# Synapse to Databricks

> TechFabric migrates Azure Synapse estates to Databricks with TechFabric Airlift. The first two weeks are the Migration Readiness Sprint. Dedicated SQL, serverless SQL, Spark pools and the Azure Data Factory pipelines around them are inventoried separately, because they do not convert as one thing. Lakebridge handles the T-SQL it can. Distribution styles, PolyBase and the ADF graph stay with a person.

Source: Azure Synapse
For: Teams leaving Azure Synapse whose dedicated pool, Spark and ADF still live as three projects
Length: Two weeks
Canonical: https://www.techfabric.com/databricks/from-synapse

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Know what the Synapse estate contains before you pick a date

A Synapse migration is rarely one platform. Dedicated SQL pools, serverless SQL, Spark pools and the Data Factory pipelines that feed them each fail in a different place. Two weeks on TechFabric Airlift inventories all of it and writes down what is in scope.

## What we look at

- Dedicated SQL pools: tables, distributions, stored procedures and the T-SQL that assumes them
- Serverless SQL databases and the external tables they sit on
- Spark pools, notebooks and libraries that will not run unchanged on Databricks runtime
- Azure Data Factory pipelines, triggers and linked services that have to move with the data
- PolyBase, CETAS and COPY paths, and what they become under Lakeflow or Auto Loader
- Synapse RBAC plus SQL permissions, and what that map looks like under Unity Catalog

## What a person still has to do

- HASH and ROUND_ROBIN distributions have no equivalent to paste. Partitioning on Delta is a design choice.
- Stored procedures in T-SQL stay in the residue. Lakebridge will not turn a procedure into a pipeline.
- ADF graphs become Lakeflow or Databricks Jobs. The dependencies have to be redrawn, not imported.
- Synapse Spark notebooks need a Databricks runtime pass. Libraries and cluster shapes change.
- PolyBase and CETAS become an ingestion path we choose, not a converted statement.

## Questions

### Can you migrate Azure Synapse to Databricks?

Yes. Synapse is one of the implemented Airlift routes. The first two weeks are the Migration Readiness Sprint at /databricks/migration-readiness. Dedicated SQL, serverless SQL, Spark and ADF are scoped as separate surfaces, not as one warehouse.

### Do we have to move the Data Factory pipelines as well?

Usually, because they are how the data arrives. The sprint names every pipeline that writes into the estate and every one that reads out of it. Some stay on ADF and point at Databricks. Some move. That is an exclusion or a wave, written down, not a surprise in month four.

### Our dedicated pool is the only thing we want to leave. Is that enough?

It can be, if the consumers and the ADF graph are willing to follow. The sprint will tell you whether they are. Leaving the Spark pools and moving only the dedicated pool is a legitimate scope, as long as someone signs the exclusions.

### Does the sprint commit us to leaving Synapse?

No. It is fixed fee and it ends with a recommendation. The point of week two is to know whether a date is honest.