Compute policies

Compute policies is a Databricks data governance capability, introduced June 2020.

Admin-defined rule sets that limit what compute a user or group can create - fixing, hiding or ranging cluster attributes, capping resources per user and DBUs per hour, and optionally inheriting from a Databricks-provided policy family template.

• The rename never got a release note, and it has not finished happening - the serverless SQL warehouse limitations still say Cluster policies are not supported, in a sentence that links to a page titled Create and manage compute policies. 🔗
• Its own vocabulary got renamed before the feature did - within months the Free form policy type became Unrestricted, and the whitelist and blacklist types became allowlist and blocklist. 🔗
• Policy families are templates you may inherit from and never touch - the docs say flatly that you cannot create, edit, or delete them. 🔗

Category

Data governance

Introduced

June 2020🔗

Also known as

Cluster policies, Cluster policy, Compute policy, Policy families

Verified

2026-09-27