Will a table backed by a SQL server database table automatically get updated if the base table in SQL server database is updated?

[andrew0117]

If I creat a table using the code below: CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS jdbcTable

using org.apache.spark.sql.jdbc

options(

url "sql_server_url",

dbtable "sqlserverTable",

user "username",

password "password"

)

will jdbcTable always be automatically synchronized with sqlserverTable? Thanks!

[pvignesh92 · Accepted solution]

Hi @andrew li​ There is a feature introduced from DBR11 where you can directly ingest the data to the table from a selected list of sources. As you are creating a table, I believe this command will create a managed table by loading the data from the sqlserver table to your default warehouse location. Please do DESCRIBE EXTENDED and check the path to see if you have data in there. If there is data, it is not going to sync automatically.

Can you try creating a View with the same way and see what happens there?

Please refer the below link

https://docs.databricks.com/external-data/jdbc.html

AFAIK, DBSQL and Delta lake supports external table on S3 layer like hive external table. The table automatically pickups the data when loaded in S3 layer.

[andrew0117]

yes, I thought the internal table stored at hive warehouse will not get updated automatically. But to my surprise, the table was synchronized immediately after I manually updated the source table in azure Sql server database.

[pvignesh92]

@andrew li​ That's interesting. I'm curious to try this out and get an answer on how does the Databricks layer know that the source is updated? As it is pull based ingestion pattern, the trigger should be from DBx.