Databricks Lakebase: Combining Operational and Analytical Data with Federation

By joining Backstage ownership data with Lakebase billing data, organizations gain clear insights into infrastructure costs and ownership, simplifying complex cost attribution processes.

Databricks Lakehouse Federation currently requires a workaround for connecting to operational databases like Postgres when using OAuth JWTs for app authentication, necessitating a separate native role with static credentials.

Ephemeral branches created during development are now directly queryable in billing data, providing engineering managers with granular cost insights per branch and enabling better management of development process expenses.

Lakebase's ability to scale endpoints to zero and suspend compute when not in use makes ephemeral branches cost-effective, with costs attributed only when actively running, making branching a measurable productivity investment.

Databricks Lakebase allows querying operational and analytical data within a single SQL engine without data movement, solving the historical separation between these data types.