What's new in Delta Lake 4.0

Delta Lake 4.0 introduces major enhancements focused on reliability, performance, and features that tackle the growing complexity of open data lakehouses. Key changes include new table management options, richer schema evolution, enhanced multi-engine writes, smarter metadata, and streamlined data modeling.​

Delta Connect
Enables Spark client-server architecture support, making it easier and safer to commit writes across cloud environments and multiple engines without relying solely on the underlying file system.​

Open Variant Type and Type Widening:
Variant type allows for efficient handling of semi-structured data (e.g., JSON) and flexible querying. Type widening supports evolving data schemas, such as migrating from INT to LONG, without historical data rewrites.​

Identity Columns:
Tables can automatically generate unique ID columns, easing data modeling by simplifying reference key creation for relational relationships.​

Collations :
Developers will be able to specify sorting and comparison rules, such as language-specific or case-sensitive ordering, at the column level.​

Liquid Clustering
Liquid clustering in Delta Lake is a modern, flexible approach to optimizing data layout for efficient querying and storage. Unlike traditional partitioning and Z-ordering, liquid clustering automatically and incrementally clusters data files according to query patterns, reducing the need for predefined layouts and heavy rewrites when needs chang