Data and AI company, Databricks has confirmed the public preview of Databricks Apps, the fastest way for data and AI teams to build and deploy internal applications directly on the Databricks data intelligence platform.
Databricks Apps enables developers to build apps natively in Databricks with frameworks such as Dash, Shiny, Gradio, Streamlit, and Flask. Databricks Apps can create data applications tailored for non-technical users using code instead of SQL. This opens new possibilities for making complex data insights accessible to a wider audience.
For example, a marketing team can leverage Databricks Apps to create customised dashboards that visualise campaign performance metrics, allowing team members without technical backgrounds to interpret and act on the data more easily.
Moreover, Databricks Apps can incorporate AI components, enabling developers to call specific AI models when they need more flexibility. This integration of AI capabilities allows for the creation of sophisticated applications that can perform tasks such as sentiment analysis on customer feedback or predictive modelling for sales forecasts.
Once built, the apps are deployed and fully managed directly in Databricks, saving teams the effort to configure and manage infrastructure. These apps are fully governed, respecting the data access controls already configured in Unity Catalog, and controlling the distribution to users using the same unified governance model.
Databricks Australia and New Zealand vice president and country manager, Adam Beavis said, “We’re excited to launch Databricks Apps, and help organisations harness the full potential of their data and AI investments with custom applications that run seamlessly within their Databricks environment.
“ANZ organisations are seeking ways to extract more value from their data assets. However, building and deploying internal data applications has traditionally been a complex and time-consuming process. Developers need to spend time on infrastructure management instead of focusing on app development.
“Data governance and compliance require manual implementation of access controls. Additionally, app sharing and permissions are managed separately from other data assets, creating a disjointed governance experience. Databricks Apps addresses these challenges head-on, providing a powerful yet simple experience for building internal data applications.”
Databricks Apps does not require developers to build additional infrastructure. Apps run on automatically provisioned serverless compute, allowing deployment with ease. Databricks Apps also embraces industry-leading development practices, offering seamless integration with preferred workflows.
With Databricks Apps, data only leaves the Databricks environment if it’s chosen to be shared. Each app is fortified with robust security measures, including granular access control to ensure precise data permissions, automatically managed service principals for secure application-to-application communication, and automatic user authentication leveraging OIDC/OAuth 2.0 and SSO for user access.