Built On Databricks

Organizations today are increasingly looking to deliver data- and AI-powered experiences to their customers—whether through embedded analytics, prediction-driven workflows, AI assistants, or shared data products. Databricks enables partners to extend these capabilities outward, transforming internal data and AI assets into customer-facing features, services, and revenue-generating products.

This Partner Well-Architected Framework defines what it means to build a solution "Built On Databricks" and provides clear architectural guidance for designing, deploying, and operating these intelligent offerings.

What Built On Databricks Means

A Built On Databricks product is an application, service, or solution in which Databricks forms the core intelligence layer powering the customer experience. These offerings allow partners to deliver data-rich, AI-enhanced functionality directly to their customers, often forming the foundation of entirely new product lines or premium features.

Built On Databricks solutions typically include some or all of the following characteristics:

• Core analytics and AI engine — Databricks powers data processing, feature computation, machine learning, model serving, and agentic AI behavior.

• Extended capabilities to customers — Partners extend data and AI capabilities to their customers, enabling insights, automation, and intelligent decision-making within their applications or workflows.

• Secure data sharing — Data, models, or notebooks may be shared securely and collaboratively with customers using Delta Sharing, Clean Rooms, or workspace-to-workspace sharing—without copying or moving data.

• Multi-cloud foundation — Applications leverage Databricks' multi-cloud foundation, allowing partners to serve customers across cloud environments and meet them where their data already resides.

• Custom user experience — The user-facing experience is delivered through a custom application or persona-driven interface, while Databricks provides the secure, scalable, and governed backend capabilities.

• AI-native acceleration — AI-native functionality is accelerated through platform features, including vector search, fine-tuning, real-time model serving, and orchestration patterns for agents.

In short, Built On Databricks means using the Lakehouse Platform as the intelligence backbone of a product—empowering partners to deliver differentiated, data-driven and AI-enabled capabilities directly to their customers at enterprise scale.

Key Outcomes

This framework helps organizations build scalable, governed, and automated SaaS architectures on Databricks.

Outcome	Description
Rapid time to market	Accelerate product launches with proven patterns for workspace organization, data isolation, and customer onboarding
Enterprise-grade security	Meet enterprise compliance requirements with security controls and governance patterns for identity management, data isolation, and access controls across deployment models
Elastic scalability	Scale from pilot customers to thousands of production tenants with guidance on resource management, cost optimization, and operational patterns
Multi-cloud operations	Deploy Built On Databricks solutions across AWS, Azure, and GCP while maintaining consistent operational practices
Reduced overhead	Automate workspace provisioning, configuration management, monitoring, and cost allocation to operate efficiently at scale

Framework Structure

This guide is organized into the following sections:

Section	Description
Getting Started	Join the Built on Databricks Partner Program and begin your journey building on the platform
Deployment Models	Choose the right deployment model: Partner Hosted, Hybrid, Side Car, or Customer Managed. Includes guidance on SaaS workspace models.
Pillars & Core Principles	Essential architectural pillars covering governance, cost management, scale, automation, and onboarding workflows

Quick Start

New to the Built on Databricks program? Start here:

→ Getting Started Guide — Apply to the partner program and access technical resources to build your solution