--- title: Unlocking Investment Insights Without Migrating Your... description: Databricks Lakehouse Federation lets you query external databases like SQL Server, PostgreSQL, and MySQL directly from Databricks using standard SQL, without... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/unlocking-investment-insights-without-migrating-your-data-lakehouse-federation-9dlbb9d43 twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Unlocking Investment Insights Without Migrating Your Data: Lakehouse Federation | daily.dev og:description: Databricks Lakehouse Federation lets you query external databases like SQL Server, PostgreSQL, and MySQL directly from Databricks using standard SQL, without... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/unlocking-investment-insights-without-migrating-your-data-lakehouse-federation-9dlbb9d43 og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/9dLBb9D43.png og:image:alt: Unlocking Investment Insights Without Migrating Your Data: Lakehouse Federation og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Unlocking Investment Insights Without Migrating Your Data: Lakehouse Federation **[databricks](https://daily.dev/sources/databricks)** · 6 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary Databricks Lakehouse Federation lets you query external databases like SQL Server, PostgreSQL, and MySQL directly from Databricks using standard SQL, without moving the data. The walkthrough joins a wealth management firm's on-premises portfolio holdings with FactSet market data pulled from the Databricks Marketplace, combining both in Unity Catalog as if they were ordinary tables. A single SQL query powers a dashboard, and a Genie natural-language agent is given the same join chain, re-federating the on-premises source on every refresh. No pipelines, materialized views, or persisted tables are created. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Questions this post answers ### How can I query an on-premises SQL Server database from Databricks without copying the data to the cloud? Databricks Lakehouse Federation creates a connection to external databases like SQL Server, PostgreSQL, MySQL, or Snowflake and lets you query them directly with standard SQL. You set this up via Catalog, External Data, Connections in the Databricks UI, then create a foreign catalog that maps to the on-premises database so it appears as a native Unity Catalog object while the data stays on the source system and every query runs against it live. _Developers wiring hybrid data sources together can track federation patterns like this on daily.dev._ ### Can I join on-premises data with Databricks Marketplace data in a single SQL query? Yes, once a federated catalog from an on-premises source and a shared catalog from the Databricks Marketplace both exist in Unity Catalog, they appear as ordinary tables that a plain SQL query can join across. No pipeline, materialized view, or gold layer is needed; each query re-federates the on-premises source and re-joins it against the marketplace share every time it runs. _Anyone weighing federation versus ETL pipelines can follow these hybrid data patterns on daily.dev._ ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Backstage with Lakebase, part 3](https://daily.dev/posts/backstage-with-lakebase-part-3-ui7hd2faj) · databricks · 4 upvotes · 0 comments - [Cross-cloud conversational analytics with borderless Lakehouse](https://daily.dev/posts/cross-cloud-conversational-analytics-with-borderless-lakehouse-g6rjhqjqv) · Google Cloud · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Databricks wants to merge the two databases every company runs](https://daily.dev/posts/databricks-wants-to-merge-the-two-databases-every-company-runs-mivqdovba) · The New Stack · 2 upvotes · 0 comments - [Real-time energy trading and analytics on Databricks](https://daily.dev/posts/real-time-energy-trading-and-analytics-on-databricks-q2byqs9uq) · databricks · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#sql](https://daily.dev/tags/sql), [#fintech](https://daily.dev/tags/fintech), [#databricks](https://daily.dev/tags/databricks), [#unity-catalog](https://daily.dev/tags/unity-catalog) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/unlocking-investment-insights-without-migrating-your-data-lakehouse-federation-9dlbb9d43) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Unlocking Investment Insights Without Migrating Your Data: Lakehouse Federation","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/unlocking-investment-insights-without-migrating-your-data-lakehouse-federation-9dlbb9d43","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/unlocking-investment-insights-without-migrating-your-data-lakehouse-federation-9dlbb9d43"},"datePublished":"2026-10-27T18:20:54.258Z","dateModified":"2026-10-27T18:28:11.132Z","description":"Databricks Lakehouse Federation lets you query external databases like SQL Server, PostgreSQL, and MySQL directly from Databricks using standard SQL, without...","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/f3bc6a21ae1dcd3e6fd0ef9f2612b105?_a=AQAEuop","thumbnailUrl":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/f3bc6a21ae1dcd3e6fd0ef9f2612b105?_a=AQAEuop","isAccessibleForFree":true,"articleSection":"databricks","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180}},"author":{"@type":"Organization","name":"databricks","logo":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/t_logo,f_auto/v1/logos/fa7aa720f2db4d1eba826814730482c8","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/databricks"},"commentCount":0,"discussionUrl":"https://daily.dev/posts/unlocking-investment-insights-without-migrating-your-data-lakehouse-federation-9dlbb9d43","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":0},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":0}],"keywords":"sql,fintech,databricks,unity-catalog","timeRequired":"PT6M"} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"databricks","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/databricks"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"Unlocking Investment Insights Without Migrating Your Data: Lakehouse Federation"}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"FAQPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/unlocking-investment-insights-without-migrating-your-data-lakehouse-federation-9dlbb9d43#faq","mainEntity":[{"@type":"Question","name":"How can I query an on-premises SQL Server database from Databricks without copying the data to the cloud?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"Databricks Lakehouse Federation creates a connection to external databases like SQL Server, PostgreSQL, MySQL, or Snowflake and lets you query them directly with standard SQL. 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