Clarification on DEA Certification Content Updates and Unity Catalog Requirement

[AyubkhanNazar]

Hello,

I currently hold the Databricks Data Engineer Associate (DEA) certification, which I passed in September 2024. I am planning to revisit the material since I have not been working with Databricks for a long time.

While reviewing the updated course content, I noticed that Unity Catalog seems to be missing from the current training materials, whereas it was included in the previous version of the course. However, the latest exam guide still mentions Unity Catalog as a required topic.

Could someone please clarify whether Unity Catalog is still part of the DEA exam scope and how candidates should prepare for it based on the updated course content.

Thank you.

[Louis_Frolio · Accepted solution]

Greetings @AyubkhanNazar , 

You’re absolutely right to double-check this. Unity Catalog is still in scope for the current Databricks Certified Data Engineer Associate (DEA) exam, under the Data Governance & Quality domain, which makes up 11% of the exam weighting.

What changed in the training

It’s completely normal that the updated learning path shows less Unity Catalog inside the core data engineering course itself. UC prep has been pulled out and is now surfaced as a dedicated self-paced module called “Data Management and Governance with Unity Catalog.” You’ll see it listed on the official DEA certification page as related training, and it’s also called out on our internal certification resources page. Net effect: less duplication in the core course, not less coverage on the exam.

Exactly what to study for Unity Catalog on the DEA

Based on the latest exam guide, you should be comfortable with the following UC topics:

• The difference between managed and external tables.

• How permissions work in Unity Catalog, including granting access to users and groups (for example, GRANT SELECT on schemas, tables, or views), plus general awareness of key UC roles.

• Where audit logs live and how they’re used at a basic, conceptual level.

• Using lineage features in Unity Catalog.

• Delta Sharing with UC: how sharing works, Databricks-to-Databricks vs external systems, high-level advantages and limitations, and cost considerations across clouds.

• Lakehouse Federation: when and why you’d use it for external sources, framed at a conceptual/use-case level.

How to prepare efficiently

If you want to be smart and time-efficient about this:

• Start with the official exam guide and re-check it about two weeks before your test date. It’s always the source of truth for scope changes.

• Take the Academy module “Data Management and Governance with Unity Catalog” as part of the DEA related training lineup.

• Do a light hands-on refresher in a workspace:

– Create a managed table and an external table and compare behavior.

– Practice GRANT and REVOKE on a schema and a table.

– View lineage for a dataset.

– Walk through setting up a simple Delta Share to an external recipient, aligned to the exam’s conceptual expectations.

If you want a single anchor link, the public DEA certification page is here. Check the “Related Training” section for the UC module:

https://www.databricks.com/learn/certification/data-engineer-associate

Hope this helps, Louis.

[Steven_Z]

Hi,

It seems like the course "Data Management and Governance with Unity Catalog" has been retired. More information can be found on Databrick's website: Data Management and Governance with Unity Catalog | Databricks.

It does list "Get Started with Data Governance on Databricks" and "DevOps Essentials for Data Engineering" as replacement courses. 

I am not sure what this means for the Data Engineering Associate exam. The exam page still lists the Unity Catalog module as related training.

If anyone has additional information about the exam that would be appreciated.

Thanks.