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March 2025

These features and Databricks platform improvements were released in March 2025.

note

Releases are staged. Your Databricks account might not be updated until a week or more after the initial release date.

Hive metastore federation is generally available​

March 14, 2025

Hive metastore federation enables you to use Unity Catalog to access and govern data that is registered in a Hive metastore. This includes both externally-managed Hive metastores and legacy internal Databricks Hive Hive metastores.

GA adds support for:

  • Hive metastore 3.1 (in addition to versions 0.13 and 2.3, which were supported in the Public Preview).
  • Postgres and SQL Server (in addition to MySQL, which was supported in the Public Preview).
  • Applying row filters and column-level masks to Hive tables that are accessed using Hive metastore federation.

In addition, this release includes preview support for:

  • Reading Delta shallow clones that are defined in the Hive metastore metastore (Public Preview).
  • Reading DBFS-mount-backed tables across workspaces (Private Preview: contact your Databricks account representative to sign up).

See Hive metastore federation: enable Unity Catalog to govern tables registered in a Hive metastore.

Compute logs can now be delivered to volumes (Public Preview)​

March 13, 2025

You can now deliver a compute resource's driver, worker, and event logs to a re:[UC] volume. See Compute log delivery.

Bind storage credentials, service credentials, and external locations to specific workspaces (GA)​

March 12, 2025

The ability to bind storage credentials, service credentials, and external locations to specific workspaces is now generally available. Workspace binding prevents access to those objects from other workspaces. This feature is especially helpful if you use workspaces to isolate user data access, for example, if you have separate production and development workspaces or a dedicated workspace for handling sensitive data.

For more information, see (Optional) Assign an external location to specific workspaces, (Optional) Assign a storage credential to specific workspaces and (Optional) Assign a service credential to specific workspaces.

Databricks Runtime 16.3 (Beta)​

March 12, 2025

Databricks Runtime 16.3 and Databricks Runtime 16.3 ML are now available as Beta releases.

See Databricks Runtime 16.3 (Beta) and Databricks Runtime 16.3 for Machine Learning (Beta).

Databricks JDBC Driver (OSS) is GA​

March 11, 2025

The Databricks JDBC Driver (OSS) is now generally available (GA) and will soon be open source. Download the Databricks JDBC Driver (OSS) from the Maven Repository.

Monitor and revoke personal access tokens in your account (Public Preview)​

March 11, 2025

Token report is now in Public Preview. Token report enables account admins to monitor and revoke personal access tokens (PATs) in the account console. Databricks recommends you use OAuth access tokens instead of PATs for greater security and convenience. See Monitor and revoke personal access tokens in the account.

Genie Conversation API is now in Public Preview​

March 11, 2025

The Genie Conversations API is now in Public Preview. You can now ask questions, retrieve generated SQL and query results, or get the details associated with a Genie space using the Databricks REST API. To learn how to use the API, see the Genie REST API reference.

Perform batch inference using AI Functions (Public Preview)​

March 10, 2025

Mosaic AI now supports batch inference using AI Functions. This functionality is in Public Preview. See the following guides for more details:

ServiceNow connector (Public Preview)​

March 10, 2025

You can now ingest from ServiceNow using Databricks Lakeflow Connect. See ServiceNow connector overview. To participate in the preview, contact your Databricks account team.

External models now supports OpenAI-compatible LLMs​

March 10, 2025

External models in Mosaic AI Model Serving now supports a custom provider option. You can use this option to specify alternate providers that are not explicitly listed as a model provider or models behind custom proxies that are OpenAI API compatible. See Model providers.

Delta Sharing support for query optimizer statistics is GA​

March 4, 2025

Data recipients accessing Delta tables shared via Delta Sharing can now benefit from optimizer statistics to improve query performance. The data provider must either enable predictive optimization or manually run the ANALYZE command on the shared Delta table.

Performance improvements include the following:

  • Same-region Databricks-to-Databricks queries are 11% faster.

  • Cross-region Databricks-to-Databricks queries are 28% faster.

See Predictive optimization for Unity Catalog managed tables and ANALYZE TABLE.

AI Gateway now supports fallbacks for external models​

March 4, 2025

You can now enable fallbacks on your model serving endpoints using AI Gateway. If your request to an external model fails, you can specify that the request be redirected to other external models served on that endpoint. See Configure AI Gateway using the UI.

Control the location of Databricks Assistant with the new docking feature​

March 4, 2025

You now have more control over the placement of the Databricks Assistant pane and the ability to minimize it with the new docking feature.

See Control the location of Databricks Assistant.

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