Open sharing reaches foreign catalogs, Iceberg included
Lakenaut 12 Sept 2026
Lakenaut: 14 updates worth knowing
 

Here is what moved on Databricks in the last 7 days.

New features
  • Open sharing reaches foreign catalogs, Iceberg included
    A provider can share Iceberg tables, schemas and tables that live in a federated catalog without copying anything into Databricks. The compute and storage cost of materialising them stays with the provider. Generally available. read it
  • Continuous pipelines can be told when it is safe to update them
    An administrator sets a weekly window — day, start hour, timezone — in which the platform applies its updates to continuous pipelines, from the Jobs UI, the Pipelines UI or the Jobs API. Generally available. read it
  • An Excel add-in that reads Unity Catalog and writes back to it
    The add-in browses Unity Catalog tables, runs SQL, builds pivot tables against a live query and writes data back into Unity Catalog. Generally available, and governed like anything else in the catalog. read it
  • time_bucket rounds a timestamp to a fixed window
    The function returns the start of the fixed-width interval a timestamp falls into, aligned to an origin you choose. Generally available, and it removes the date_trunc-and-arithmetic dance from most time-series grouping. read it
Previews and beta
  • A Unity Catalog schema can read straight from AWS Secrets Manager
    A schema can be connected to AWS Secrets Manager, and the secrets appear as read-only securables governed by Unity Catalog privileges. Beta, so the shape may still move. read it
  • ABAC gains DENY policies, and they beat every grant
    A DENY policy blocks MANAGE ACCESS CONTROL for the principals it names, and it always wins over a grant that would allow it. Beta. It is the first ABAC construct that can take something away rather than hand it out. read it
  • Zerobus Ingest writes into default storage tables
    Zerobus Ingest can now target tables backed by default storage, not only ones with an external location. Public preview. Arrow Flight support for the same connector went generally available on 1 September. read it
Deprecations and end of support
  • The partner-powered AI features switch goes away on 1 November 2026
    The setting can no longer be turned off from the UI, only on, and it is removed entirely on 1 November 2026. After that date the features it gates are simply part of the platform. read it
New and rewritten concepts
  • Registering agents and MCP servers as Unity Catalog objects, so every team's agents are discoverable in one place and every tool a server exposes is chosen, policed and counted.
  • Two declarative agent builders: Knowledge Assistant answers questions over your documents with citations, and Supervisor Agent routes a request across up to 50 subagents and tools.
  • The documented way to ship a custom agent: the MLflow ResponsesAgent interface, an AgentServer inside a Databricks App, a bundle to deploy it, and Model Serving as the legacy path.
  • The four ways to build an agent here, from a no-code assistant to your own Python, and which page covers each. Also the bridge between the old Agent Framework name and the current one.
  • Long-term memory for an agent as a Unity Catalog securable, with entries scoped and pathed, governed and audited like a table rather than kept in a side database.
  • Registering a Python or SQL function in Unity Catalog turns it into a governed agent tool, where the docstring becomes the schema the model reads and EXECUTE decides who may call it.
SQL & Python Foundations
  • time_bucket rounds a timestamp to a fixed window
    The function returns the start of the fixed-width interval a timestamp falls into, aligned to an origin you choose. Generally available, and it removes the date_trunc-and-arithmetic dance from most time-series grouping. read it
Lakehouse Foundations
  • Open sharing reaches foreign catalogs, Iceberg included
    A provider can share Iceberg tables, schemas and tables that live in a federated catalog without copying anything into Databricks. The compute and storage cost of materialising them stays with the provider. Generally available. read it
Data Engineering
  • Continuous pipelines can be told when it is safe to update them
    An administrator sets a weekly window — day, start hour, timezone — in which the platform applies its updates to continuous pipelines, from the Jobs UI, the Pipelines UI or the Jobs API. Generally available. read it
  • Zerobus Ingest writes into default storage tables
    Zerobus Ingest can now target tables backed by default storage, not only ones with an external location. Public preview. Arrow Flight support for the same connector went generally available on 1 September. read it
Governance & Security
  • Open sharing reaches foreign catalogs, Iceberg included
    A provider can share Iceberg tables, schemas and tables that live in a federated catalog without copying anything into Databricks. The compute and storage cost of materialising them stays with the provider. Generally available. read it
  • A Unity Catalog schema can read straight from AWS Secrets Manager
    A schema can be connected to AWS Secrets Manager, and the secrets appear as read-only securables governed by Unity Catalog privileges. Beta, so the shape may still move. read it
  • ABAC gains DENY policies, and they beat every grant
    A DENY policy blocks MANAGE ACCESS CONTROL for the principals it names, and it always wins over a grant that would allow it. Beta. It is the first ABAC construct that can take something away rather than hand it out. read it
Platform & Administration
  • Continuous pipelines can be told when it is safe to update them
    An administrator sets a weekly window — day, start hour, timezone — in which the platform applies its updates to continuous pipelines, from the Jobs UI, the Pipelines UI or the Jobs API. Generally available. read it
  • A Unity Catalog schema can read straight from AWS Secrets Manager
    A schema can be connected to AWS Secrets Manager, and the secrets appear as read-only securables governed by Unity Catalog privileges. Beta, so the shape may still move. read it
  • The partner-powered AI features switch goes away on 1 November 2026
    The setting can no longer be turned off from the UI, only on, and it is removed entirely on 1 November 2026. After that date the features it gates are simply part of the platform. read it
SQL & Analytics
  • An Excel add-in that reads Unity Catalog and writes back to it
    The add-in browses Unity Catalog tables, runs SQL, builds pivot tables against a live query and writes data back into Unity Catalog. Generally available, and governed like anything else in the catalog. read it
  • time_bucket rounds a timestamp to a fixed window
    The function returns the start of the fixed-width interval a timestamp falls into, aligned to an origin you choose. Generally available, and it removes the date_trunc-and-arithmetic dance from most time-series grouping. read it
Also worth knowing
  • Open sharing reaches foreign catalogs, Iceberg included
    A provider can share Iceberg tables, schemas and tables that live in a federated catalog without copying anything into Databricks. The compute and storage cost of materialising them stays with the provider. Generally available. read it
  • Continuous pipelines can be told when it is safe to update them
    An administrator sets a weekly window — day, start hour, timezone — in which the platform applies its updates to continuous pipelines, from the Jobs UI, the Pipelines UI or the Jobs API. Generally available. read it
  • An Excel add-in that reads Unity Catalog and writes back to it
    The add-in browses Unity Catalog tables, runs SQL, builds pivot tables against a live query and writes data back into Unity Catalog. Generally available, and governed like anything else in the catalog. read it
  • A Unity Catalog schema can read straight from AWS Secrets Manager
    A schema can be connected to AWS Secrets Manager, and the secrets appear as read-only securables governed by Unity Catalog privileges. Beta, so the shape may still move. read it
  • ABAC gains DENY policies, and they beat every grant
    A DENY policy blocks MANAGE ACCESS CONTROL for the principals it names, and it always wins over a grant that would allow it. Beta. It is the first ABAC construct that can take something away rather than hand it out. read it
  • time_bucket rounds a timestamp to a fixed window
    The function returns the start of the fixed-width interval a timestamp falls into, aligned to an origin you choose. Generally available, and it removes the date_trunc-and-arithmetic dance from most time-series grouping. read it
  • The partner-powered AI features switch goes away on 1 November 2026
    The setting can no longer be turned off from the UI, only on, and it is removed entirely on 1 November 2026. After that date the features it gates are simply part of the platform. read it
  • Zerobus Ingest writes into default storage tables
    Zerobus Ingest can now target tables backed by default storage, not only ones with an external location. Public preview. Arrow Flight support for the same connector went generally available on 1 September. read it
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