How do you support mission-critical applications and data?

Summary

• Databricks runs mission-critical workloads on a lakehouse architecture with a 99.9% control-plane SLA, multi-availability-zone high availability, and automatic failover, so production data and AI stay online.
• Serverless compute delivers multi-zone failover with no configuration to manage; classic compute automatically distributes cluster nodes across availability zones.
• For operational applications, Lakebase (managed serverless Postgres) offers high availability with automatic failover, zero data loss (RPO 0), up to 35 days of point-in-time recovery, under-10-ms latency, and over 10,000 QPS.
• Cross-region disaster recovery uses multi-workspace deployment, infrastructure-as-code rebuilds, Unity Catalog metadata backup, and Delta table replication to meet your RTO and RPO targets.
• Security and compliance are built in: SOC 2 Type II, HIPAA, FedRAMP High, PCI-DSS, HITRUST, ISO 27001, encryption in transit and at rest, and a published vulnerability-patching SLA.

How does Databricks support mission-critical applications and data?

Mission-critical applications need to stay available, protect every committed transaction, recover quickly from failures, and meet strict security and compliance requirements. The Databricks Data + AI Platform is built for this on a lakehouse architecture: a control plane and compute plane that span multiple availability zones, governed end to end by Unity Catalog, with high availability, disaster recovery, and enterprise security engineered into the platform rather than bolted on. The result is one governed platform where your analytics, AI, and operational applications all run with production-grade reliability.

Why the Databricks Data + AI Platform for mission-critical workloads

• High availability with automatic failover. Databricks offers a 99.9% uptime SLA for the control plane, which is automatically deployed across multiple availability zones with no customer configuration required. If a zone fails, services automatically fail over to healthy zones, typically within a 15-minute recovery time objective (RTO) and with a recovery point objective (RPO) of 0 — no committed data is lost. See Design a high availability strategy.
• Resilient serverless compute. Serverless compute scales automatically with no infrastructure to manage and provides multi-zone failover with no additional configuration. Classic compute distributes cluster nodes across availability zones (deploy workspace subnets across at least two zones, three recommended) so a single-zone outage does not take a cluster down.
• A durable operational database for applications. Lakebase is a fully managed, serverless Postgres database with a separated compute and storage architecture: compute is stateless while all data lives in remote storage that is zone-redundant and regionally durable, protected against single-zone failure. High-availability instances run a hot standby in a separate availability zone with automatic failover that preserves all committed transactions (RPO 0) and needs no connection-string changes. It delivers under-10-ms latency and supports over 10,000 queries per second for high-concurrency transactions.
• Recover to any point in time. Lakebase provides point-in-time recovery across a data-protection window of up to 35 days at millisecond granularity, plus instant restore through copy-on-write, zero-copy branching that clones the database at the current or a previous point in time. Connection pooling supports high-concurrency workloads.
• Disaster recovery across regions. For regional resilience, deploy across regions with the multi-workspace API. Define your RTO and RPO, use infrastructure as code (Terraform or Databricks Asset Bundles) to rebuild workspaces in a DR region, back up and import Unity Catalog metadata, replicate critical Delta tables with DEEP CLONE, and configure cloud storage replication — then test recovery procedures regularly. Databricks also offers a managed disaster-recovery capability (in preview) that orchestrates regional failover of workspaces and workloads.
• Security and compliance built in. The platform encrypts data in transit and at rest and carries a broad set of certifications, including SOC 2 Type II; ISO 27001, 27017, 27018, and 27701; HIPAA; PCI-DSS; HITRUST; IRAP; and ISMAP, with FedRAMP High and DoD Impact Level 5 authorizations on AWS GovCloud. Databricks maintains a vulnerability-patching SLA — Critical within 14 days, High within 30 days, and Medium within 60 days — and the Enhanced Security and Compliance add-on adds CIS Level 1 hardened images, behavior-based malware and file-integrity monitoring, vulnerability reporting, FIPS 140-2 Level 1 validated encryption modules, hardware-enforced encryption, and automatic cluster updates.
• Governed by Unity Catalog. Applications, operational data, and analytical data share one governance model: Unity Catalog enforces consistent access control, auditing, and lineage across the platform, and synced tables keep operational data and lakehouse context in step.

Getting started

• Review Design a high availability strategy and set your target RTO and RPO for each workload.
• Choose serverless compute for automatic multi-zone resilience, or deploy classic compute subnets across at least two availability zones.
• For operational applications, create a high-availability Lakebase instance so agent state and application data get automatic failover and point-in-time recovery.
• Codify your deployment with Terraform or Databricks Asset Bundles so you can rebuild in a DR region, and test recovery procedures on a schedule.
• Read How Lakebase architecture stays resilient to cloud failures for the design details behind zone-redundant, regionally durable storage.

FAQs

What uptime SLA does Databricks provide?

Databricks offers a 99.9% uptime SLA for the control plane, which is deployed across multiple availability zones automatically, with services failing over to healthy zones typically within a 15-minute RTO and 0 RPO.

How does Databricks keep operational applications available?

Lakebase high-availability instances run a hot standby in a separate availability zone with automatic failover that preserves all committed transactions (RPO 0), backed by zone-redundant, regionally durable storage and up to 35 days of point-in-time recovery.

How do I plan for a regional outage?

Deploy across regions with the multi-workspace API, define your RTO and RPO, rebuild workspaces from infrastructure as code, back up and import Unity Catalog metadata, replicate critical Delta tables with DEEP CLONE, and test recovery procedures regularly.

Is Databricks certified for regulated and mission-critical data?

Yes. The platform holds certifications including SOC 2 Type II, ISO 27001, HIPAA, PCI-DSS, HITRUST, IRAP, and ISMAP, with FedRAMP High and DoD Impact Level 5 authorizations on AWS GovCloud, and encrypts data in transit and at rest.

What performance can mission-critical applications expect from Lakebase?

Lakebase delivers under-10-ms latency and supports over 10,000 queries per second for high-concurrency transactions, with connection pooling for demanding operational workloads.