Come learn about the latest tools to keep your team under budget and optimize your data ROI. Managing the costs of data consumption, attributing to projects, and understanding TCO is top of mind for customers. We will discuss implementing FinOps, observability around cost management. Workloads, consumption, users, what they worked on - and how to optimize it all.

The session will cover how to use Unity Catalog governed system tables to understand what is happening in Databricks. We will touch on key scenarios for FinOps, DevOps and SecOps to ensure you have a well-observed Data Intelligence Platform. Learn about new developments in system tables and other features that will help you observe your Databricks instance.

Westat, a leader in data-driven research for 60 years+, has implemented a centralized Databricks platform to support hundreds of research projects for government, foundations, and private clients. This initiative modernizes Westat’s technical infrastructure while maintaining rigorous statistical standards and streamlining data science. The platform enables isolated project environments with strict data boundaries, centralized oversight, and regulatory compliance. It allows project-specific customization of compute and analytics, and delivers scalable computing for complex analyses. Key features include config-driven Infrastructure as Code (IaC) with Terragrunt, custom tagging and AWS cost integration for ROI tracking, budget policies with alerts for proactive cost management, and a centralized dashboard with row-level security for self-service cost analytics. This unified approach provides full financial visibility and governance while empowering data teams to deliver value. Audio for this session is delivered in the conference mobile app, you must bring your own headphones to listen.

This session is repeated. You’ve seen your usage grow on Databricks, across departments, use cases, product lines and users. What can you do to ensure your end-users (data practitioners) of the platform remain cost-efficient and productive, while staying accountable to your budget? We’ll discuss spend monitoring, chargeback models and developing a culture of cost efficiency by using Databricks tools.

We will explore how leveraging Databricks' Unity Catalog has accelerated our FinOps maturity, enabling us to optimize platform utilization and achieve significant cost reductions. By implementing Unity Catalog, we've gained comprehensive visibility and governance over our data assets, leading to more informed decision-making and efficient resource allocation. Learn how Corning discovered actionable insights and leveraged best practices on utilizing Unity Catalog to streamline data management, enhance financial operations and drive substantial savings within your organization.

At Kaizen Gaming, data drives our decision-making, but rapid growth exposed inefficiencies in our legacy cloud setup — escalating costs, delayed insights and scalability limits. Operating in 18 countries with 350M daily transactions (1PB+), shared quotas and limited cost transparency hindered efficiency. To address this, we redesigned our cloud architecture with Data Landing Zones, a modular framework that decouples resources, enabling independent scaling and cost accountability. Automation streamlined infrastructure, reduced overhead and enhanced FinOps visibility, while Unity Catalog ensured governance and security. Migration challenges included maintaining stability, managing costs and minimizing latency. A phased approach, Delta Sharing, and DBx Asset Bundles simplified transitions. The result: faster insights, improved cost control and reduced onboarding time, fostering innovation and efficiency. We share our transformation, offering insights for modern cloud optimization.