Error creating tables on foreign catalogs in Databricks Lakehouse Federation

You should create tables directly in the external data source and access them through Unity Catalog.

Written by Gihyeon Lee

Last published at: March 3rd, 2025

Problem

You have integrated an external data source (e.g. MySQL, Snowflake, PostgreSQL, etc.) with Databricks using Lakehouse Federation. You can perform read-only queries on the foreign catalog from Unity Catalog, but when you try to create a table on a schema from the foreign catalog you get an error message saying the table cannot be created.

[RequestId=<request-id> ErrorClass=INVALID_PARAMETER_VALUE.CHILD_CREATION_FORBIDDEN_FOR_FOREIGN_SECURABLE] Securable `<table-name>` of type TABLE cannot be created in parent `<schema-name>` of kind SCHEMA_FOREIGN_<external-data-source>.

 

Cause

Lakehouse Federation only supports read operations for external data sources. Write operations, such as creating new schemas and tables, and modifying table contents, are not supported.

 

Solution

To create a new table, you should create it directly from your external data source. After creating the new table, you can use Unity Catalog to access and read the data.

For more information, review the What is Lakehouse Federation? (AWS | Azure | GCP) documentation.