Connecting from validated BI tools

Databricks SQL is an open platform, which means it supports integrations with all BI tools using open standards such as JDBC and ODBC. That said, there are certain BI tools and platforms that natively support connections to Databricks SQL. These are what we refer to as validated BI tools. In this section, we will learn how to connect validated BI tools to Databricks SQL. We will also learn what’s meant by a connection to Databricks SQL.

Note

I will refer to business intelligence software as BI tools or BI platforms interchangeably in this chapter.

Databricks SQL supports validated integrations from various BI platforms. This list is constantly evolving and can be found at https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/databricks/integrations/partners#--bi-and-visualization.

How does a connection from an external BI tool to Databricks SQL work?

Recall from the previous chapters that Databricks SQL has three distinct layers:

• The...