Azure Data Lake Storage Gen2 (ADLS Gen2) is a scalable and secure data lake solution for big data analytics. Databricks is a unified analytics platform that provides a collaborative environment for data science and engineering. Integrating ADLS Gen2 with Databricks allows you to leverage the power of both platforms for your data processing and analytics workloads.

Connecting Databricks to ADLS Gen2

Databricks recommends using Unity Catalog to connect to and manage your ADLS Gen2 storage. However, there are several ways to establish a connection between Databricks and ADLS Gen2, each with varying levels of security and complexity:

1. Unity Catalog: This is the preferred method as it offers centralized access control and governance for all your data assets. You can create a metastore in Unity Catalog and connect to your ADLS Gen2 storage accounts.

2. Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) Passthrough: This method allows Databricks users to access ADLS Gen2 data using their Azure AD credentials. It’s a simple and secure way to authenticate users and manage permissions.

3. Shared Access Signature (SAS) Token: A SAS token provides granular access control to specific ADLS Gen2 resources for a limited time. It’s a good option for temporary or restricted access scenarios.

4. Service Principal: A service principal is an application identity used for authentication and authorization. It’s a common way to automate access to ADLS Gen2 from Databricks jobs or notebooks.