topic Re: switching to Databrick from Ab Initio (an old ETL software)- NEED ADVICE in Data Engineering

switching to Databrick from Ab Initio (an old ETL software)- NEED ADVICE

pop_smoke — Sat, 06 Sep 2025 13:35:52 GMT

All courses in market and on youtube as per my knowledge for databrick is outdated as those courses are for community edition. there is no new course for free edition of databrick. i am a working profession and i do not get much time. do you guys know any new updated course so that i do not waste my time going for random course? or any particular source that you liked a lot for free edition of databrick? This is totally different topic but i need help

Thank you

Re: switching to Databrick from Ab Initio (an old ETL software)- NEED ADVICE

BS_THE_ANALYST — Sat, 06 Sep 2025 17:06:32 GMT

@pop_smoke, there's plenty of options here.

Personally, I found studying for an official databricks certification to be a great help. This gets you well-rounded with the latest and greatest features + it's streamlined.

You come from ETL, naturally, that'll lend itself to Data Analysis and Data Engineering. You've built pipelines before as part of doing ETL.

I'd advice that you do the following certifications:
Data Analysis Associate followed by Data Engineering Associate.
https://www.databricks.com/learn/certification/data-analyst-associate
https://www.databricks.com/learn/certification/data-engineer-associate

Can you check if you're work/employer is a Databricks partner? If they are, you can be eligible to access the Partner Academy on there you'll find the follow as a partner benefit:

You can also pay for these as a customer, I believe. These aren't the only route for learning. If you click on the links I've provided above, they should tell you the courses to search for & you'll find that in the exam prep guides. You'll find these courses in the Customer Academy or Partner Academy (depending on what one you fall into).

You can also look into the Databricks Labs. You can either pay per lab or get an annual subscription which gives you access to all of them. What do they provide that the Free Edition does not? A preconfigured environment with all the material and notebooks available for you to learn from. If you're like me, and often strapped for time, they're well worth it. There's loads of labs and it's based on the content you're learning.

If you're on a budget and this is something you're pursuing outside of work and work can't provide funding etc, consider going on Udemy, getting a personal subscription for like £25 a month and get access to all the top courses. You'll be able to follow "non-official" databricks learning content on there. You could find paths for Data Analysis and Data Engineering. You obviously can't guarantee these align "exactly" with the exams, nor will they provide environments/labs, and the content could be outdated. However, they're probably built for things like the "Free Edition" where they'll provide downloadable content for you to upload into your own environment to learn.

That'd be my two cents on the matter. Feel free to ask any questions, happy to help @pop_smoke.

For what it's worth, I've recently passed the Data Analyst certification & written up an article with my steps taken https://community.databricks.com/t5/community-articles/zero-to-hero-data-analysis-certification/m-p/131024#M653

All the best,
BS

Re: switching to Databrick from Ab Initio (an old ETL software)- NEED ADVICE

BS_THE_ANALYST — Sat, 06 Sep 2025 17:31:47 GMT

@pop_smoke keep your eyes out for this aswell:

I just saw this on Linkedin:

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/databricks_join-the-databricks-virtual-learning-festival-activity-7370143251149996032-PmjH?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop&rcm=ACoAAB_WnWYB_LOa8UpzFFvLyXf5ZrQa2xX6_lI

All the best,
BS

Re: switching to Databrick from Ab Initio (an old ETL software)- NEED ADVICE

pop_smoke — Sat, 06 Sep 2025 20:16:22 GMT

thank you . i will keep checking it.

i know about certifications. and i will give it once i get a little practical on free edition. there are lot of videos and study material for old version of databrick (community version). but after free edition came then nobody has updated the course. i checked udemy also . those course are outdated . i have the subscription.

Re: switching to Databrick from Ab Initio (an old ETL software)- NEED ADVICE

markjvickers-im — Sat, 17 Jan 2026 21:05:00 GMT

@pop_smoke What were the arguments that swayed your organization to swtich to Databricks from Ab Initiio?
Pure cost basis?