL objects such as schemas, tables, views, functions, and indexes. In Lakebase, a database exists within a branch of a project, with a limit of 500 databases per branch.

Database overview

Each project's default branch is created with a database called databricks_postgres, which is owned by the Postgres role for your Databricks identity (for example, user@databricks.com).

Databases created in the Lakebase App are created in the Postgres public schema default.

View databases

To view databases for a branch, navigate to your branch's Roles & Databases tab in the Lakebase App.

The databases section displays information about all databases in the selected branch:

Detail	Description
Database name	The name of the database
Owner	The Postgres role that owns and has full privileges on the database
Created	When the database was created
Last updated	The last time the database was updated

Create a database

You can create additional Postgres databases on your branch using the Lakebase App or SQL commands.

To create a database using the Lakebase App:

1. Navigate to your branch's Roles & Databases tab in the Lakebase App.
2. Click Add database, enter a database name following Postgres naming conventions, and select the owner role.

important

Some database names are reserved and cannot be used: databricks_postgres (already used as the default database name), postgres, template0, template1.

Manage databases with SQL

Create a database

Create databases using standard Postgres SQL commands:

SQL

CREATE DATABASE my_application_db
    WITH OWNER = my_app_role
    ENCODING = 'UTF8';

note

Databases created using SQL commands will automatically appear in the Lakebase App under your branch's Roles & Databases tab.

List databases

View all databases in your project:

SQL

SELECT datname, datowner, encoding
FROM pg_database
WHERE datistemplate = false;

Switch between databases

Switch to a different database:

• In the Lakebase SQL editor: Select the database from the database dropdown menu

• In the psql SQL client:

  SQL

  \c my_application_db

Monitor database size

Check the logical size of a database:

SQL

SELECT
    datname AS database_name,
    pg_size_pretty(pg_database_size(datname)) AS size
FROM pg_database
WHERE datistemplate = false
ORDER BY pg_database_size(datname) DESC;

Delete a database

important

Deleting a database permanently removes all schemas, tables, and data within that database. This action cannot be undone.

To delete a database using the Lakebase App:

1. Navigate to your branch's Roles & Databases tab in the Lakebase App.
2. Click the menu for the database, select Delete database, and enter the database name to confirm.

To delete using SQL:

SQL

-- Drop the database
DROP DATABASE database_to_delete;