Databricks Lakehouse Platform Administrator - Practice Plan¶

Week 1: Workspace and Identity Fundamentals¶

Day 1-2: Account and Workspace Setup¶

• Explore account console vs workspace console
• Create and configure a workspace
• Review workspace settings and feature toggles
• Practice with Databricks CLI basics
• 📖 Administration Guide

Day 3-4: Identity Management¶

• Create users and groups at account level
• Assign users to workspaces
• Configure service principals with OAuth
• Set up entitlements (workspace access, SQL access, cluster creation)
• 📖 Users and Groups

Day 5: Git Integration and Repos¶

• Connect a Git provider to workspace
• Clone a repository, create branches, commit changes
• Configure admin restrictions on Git providers
• 📖 Repos

Week 2: Compute and Data Management¶

Day 1-2: Clusters and Policies¶

• Create all-purpose and job clusters
• Configure auto-scaling (min/max workers)
• Set auto-termination timeout
• Create cluster policies with restrictions (instance types, max workers)
• Assign cluster policies to groups
• 📖 Cluster Policies

Day 3: SQL Warehouses¶

• Create Serverless, Pro, and Classic SQL warehouses
• Configure warehouse scaling (min/max clusters)
• Set auto-stop timeout
• Assign warehouse permissions to groups
• 📖 SQL Warehouses

Day 4-5: Unity Catalog¶

• Explore metastore, catalog, schema hierarchy
• Create managed and external tables
• Create volumes for file management
• Set up external locations and storage credentials
• Grant permissions (SELECT, MODIFY, CREATE TABLE)
• View data lineage in Catalog Explorer
• 📖 Unity Catalog

Week 3: Security and Advanced Topics¶

Day 1-2: Network Security¶

• Review VPC/VNet injection concepts
• Understand Private Link configuration (front-end and back-end)
• Configure IP access lists
• Review network connectivity options (peering, transit gateway)
• 📖 Network Security

Day 3: Encryption and Secrets¶

• Review default encryption vs customer-managed keys
• Create secret scopes and store secrets
• Access secrets from notebooks using dbutils
• Manage secret scope permissions
• 📖 Secrets

Day 4-5: Audit and Monitoring¶

• Enable and configure audit log delivery
• Query system tables for audit events
• Review billing usage via system tables
• Build a simple audit dashboard
• 📖 Audit Logs

Week 4: Exam Preparation¶

Day 1-2: Review and Practice¶

• Review all notes and key concepts
• Focus on weak areas identified during hands-on practice
• Re-read exam guide and domain breakdown

Day 3-4: Scenario Practice¶

• Work through scenarios.md scenario-by-scenario
• Practice identifying correct answers and eliminating distractors
• Review decision trees for common choices

Day 5: Final Review¶

• Quick review of key facts from fact-sheet.md
• Review strategy.md exam tactics
• Ensure you can answer: workspace vs account level, managed vs external, cluster policy constraints

Practice Environment¶

Databricks Community Edition¶

• Free tier for basic practice
• Limited to single-node clusters
• No Unity Catalog, SQL warehouses, or admin features
• Good for notebook and Spark basics

Databricks Trial¶

• 14-day full-featured trial
• Includes Unity Catalog, SQL warehouses
• Best for practicing admin features
• Sign up at databricks.com

Key Commands to Practice¶

# CLI
databricks workspace list /
databricks clusters list
databricks clusters create --json @config.json
databricks secrets create-scope --scope test-scope
databricks secrets put-secret --scope test-scope --key test-key

# SQL (Unity Catalog)
CREATE CATALOG my_catalog;
CREATE SCHEMA my_catalog.my_schema;
GRANT USE CATALOG ON CATALOG my_catalog TO `data-team`;
GRANT SELECT ON SCHEMA my_catalog.my_schema TO `data-team`;
SHOW GRANTS ON SCHEMA my_catalog.my_schema;