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Create and manage external model providers (model provider services)

Register an external model provider as a model provider service, grant access to it, configure Unity Gateway features, and delete it.

Requirements​

  • CREATE SERVICE on the schema where you create the model provider service, plus USE CATALOG and USE SCHEMA on its catalog and schema.
  • The credentials for the external provider you want to register (for example, an OpenAI API key or an AWS access key pair).
  • To authenticate Google Gemini Enterprise with a service credential instead of an API key, you need an existing service credential and ACCESS on it. See Authenticate Google Gemini Enterprise with a service credential.

Create a model provider service​

Model provider services and model services share a single name namespace within a Unity Catalog schema. You can't use a name for a model provider service if a model service in the schema already uses it, and vice versa.

You can create a model provider service in the Unity Gateway UI or in Catalog Explorer, or programmatically with the REST API, the Databricks SDKs, the Databricks CLI, or Terraform.

  1. Do one of the following:
    • In the workspace sidebar, click AI Gateway, then open the Providers tab and click Provider.
    • In Catalog Explorer, go to the schema where you want to create the model provider service, click Create > Service, then select Model provider service in the Create a service dialog.
  2. Enter a name for the model provider service, and select the catalog and schema to create it in. If you start from Catalog Explorer, Catalog Explorer prefills the catalog and schema.
  3. Select the provider type, and enter the provider's connection details and credentials.
  4. Click Create. Databricks encrypts and stores the credentials. The UI does not display them after this point.

For the full list of providers and their authentication methods, see Govern external model providers (model provider services).

Authenticate Google Gemini Enterprise with a service credential​

You can authenticate a Google Gemini Enterprise provider with a service credential instead of storing an API key. A service credential holds a Google Cloud service account that Unity Catalog governs, so no long-lived API key is copied into the model provider service: Databricks obtains short-lived tokens from that service account to authenticate each request.

Create the model provider service as described in Create a model provider service. Select Google Gemini Enterprise as the provider type and enter its connection details, including the GCP project ID and region. Then set Auth method to Service credential and select the credential instead of entering an API key. A service credential replaces only the secret, so the GCP project ID and region are still required.

Confirm the following requirements:

  • The owner of the model provider service has ACCESS on the service credential. Because Databricks re-checks the owner's access when serving requests, the owner must keep it for as long as the provider is in use. Revoking it stops queries for everyone, even callers who hold EXECUTE on the provider. To grant the owner access to the credential:

    SQL
    GRANT ACCESS ON SERVICE CREDENTIAL <service-credential-name> TO `<model-provider-service-owner>`;

  • The credential's purpose is service, not storage.

  • The credential is available in the workspaces requests come from. Its workspace bindings still apply, so a request from a workspace the credential isn't bound to fails there, even though the model provider service itself is reachable from any workspace that shares the metastore.

  • The service credential's Google Cloud service account is authorized to call the Gemini models you plan to query. To create a service credential, see Create service credentials.

Callers who query the provider need the same grants as for any other provider. They don't need any privilege on the service credential, which is what keeps the credential itself out of their reach.

The model provider service tracks a credential by its internal identifier, so you can rename a credential without query failure.

If you delete a credential, queries fail and there is no warning that a model provider service references it. Confirm that there are no references to this credential before you delete it.

You can't switch an existing model provider service between service credential and API key authentication. Create a new model provider service instead.

Send a custom provider API key in a header​

A custom provider sends its API key as a bearer token by default. When your endpoint expects the key in a specific header instead, use API key header authentication and name the header yourself. Databricks then sends the key on each outbound request as <header name>: <header value>.

Create the model provider service as described in Create a model provider service. Select Custom as the provider type, then set Auth method to API key header and supply the Header name your endpoint expects (such as X-API-Key or Ocp-Apim-Subscription-Key) along with the Header value.

The two methods are mutually exclusive: a custom provider uses either a bearer token or a named header, not both. Header authentication takes exactly one header.

The header name must be a valid HTTP header name: letters, digits, and the characters !#$%&'*+-.^_`|~, up to 255 characters. Any other character is rejected, including spaces, colons, slashes, and line breaks.

Grant access to a model provider service​

By default, only the model provider service owner can query it. To let others query a model provider service, grant them EXECUTE on it, plus USE CATALOG and USE SCHEMA on its catalog and schema. If the model provider service logs to an inference table, grant SELECT on the table to let them read the logged requests and responses.

  1. Open the model provider service in Catalog Explorer, or go to AI Gateway and select the service.
  2. Go to the Permissions tab.
  3. Click Grant.
  4. Select the users, groups, or service principals to give access to.
  5. Select the EXECUTE privilege.
  6. Click Grant.

For more about granting and discovering access, see Discover and govern access to external model providers (model provider services).

Configure features​

Because a model provider service routes through Unity Gateway, apply the same governance and observability features you use for other Unity Gateway traffic:

Update a model provider service​

You must be an owner or have MANAGE. The provider type is immutable.

Edit the model provider service's configuration from the Unity Gateway UI or Catalog Explorer. Changes apply in place.

Delete a model provider service​

You must be an owner or have MANAGE.

Open the model provider service in the Unity Gateway UI or Catalog Explorer and select Delete from the kebab menu.

Next steps​

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