Control data access at the workspace level with per-workspace catalog access settings in Unity Catalog. This demo shows how to assign a catalog to one or more workspaces and set granular access levels (read-only or read-write) for each workspace independently.
Source: official Databricks documentation · Databricks announcement
Key takeaways
- Workspace-scoped catalog access enables per-workspace permission settings for fine-grained governance.
- Read-only catalog access restricts workspaces to consuming data without modification.
- Read-only enforcement prevents ALTER commands and ensures data integrity across workspaces.
- Audit logs track all catalog access and permission enforcement across workspaces.
Chapters
- 0:00 — Workspace-scoped catalog access overview
- 0:32 — Setting read-only access levels per workspace
- 1:34 — Use case: production data isolation
- 2:05 — Running queries on read-only catalogs
- 2:36 — Access enforcement: ALTER command fails
Frequently asked questions
How do I set read-only catalog access per workspace?
In Unity Catalog account console, assign read-only permissions to specific workspaces at the catalog level.
What happens if I try to modify read-only data?
ALTER commands fail with access denied errors, preventing accidental or malicious data corruption.
Can different workspaces have different permissions?
Yes. Unity Catalog supports per-workspace access levels from read-only to full management.
Full transcript
Auto-generated from the video and lightly edited for readability. Timestamps link to the moment in the video.
Show full transcript (8 segments)
0:01hello my name is Yousef and today I have a very exciting news to share with you remember a few weeks ago Databricks introduced a feature where you could do workspace catalog binding and by this a platform admin could assign a catalog to only be accessible from a specific
0:23workspace and few days ago T bricks introduced an additional feature on the top of this catalog by catalog binding let's show you the example let's look for specific uh catalog demoore ucore Usef so of course by default whenever you create a catalog
0:45it's accessible to all the workspaces attached to the same metas swur I'll click on workspace and then I'll disable all workspaces have access then you can click on assign to workspace and now you can select the the workspaces that can access this catalog so so far
1:07nothing you but now what you can do is you can see you have this access uh level and what I will do I will select this indust and then I will just specify change access to read only and you can see that now this catalog only is accessible from two workspace but it's only read only is read only for only this spe this workspace in that
1:32where can we have the we can have this option so let's think you have uh production catalog and sometimes the data analyst want to run some analysis or computation on uh the production data and you don't want to grant them the access to the uh production environment so what you can do is Grant the read
1:55only access from a different workspace and if you you go to the other uh environment and for example try if you run this specific let's say I'm GNA run this specific select start from demoore ucore USF think
2:19[Music] it's it's yeah if I run this query you will see of course course I could or of course this will uh start serverless uh SQL Warehouse then will query get this data and bring it back to me I it's possible
2:44and if I try to edit uh to alter disable try you will see that this demoore UC has been designate as read only in current workspace and this is really the perks of using uh the cut work space catalog binding thank you for watching this video bye
Official Databricks resources
- Unity Catalog documentation — docs
- Databricks Free Edition — product
- Open sourcing Unity Catalog (Databricks blog) — blog
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Databricks Answers
Looking for a quick, source-backed answer? Browse Databricks Answers on Unity Catalog, governance & security — direct, documentation-validated answers to common Databricks questions, curated by Youssef Mrini, Senior Developer Advocate at Databricks.