Overview
As the information ecosystem continues to increase and diversify, organizations are challenged by the complexity of managing data dispersed throughout a number of knowledge lakes and warehouses. Whereas this knowledge holds immense worth, it typically stays fragmented and out of attain in actual time—impeding innovation, escalating prices, and slowing progress on crucial initiatives like agentic AI, automation, and superior analytics. The core difficulty isn’t the shortage of information—it’s the shortage of information fluidity: the seamless capacity to entry, mobilize, and activate knowledge wherever it resides.
In the present day, we’re excited to announce the Basic Availability of bi-directional Zero Copy File Federation with Databricks. Information Cloud leads the Business in innovating on zero copy knowledge integration and is now increasing capabilities of Zero Copy Associate Community to File Federation companions supporting Iceberg as open customary and with a broader theme to assist excessive scale and efficiency. It’s not nearly bringing the information from Databricks into the Salesforce knowledge cloud. The strategic integration is fostering collaboration, enabling close to actual time analytics and driving the choice making course of a lot quicker by accessing the Salesforce knowledge by file sharing performance in Databricks.
Salesforce Information Cloud and Databricks integration is now Usually Accessible in each instructions:
With Zero Copy File Federation, prospects can now entry billions of rows of information instantly from their exterior Information Lake and activate their knowledge without having to repeat it to Information Cloud. This cutting-edge function marks a serious leap ahead in our Zero Copy technique, offering a streamlined and purpose-built technique to faucet into the intensive datasets generally present in knowledge lakes and lakehouse environments. In contrast to query-based strategies, File Federation retrieves knowledge instantly from Iceberg tables on the storage layer, eliminating compute overhead on the supply—making it best for dealing with huge knowledge volumes the place velocity and price optimization are important.
With Zero Copy File Sharing, prospects also can share their Information Cloud knowledge into Databricks Unity Catalog. This integration helps you to question Salesforce Information Cloud Objects instantly from the Databricks Information Intelligence Platform, so you may run analytics with out constructing pipelines or sustaining duplicate knowledge. This allows you to use your Information Cloud buyer 360 belongings in place whereas Databricks handles processing and evaluation in actual time utilizing Databricks SQL and MosaicAI for prime efficiency and decrease prices. See the Public Preview weblog for a way File Sharing works with Databricks.
In abstract, with Zero Copy, you may additional improve unlocking your trapped knowledge and powering many use-cases equivalent to advertising, buyer 360, automation and brokers.
From Information to Selections: A Retailer’s Journey with Zero Copy in Information Cloud
The next use case demonstrates how prospects harness the facility of Zero Copy to drive significant outcomes throughout their group. Northern Path Outfitters, for instance, shops buyer transactions as Databricks Delta tables within the Databricks Information Intelligence Platform and is consumed by Iceberg readers by enabling UniForm. They’ll mix this with buyer profile and electronic mail advertising knowledge in Information Cloud to attain the next objectives:
- Show the final 10 buyer transactions instantly on the shopper’s Salesforce account web page
- Allow service brokers to effectively deal with transactional and warranty-related inquiries
- Set off focused advertising emails based mostly on prospects’ month-to-month spending
- Share the unified buyer knowledge again to Databricks
Within the subsequent part, we’ll discover how these outcomes might be realized by leveraging a unified 360-degree view of the shopper.
Securely connect with knowledge in Databricks by way of Zero Copy
Step one entails the information specialist establishing a safe connection between Databricks and Information Cloud. By leveraging Credential Merchandising for Unity Catalog, the connection is about up utilizing simply the catalog endpoint and a private entry token. This strategy ensures safe, momentary entry with out the burden of managing long-term credentials, enabling streamlined and safe integration.
File Federation with Databricks at the moment helps AWS S3/Lake Formation and Azure based mostly storage layers. Upon establishing the connection,
The info specialist creates an information stream, the place they select the specified object, the specified subject, the first keys and different particulars. The info stream acts because the conduit between Databricks and Information Cloud utilizing the metadata.
Upon finishing the creation of the information stream, an exterior Information Lake Object (DLO) is created that may then be mapped to the Information Mannequin Object
Harmonize your knowledge in Information Cloud
With the connection and knowledge stream in place, the information specialist maps the newly created exterior Information Lake Object (DLO) to both a typical Information Mannequin Object or customized Information Mannequin Object. On this state of affairs, the information specialist has outlined a customized DMO and maps the DLO on to it.
Information Unification to create an unified particular person
Unifying the information coming from all the inner and exterior sources is crucial to making a 360 view of the related buyer. Utilizing Id Decision, Northern Path Outfitters are in a position to create a complete of 207 unified profiles from the 559 supply profiles that have been accessed from the totally different knowledge sources.
Enrich CRM with Buyer transactions from Databricks
Customer support tiers and advantages are decided by complete transactional spend. To provide the service crew full visibility into every buyer’s profile, the information specialist makes use of copy subject enrichment to reinforce the CRM object—bringing transactional particulars alongside current buyer knowledge. With this enrichment, the shopper’s transactional data is now seamlessly built-in into their contact file.
Agentic Interactions Powered by Zero Copy Information
Northern Path Outfitters receives frequent buyer inquiries about transactions and warranties, placing a pressure on their service crew. To ease this burden, the information specialist deploys AI brokers in Information Cloud that may deal with these queries utilizing knowledge from their Databricks Information Intelligence Platform. Throughout buyer interactions, the brokers entry real-time lakehouse knowledge to supply correct and well timed responses.
Set off focused advertising emails based mostly on prospects’ month-to-month spending
The info specialist designs a circulate to robotically set off a advertising message for any buyer whose month-to-month spend surpasses an outlined threshold. Leveraging File Federation, this motion is initiated with out the necessity to cache related knowledge in Information Cloud. With Zero Copy, actions might be executed instantly on lake knowledge—eliminating the necessity for duplication and streamlining automation.
This Northern Path Outfitters use case highlights the transformative affect of Zero Copy File Federation. By securely connecting to their Databricks knowledge lake, the group eliminated the challenges of conventional knowledge motion, enabled their agentic AI with real-time transactional insights, and delivered extra customized, environment friendly buyer experiences—whereas totally maximizing the worth of their current knowledge investments.
Share the unified buyer insights again into Databricks for prolonged evaluation
Lastly, the group now needs to share the unified buyer insights from Information Cloud again into Databricks for prolonged analytics and dashboards. To start, they may arrange a Information share goal with the authentication particulars to get the connection established with Databricks.
With the Information share created in knowledge cloud and an information share goal, they start subsequent step by sharing the pertinent objects from Information Cloud to Databricks utilizing the Hyperlink/Unlink functionality, thus eliminating the necessity to preserve a number of copies for knowledge and making certain entry to probably the most up to date data from Information Cloud
The objects that have been shared within the workspace enabled for Unity Catalog are viewable by Databricks persona.
It’s not simply that they’re accessible in workspace and it is usually accessible in Pocket book for Information scientists to run machine studying fashions.
Unleash the Energy of Your Information Platforms for Agentic AI
The launch of File Federation represents a pivotal step in our dedication to supplying you with seamless entry to all of your knowledge—irrespective of the place it resides. By connecting your knowledge lakes with the intelligence of Agentforce, we’re opening the door to a brand new period of data-driven buyer experiences. Uncover the potential of File Federation and assist form the way forward for agentic AI.
Unlock the subsequent era of buyer engagement with the groundbreaking Zero Copy integration between Salesforce and Databricks. This safe, versatile, and bidirectional connection eliminates the necessity for advanced ETL processes, enabling your groups to maneuver quicker, function smarter, and ship extra impactful buyer experiences. With Salesforce Information Cloud Zero Copy, you achieve a real-time, 360-degree view of each buyer—empowering your group to personalize interactions, maximize worth at each touchpoint, and drive transformative enterprise outcomes.
Be taught Extra:
Salesforce Information Cloud Documentation – File Federation
