How We Migrated to Unity Catalog with Zero Downtime and Faster Deployment for a Retail Client

Challenge: Legacy workspace with governance and efficiency gaps

The client’s existing non-Unity Catalog AWS Databricks workspace posed several challenges:

• No centralized governance, making metadata management and access control inconsistent.
• Asset migration carried the risk of downtime, potentially disrupting workflows and downstream applications.
• Limited automation for notebook versioning and deployment led to manual overhead and delays.

These issues restricted scalability, added risks to operations, and slowed delivery cycles.

Solution: Migration to Unity Catalog with automated governance and deployment pipelines

At zeb, our experts developed and implemented a comprehensive migration approach that modernized governance, streamlined operations, and ensured business continuity.

• Workspace Migration to Unity Catalog: Migrated all assets from the legacy Databricks workspace into a Unity Catalog–enabled workspace, establishing a centralized metastore for governance and accessibility.
• Asset Migration and Validation: Built a private network using VPN and site-to-site connections for secure integration with on-premises & API-based source systems, and validated data to ensure reliability.
• CI/CD Integration with GitHub: Leveraged GitHub for version control of Databricks notebooks, integrating CI/CD pipelines to automate deployment and streamline migrations across production and non-production.
• Metastore Configuration: Configured a new metastore in Unity Catalog on AWS, enabling unified governance and secure access control for all migrated assets.

Benefits: Centralized governance, seamless migration, and automated notebook management

• Unified Data Governance: Introduced Unity Catalog to centralize metadata management, improving data discoverability and compliance. Streamlined access control across the organization using a single metastore.
• Zero-Downtime Asset Migration: Migrated all assets seamlessly without disrupting existing workflows or downstream applications, ensuring operational continuity with rigorous validation processes.
• Automated Notebook Management: Integrated GitHub with CI/CD pipelines for efficient notebook version control and deployment, reducing manual effort and accelerating delivery cycles across environments.

Partner with zeb today

Modernizing your data environment doesn’t need to be disruptive. At zeb, as a trusted Databricks partner, we specialize in cloud-native platforms, Databricks, and data governance solutions that deliver scalable, secure, and efficient outcomes for enterprises.

Let’s connect and explore how we can help accelerate your data modernization journey.