New feature
GA
Unity Catalog managed Iceberg tables
Unity Catalog managed Iceberg tables is a Databricks data engineering capability, introduced June 2025.
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.
- Sharing them only caught up in August 2026, and when it did it went the whole way - providers can share a managed Iceberg table not just Databricks-to-Databricks but straight out to external Iceberg clients.
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
- Also known as
- managed Iceberg tables, Iceberg managed tables, UC Iceberg
- Verified
- 2026-08-20