Databricks has introduced Lakehouse Apps for developers to build native, secure applications for Databricks.
More than 10,000 Databricks customers can now access a wide range of applications that run entirely inside their Lakehouse instance, using their data with the full security and governance capabilities of Databricks.
Data and AI applications are among the fastest-growing software categories, and the growth in generative AI and large language models (LLMs) has accelerated that trend.
Lakehouse Apps will be the most secure way to run applications that unlock the full value of data for Lakehouse customers. They can leverage Databricks-native services, and extend Databricks with new capabilities.
The apps will give users safe and easy access to a wide range of innovative new applications and reduce the time and effort to adopt, integrate, and manage data and AI applications.
Lakehouse Apps feature a native, secure, no-compromise solution. By running directly on a customer’s Databricks instance, these apps can easily and securely integrate with the customer’s data, use and extend Databricks services, and enable users to interact with a single sign-on experience — all without data ever leaving the customer’s instance. Lakehouse Apps inherit the same security, privacy, and compliance controls as Databricks. Developers can use any technology and language of their choice to build apps and aren’t limited to a proprietary framework.
Databricks has also introduced new data-sharing providers and AI model-sharing capabilities to Databricks Marketplace. Developers benefit from easier distribution by listing their Lakehouse Apps in the Databricks Marketplace, enabling customers to quickly discover and deploy their software.
New data providers include financial services leaders such as S&P Global, Experian, London Stock Exchange Group, Nasdaq, Corelogic, and YipitData; healthcare innovators like Datavant and IQVIA; geospatial leaders like Divirod, Accuweather and Safegraph; data collaboration companies like LiveRamp; and business information services companies such as LexisNexis and ZoomInfo.
With AI model sharing, Databricks customers will have access to best-in-class models, which can be quickly and securely applied on top of their data. Databricks will curate and publish open source models across common use cases, such as instruction-following and text summarisation, and optimise tuning or deploying of these models on Databricks.
“With Lakehouse Apps, software providers can offer their rich, secure apps within the lakehouse, which is exciting both for Databricks customers and for software vendors, greatly reducing the friction for applications to reach new customers,” said Matei Zaharia, Co-Founder and CTO of Databricks.
“In addition, the expansion of Databricks Marketplace to cover AI models as well as apps satisfies a critical need in today’s business world, as collaboration between enterprises is evolving beyond the mere exchange of datasets to secure computations and AI modelling on joint data,” he added.
Photo: Fotis Fotopoulos on Unsplash
Entelechy Asia 