Create a serverless workspace

A serverless workspace is a workspace deployed in your Databricks account that comes pre-configured with serverless compute and default storage, providing a fully-managed, enterprise-ready SaaS experience.

Serverless workspaces are ideal for many use cases. They can be a production-level environment for organizations that exclusively use serverless compute, or a composable, short-lived environment for internal training and testing. Additionally, account admins without permission to provision traditional cloud infrastructure can still deploy and manage serverless workspaces.

For guidance on how to use serverless workspaces, see Best practices for serverless workspaces.

Requirements

• The serverless workspace must be deployed in a region that supports serverless compute. See Serverless availability.

• Serverless workspaces are only available in Databricks accounts enabled for the serverless workspaces Private Preview.

Enable the serverless workspace preview

To enroll your account in the serverless workspaces Private Preview, reach out to your Azure Databricks account team.

After your account is enrolled, an account admin must enable the preview:

1. Log in to the account console.
2. Click Previews.
3. Turn Serverless workspaces to On.

Compute in serverless workspaces

All workloads in serverless workspaces are powered by serverless compute. Serverless compute uses environment versions instead of traditional Databricks Runtime versions. This allows Azure Databricks to deliver performance improvements, security enhancements, and bug fixes without requiring any code changes to workloads.

For information about the types of serverless compute available on Azure Databricks, see Connect to serverless compute.

Storage in serverless workspaces

Serverless workspaces come with default storage. Default storage provides you with a fully managed storage location that you can use in your workspace. For more information about default storage, see Default storage in Databricks.

Using data in your cloud storage

You can also create a connection between a cloud storage account and your serverless workspace. Among other things, this allows you to ingest raw data into your workspace, create and read managed tables in secure cloud storage, create external tables, and read and write unstructured data.

For instructions, see Connect to cloud object storage using Unity Catalog.

Create a serverless workspace

After your account is enabled for the serverless workspaces Private Preview, you can create a serverless workspace from your Azure portal.

1. In the Azure portal, search for and select Azure Databricks.
2. Click +Create to create a new workspace.
3. Select a resource group or create a new one.
4. Enter a workspace name.
5. Select the desired region.
6. For Workspace type, select Serverless to create a new serverless workspace.
7. If you would like to set up customer-managed keys, click Next: Encryption and set up a key for managed services.
8. Click Review + create.
9. Click Create.

Configure customer-managed keys

For serverless workspaces, you only need to configure customer-managed keys for managed services. The key for DBFS root is not applicable because storage in serverless workspaces is a managed service. The key for managed services encrypts data in the workspace catalogs and the workspace root storage.

Additionally, keys for Azure managed disks do not apply because serverless workspaces only support serverless compute. Disks for serverless compute resources are short-lived and tied to the lifecycle of the serverless workload.

For instructions, see Enable customer-managed keys for managed services.

Serverless workspace limitations

Serverless workspaces are limited by both serverless compute limitations and default storage limitations:

• For a list of serverless compute limitations, see Serverless compute limitations.
• For a list of default storage limitations, see Limitations.