In short
Visian designs and industrialises Databricks lakehouses: bronze, silver, gold architecture, Unity Catalog, pipelines and MLOps, cluster cost control. Databricks suits teams that combine data engineering, Python and large-scale machine learning.
Databricks
The technology
Databricks is a lakehouse platform built on Apache Spark and Delta Lake. It brings data engineering, analytics and machine learning together on the same storage, with Unity Catalog for governance.
Databricks offers a lot of freedom. Without conventions, notebooks multiply, tables are duplicated and cluster costs drift. Value comes from industrialisation: versioned code, orchestrated jobs, a single catalogue.
Commitments
Visian engagements on Databricks
- Lakehouse architecture (bronze, silver, gold) and Unity Catalog set-up
- Migration from Hadoop or an existing data lake
- Industrialisation: CI/CD, jobs, quality tests, observability
- MLOps: model tracking with MLflow, deployment to production
- Compute cost optimisation
These engagements are part of the Data platformexpertise, on a fixed-price, time-and-materials or service-centre basis.
Comparison
Databricks, Snowflake and Fabric
| Criterion | Snowflake | Databricks | Microsoft Fabric |
|---|---|---|---|
| Philosophy | Governed SQL platform with no infrastructure to manage | Open workshop for bespoke data engineering and AI | Integrated SaaS analytics suite for Microsoft 365 and Power BI |
| Billing | Compute consumed (credits) | Compute consumed (DBUs) | Reserved capacity |
| Team profile | SQL analysts and engineers | Data engineers, data scientists (Python, Spark) | BI and Power BI teams |
| Open formats | Iceberg | Delta Lake, Iceberg | Delta Lake (OneLake) |
Source: Visian white paper Snowflake, Databricks or Fabric? (in French, October 2026).
Key figures
Facts and figures
- 350 data & AI consultants and 120+ projects delivered since 2016 (Visian, 2026).
- 98% of FinOps teams manage AI costs in 2026, up from 31% in 2024, and 72% of organisations had an unexpected AI bill spike during the year (Visian white paper FinOps Data & IA, 2026).
Frequently asked questions
Databricks: FAQ
Is Unity Catalog needed from the start?
Yes, in most cases: it centralises permissions, traceability and data discovery. Adding it later requires migrating tables and permissions.
Is Databricks suitable for BI?
Yes, through Databricks SQL and the Power BI or Tableau connectors. For BI-only use, a simpler SQL warehouse may suffice.