Azure – Can we use Microsoft Purview and Unity Catalog together

Unity Catalog is the Azure Databricks data governance solution for the Lakehouse. Whereas, Microsoft Purview provides a unified data governance solution to help manage and govern your on-premises, multicloud, and software as a service (SaaS) data.

Question: In our same Azure Cloud project, can we use Unity Catalog for the Azure Databricks Lakehouse, and use Microsoft Purview for the rest of our Azure project?

Update: In our current Azure subscription, we have divided workload as follows:

1. SQL related workload: we are doing all our SQL database work using Databricks only (no Azure SQL databases are involved). That is, we are using Databricks Lakehouse, Delta Lake, Deatricks SQL etc. to perform ETL and all Data Analytics work.
2. All Non-SQL workload: All other assets (Excel files, csv files, pdf, media files etc.) are stored in various Azure storage accounts.

MS Purview is doing a good job in scanning assets in scenario 2 above, and it easily creates a holistic, up-to-date map of our data landscape with automated data discovery, sensitive data classification, and end-to-end data lineage. It also enables our data consumers to access valuable, trustworthy data management.

However, our almost 50% of the work (SQL, ETL, Data Analytics etc.) is done in Azure Databricks where we have significant challenges with Purview. We were wondering if it’s possible to keep Purview and Unity Catalog separate as follows: Purview does its Data Governance work for scenario 1 only and Unity Catalog does its Data Governance work for scenario 2 only.

This recently released update may resolve our issue of making Purview work better with Azure Databricks but we have not tried it yet: Connect to and manage Azure Databricks in Microsoft Purview (Preview)