In today’s rapidly evolving digital landscape, data is more than just a byproduct of business activities – it is the cornerstone of decision-making, innovation, and competitive advantage. However, with the growth of data, organisations face significant challenges when it comes to sharing and collaborating on that data across multiple platforms, cloud environments, and regions. That’s where Databricks Delta Sharing comes in – offering a groundbreaking open-source solution designed to facilitate secure, seamless, and scalable data sharing across organisations, platforms, and stakeholders.
In this blog, we will explore the benefits of Delta Sharing, how it works, key use cases, and the impact it can have on businesses, helping them break down data silos, enhance collaboration, and foster innovation.
Delta Sharing Vs Other Competitors
| Feature | Databricks Delta Sharing | AWS Data Exchange | Snowflake Secure Data Sharing | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Open-Source |
✅ Yes |
❌ No |
❌ No |
|||
|
Multi-Cloud |
✅ Yes |
❌ No (AWS Only) |
❌ No (Snowflake Only) |
|||
|
Real-Time Access |
✅ Yes |
❌ No |
✅ Yes |
|||
|
Fine-Grained Access |
✅ Yes |
✅ Yes |
✅ Yes |
|||
|
No Data Duplication |
✅ Yes |
❌ No |
✅ Yes |
|||
The Benefits of Delta Sharing
Open, Cross-Platform Sharing
One of the most significant advantages of Databricks Delta Sharing is its ability to share data seamlessly across different platforms, ensuring there’s no vendor lock-in. Many organisations face challenges when they are tied to specific vendors or technologies, making it hard to collaborate across diverse platforms. With Delta Sharing, businesses can share data stored in Delta Lake and Apache Parquet formats across any data platform, ensuring data accessibility regardless of the tools or technologies being used.
This open, cross-platform sharing gives organisations flexibility, enabling them to collaborate more efficiently with partners or teams that might use different technologies without compromising the integrity or structure of the data.
Share Live Data Without Replication
In traditional data-sharing methods, businesses often need to replicate data to different environments, which can be costly, time-consuming, and prone to inconsistencies. Delta Sharing revolutionises this by allowing organisations to share live data across platforms, clouds, and regions without replication.
By using Cloudflare R2, organisations can also significantly reduce costs, as it eliminates egress fees, offering a more cost-effective way to share data without incurring expensive transfer charges. This live sharing capability ensures that everyone involved in the collaboration has access to the most current data available, removing delays and ensuring decision-makers work with up-to-date information.
Centralised Governance
Governance is crucial when sharing data across organisations, especially when dealing with sensitive or regulated data. Delta Sharing comes with centralised governance capabilities through Unity Catalog, which allows organisations to manage and audit shared data from a single platform. This centralised approach simplifies the process of managing permissions, tracking usage, and ensuring compliance with security and regulatory requirements.
By enabling businesses to govern their shared data, Delta Sharing ensures that data integrity, privacy, and security are maintained at all times. Whether you’re sharing with internal teams, external partners, or customers, you can confidently manage access and usage to meet organisational and compliance standards.
Enhanced Collaboration
At its core, Delta Sharing is designed to foster collaboration—both internally and externally. With Delta Sharing, businesses can share data securely and collaborate seamlessly with customers, partners, suppliers, or even external data scientists, enabling a more productive exchange of ideas and insights. Since the data is shared live and remains accessible across different platforms, teams can work together in real-time, accelerating time to insights and improving decision-making.
Use Cases for Databricks Delta Sharing
Delta Sharing opens up new opportunities for businesses across industries. Let’s dive into some key use cases and explore how organisations can leverage Delta Sharing to their advantage:
1. Internal Line of Business Sharing
In large organisations, different teams (such as marketing, sales, and finance) often need access to the same data to make informed decisions. However, these teams may work in silos, with each department managing its own version of the data, leading to duplication and inconsistency. Delta Sharing allows for real-time data sharing across internal teams, eliminating the need for replication and ensuring that all departments are working with the same, up-to-date information.
For example, a marketing team can access sales and customer data to tailor campaigns based on current trends, while the sales team can use live data to track product availability and adjust sales strategies accordingly. This leads to a more synchronised and efficient workflow.
2. B2B Data Sharing
Delta Sharing is ideal for Business-to-Business (B2B) data sharing. For example, consider a logistics company that wants to collaborate with suppliers and vendors. The company can use Delta Sharing to securely share data such as shipment tracking, inventory levels, and order statuses in real-time, enabling external suppliers to adjust their operations based on this information.
For instance, a supplier can adjust their production schedules based on the most recent demand data, while the logistics team can monitor the inventory levels in real-time. This type of collaboration improves operational efficiency and allows for better forecasting and planning across the supply chain.
3. Data Monetisation
Data monetisation has become a growing trend for many companies that have valuable data assets. With Delta Sharing, organisations can securely share access to their datasets with external parties like advertisers, data scientists, or researchers in exchange for revenue.
For example, a media company might want to monetise its audience data by sharing insights with third-party advertisers or content creators. Using Delta Sharing, the company can provide partners with real-time access to user engagement metrics and viewing patterns, while ensuring the data is protected and privacy regulations are respected.
External parties can directly query the data they need, improving efficiency and ensuring that only authorised users have access to relevant data, all while the media company generates additional revenue from its valuable data assets.
Privacy-safe data clean rooms
Collaborate with your customers and partners on any cloud in a privacy-safe environment with Databricks Clean rooms. Securely share data without data replication. Meet collaborators on their preferred cloud and provide them with the flexibility to run complex computations and workloads in any language — SQL and Python, as well as R, Scala and Java (coming soon). Guide collaborators through common use cases using predefined templates, notebooks and dashboards, accelerating time to insights.
Summary
Databricks Delta Sharing is transforming the way organisations approach data sharing, making it more seamless, secure, and scalable. With its open-source, cross-platform capabilities, businesses can collaborate more effectively, break down data silos, and reduce the cost and complexity traditionally associated with sharing large datasets. Whether sharing data internally across teams, collaborating with external partners, or monetising data assets, Delta Sharing provides the flexibility and governance needed to succeed in today’s fast-paced, data-driven world.
By adopting Delta Sharing, organisations can unlock new opportunities for growth, innovation, and collaboration—all while ensuring that their data is secure, governed, and compliant. It is the future of data sharing, and businesses that embrace it will be well-positioned to thrive in the digital age.
As certified Microsoft Solutions Partners and as specialisation holders of the Data Analytics on Microsoft Azure, we are uniquely positioned to address your Databricks needs. Get in touch with one of our Databricks certified experts to see how we can assist with your data sharing needs.
