Unity Catalog is set up for multi region

[Phani1]

Hello Team,

I need some clarification on the below diagram . According to the documentation, the Unity Catalog is set up for each region. If we are using multiple clouds, the diagram shows only one Unity Catalog across regions. Shouldn't there be two Unity Catalogs instead?

Regards,

Janga

[-werners-]

There are indeed 2 metastores, as displayed in the picture, buth use UC.
The different metastores are not merged into one single metastore.
If one needs access to the other you can use Delta Sharing

https://docs.databricks.com/en/data-governance/unity-catalog/best-practices.html

https://docs.databricks.com/en/data-governance/unity-catalog/best-practices.html#share-data-securely...

[ShankarM]

does this mean each metastore is a UC setup for each region?

[-werners-]

yes, the metastore is the root, linked to physical storage.  for each metastore one has to define catalogs, schemas, tables, volumes, permissions etc.
Perhaps in the future databricks will add a META-metastore, over regions, but afaik that is not yet in the pipeline.

[ShankarM]

thanks for your reply. So shall i assume that each metastore is a UC in the diagram for each region?

[-werners-]

Yes, the reason why they are grouped into a single rectangle is probably to show that they both are Unity Catalog enabled. It can indeed be confusing, represented like that.
If you want to let them connect to each other, delta sharing or metastore federation (or even define one as an external location) is the way to go.