A type for semi-structured data like JSON whose structure isn't fixed, available from Databricks Runtime 15.4. It is preferred to storing JSON as strings but can't serve as a partition column.
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Each book explains VARIANT in context, with comparison tables and the common traps.
Terms in this definition
- Semi-structured data
Data with some organisation but where instances of one entity can differ, for example JSON documents in which each record may carry different fields.
- LIKE
Compares strings with a pattern that can contain the % and _ wildcards. Because it only understands character patterns, searching big volumes of text this way is much slower than using full-text search.
- JSON
Text-based format for structured data. ARM templates and Cosmos DB documents are written in it, and most Azure REST APIs exchange request and response bodies as application/json.
- Databricks Runtime
The software image, Apache Spark among its core parts, that Azure Databricks installs on compute. Long-term support (LTS) releases are the advised choice when job compute runs production work.
- Azure AI Search partition
Storage and I/O unit of a search service, each holding part of the indexes. Adding partitions increases storage and indexing throughput; the number of search units equals replicas multiplied by partitions.
Related terms
- AUTO CDC
The Lakeflow pipelines API for change data capture: it merges incoming changes into a streaming table, keeping either just the latest values (SCD 1) or full history (SCD 2), and uses an ordering column to cope with records that arrive late. A Python-only snapshot variant also exists.
- Direct Lake on SQL
A Direct Lake variant that relies on the SQL analytics endpoint of a single item to discover tables and check permissions. Queries switch to DirectQuery when they hit SQL views, row-level security defined on the endpoint or exceeded guardrails, subject to the DirectLakeBehavior setting.
- Evaluation dataset
A constant collection of test inputs, a query plus optional context and ground truth, fed to every model or prompt variant so their results can be compared fairly.
- GZRS / RA-GZRS
Geo-zone-redundant storage combines zone-redundant copies in the primary region with locally redundant copies in a secondary region. The RA- variant lets you read from the secondary.
- Merge queries
A Power Query join that combines two queries on columns whose values match, using a join type you pick, much as SQL does. Plain Merge queries adds the join to the current query; the 'as new' variant produces a separate query.
- Microsoft.Storage.Global
Variant of the storage service endpoint that reaches accounts in every region rather than only the local one. A subnet may enable either this or the regional Microsoft.Storage, never both.
- mTLS
Mutual TLS, a TLS variant where the client also presents a certificate that the server checks, giving authentication in both directions.
- PKCS
With this Intune certificate profile, the Certificate Connector asks the CA for a certificate and hands it, private key included, to each user or device individually. Its imported variant pushes an existing PFX instead, as is common for S/MIME.