External location

In the Ultra Transcenders books

DP-750

Each book explains External location in context, with comparison tables and the common traps.

Terms in this definition

• Securable object

  In Unity Catalog, anything you can grant privileges on: for example the metastore itself, catalogs, schemas, tables, volumes, models and secrets, and also external locations, storage credentials, connections and shares.

• Unity Catalog

  Azure Databricks' governance solution covering both data and AI in one place, with centralised permissions, auditing, data discovery and lineage.

• Storage credential

  Wraps a long-lived credential, often an Access Connector's managed identity, that external locations use to reach ADLS. It is a Unity Catalog securable, and CREATE STORAGE CREDENTIAL is needed to make one.

• PATH

  Parent-child hierarchies in DAX rely on this function. For each row it builds one delimited text value listing the IDs of the row's ancestors, top level first and ending with the row's own ID, which PATHITEM, PATHLENGTH and friends can then pick apart.

• General-purpose v1

  The older storage account kind (Storage), which lacks access tiers, Archive and premium file shares and retires on 13 October 2026. Converting to ZRS requires first upgrading to GPv2, a one-way change.

• CRUD

  Shorthand for create, read, update and delete, the four basic things you do with data. Data-plane roles in Azure Cosmos DB, for instance, authorise those operations on items.

• External

  API Management virtual network mode in which the gateway stays public but can call private back ends inside the VNet.

• ALL

  A DAX function that ignores any filters and gives back every row of a table or every value of the named columns. Used within CALCULATE, it works as a modifier that clears filters, although REMOVEFILTERS states that intent more clearly where it is available.

Related terms

• External table

  Also known as an unmanaged table, this is a table kept at a storage path you choose inside an external location. Unity Catalog controls who can reach it but not the lifecycle of its files, so a DROP deletes the metadata and leaves the data in place.

• READ FILES

  Granted on a storage credential or external location, this Unity Catalog permission lets tools like Auto Loader or COPY INTO pull files directly from cloud storage. WRITE FILES can't be used without it.

• Storage Queue Data Contributor

  Built into Azure, this role is what Azure Databricks relies on to receive notifications about new or changed files through a queue in a storage account, both for Auto Loader's notification mode and for external location file events.