Busting SQL Migration Myths: How New SQL Features Make Lift-and-Shift to Lakehouse Easier
New Databricks SQL Scripting features enable direct lift-and-shift migrations of legacy PL/SQL, allowing teams to translate procedures, cursors, temp tables, and transactions line for line without rewriting business logic. Once migrated, these procedures retain their original control flow while gaining built-in Unity Catalog lineage and access control.
- The cursor resides in the procedure scheduled to run every night. The temp table no one documented. The transaction that bundles three updates and rolls back if any one fails. All of it migrates now, line for line. - You translate the procedure. You don't rewrite it. PL/SQL maps to Databricks SQL Scripting piece by piece, same business logic, same control flow, same SQL team. - The procedure ends up in Unity Catalog with lineage and access control. Governance the original schema never had.