Get started with Databricks administration

Welcome to Databricks, and congratulations on being your team’s administrator! Your journey to solving some of the world’s toughest problems with data starts here.

This getting started tutorial provides step-by-step guidance to get your team up and running on Databricks. If you want to learn more about Databricks before you start setting up your account, check out Databricks overview and Databricks concepts.

Set up your Databricks account and create your first workspace

Are you the Databricks account owner? Only you can do the initial setup of your Databricks account.

• Set up your account

Determine if you want to use Unity Catalog as your data governance solution

You’ll have the choice to enable Unity Catalog whenever you create a new workspace. Enabling Unity Catalog means that your data can be governed and accessed across workspaces. It also means you’ll manage workspace user identities at the account level.

• What is Unity Catalog?

• Get started using Unity Catalog

Add users and assign admin rights

If you’re using Unity Catalog, it’s now time to add users to your account and assign them to a workspace. If you aren’t using Unity Catalog, you or a workspace admin can add users at the workspace level.

• Add users and assign admin rights

• (Optional) Assign users to groups

• (Optional) Set up single sign-on

At this point, you’ve completed the minimum setup to have a functional Databricks workspace. In a production environment, you should also perform or familiarize yourself with the administrative tasks that follow. If you’re new to Databricks, this might also be a good time to run the Tutorial: Query data with notebooks tutorial.

Configure permissions and access control

Now that you have users, you should secure your data by giving your users access only to the Databricks functionality and data they need. This step requires the Databricks Premium Plan or above. If you don’t have it, contact your Databricks sales representative.

• Read about data governance best practices on Databricks

• Set up access control and permissions for clusters, jobs, notebooks, and other workspace objects

• Assign access to data using Unity Catalog

Set up support

If you have a Databricks support package, you may want to add users as support contacts and learn how to manage and use the support plan.

• Add support contacts and manage your support plan

• Learn how to use Databricks support

• Learn how to submit product feedback

Advanced options and best practices

Congratulations! You now have a secure, working Databricks deployment in place.

If you need help, sign up for a live weekly demo to ask questions and practice alongside Databricks experts. Or, follow this blog series on best practices for managing and maintaining your environments.

To learn more about advanced options and best practices, check out the resources below:

• Secure credentials using secrets

• Manage data retention

More resources

Managing your Databricks account is an ongoing process. Databricks administration introduction covers everything an account owner and admin can do. Databricks also provides many excellent resources to help you manage your Databricks account to its fullest potential.

Become a Databricks expert	Run the Get started quickstarts Take training courses at Databricks Academy Explore the documentation at docs.gcp.databricks.com Review resources such as e-books, webinars, and more
Learn to speak Databricks	Read Databricks concepts
Learn industry best practices and news	Read Databricks blogs View past Spark + AI Summit sessions
Gain inspiration	Read customer stories
Follow in-depth, proven best practices	Learn about CI/CD on Databricks Learn how to keep your data lake GDPR and CCPA compliant using Delta Lake Learn how to migrate workloads to Databricks Learn data governance best practices on Databricks Learn cluster configuration best practices on Databricks
Get involved	Participate in Data + AI Summit
Get help and support	Help Center Community forums