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New feature GA

Unity Catalog managed Iceberg tables

Unity Catalog managed Iceberg tables is a Databricks data engineering capability, introduced May 2026.

Apache Iceberg tables created and fully managed by Unity Catalog, readable and writable by external Iceberg engines through the Unity Catalog Iceberg REST Catalog API.

  • These Iceberg tables are managed by Unity Catalog yet fully read/write to outside engines like Trino and Flink - through a REST catalog that even hands out temporary storage credentials.
  • The managed Iceberg tables still get Databricks perks like liquid clustering, predictive optimization, and materialized views.

Limitations: Path-based access isn't supported except in Compatibility Mode (which bypasses Unity Catalog access controls), managed Iceberg tables support only deep cloning (not shallow clone), and transactions that write to managed Iceberg tables are in Private Preview.

Open in REbricked →
Category
Data engineering
Introduced
May 2026
Announced at
GA May 21, 2026
Also known as
managed Iceberg tables, Iceberg managed tables, UC Iceberg
Verified
2026-07-23

Sources

Related in Data engineering