Catalog-Managed Tables¶

Catalog-Managed Tables are delta tables that are managed by a catalog.

The storage location of catalog-managed delta tables is fully owned by a catalog, and thus they are often referred to as Catalog-Owned Tables.

Catalog-managed tables are supported with Unity Catalog only.

Catalog-managed tables are created with CatalogOwnedTableFeature table feature enabled using the following:

• Per delta table, using delta.feature.catalogManaged table property
• Globally, using spark.databricks.delta.properties.defaults.feature.catalogManaged configuration property

AbstractDeltaCatalog can create catalog-managed delta tables when executed with Unity Catalog and the table type is MANAGED.

CreateDeltaTableCommand makes sure that this table feature is enabled before creating a catalog-managed delta table (or DELTA_UNSUPPORTED_CATALOG_MANAGED_TABLE_CREATION error is thrown).

Demo¶

Demo: Catalog-Managed Tables with Unity Catalog

Unsupported Commands¶

• OPTIMIZE
• REORG
• VACUUM

Learn More¶

• Delta Transaction Log Protocol Specification
• Delta Lake Docs
• [PROTOCOL RFC] Catalog-managed Tables