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What is the purpose of Delta format, and how does it differ from Parquet in terms of storage and querying?

SQLeasy0.5 min readPremium
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Asked at 1 company
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487
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130E|271M|86H
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1,863
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Tredence
Expert AnswerPremium
90 wordsInterview-ready
Delta format: Built on Parquet with transaction log (ACID), time travel, and upserts. Supports MERGE, DELETE, UPDATE. Parquet: Immutable columnar format; append-only; no built-in ACID. Delta adds: schema enforcement, compaction, change data feed. Storage: Both columnar; Delta adds _delta_log. Querying: Delta supports point-in-time reads; Parquet is file-atom. Use Delta for mutable tables, pipelines needing upserts; Parquet for immutable batches....
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