slashpeak

Blog

Guides and deep dives on cutting warehouse spend, from the SlashPeak team.

Databricks system table catalog path into ranked cost findings

Diagnosing Databricks costs with system tables

system.query.history and system.compute.warehouses rank full scans, idle warehouses, and shuffle-heavy jobs. SlashPeak never needs SELECT on your tables.

13 min read
Shuffle exchange where every map node sends rows to every reduce node

Databricks Photon shuffle costs and join key layout

Photon speeds up a shuffle join; it does not shrink it. Adaptive execution helps at the edges, but an unclustered join key still burns DBUs every run.

10 min read
Z-order curve versus liquid clustering over Delta files

Z-ordering vs. liquid clustering in Databricks

ZORDER and liquid clustering write min/max stats so Photon can skip files. The wrong columns, or a stale table, means it still reads everything.

10 min read
Databricks SQL warehouse DBU chart with idle auto-stop tail

Databricks SQL warehouses: auto-stop and idle DBUs

A serverless warehouse with a 10-minute auto-stop bills 10 minutes after the last query. Oversizing is a separate leak, and system tables show both.

13 min read
Delta table where every Parquet file is read because the filter misses the file index

Databricks Delta full scans and missed file pruning

A Hive-style partition column only helps once the predicate reaches the file index. WHERE DATE(event_ts) still opens every Parquet file in the table.

16 min read

Take control of your warehouse bill

Understand, reduce and govern your cloud data spend with SlashPeak — starting today.

Start for freeGet a demo
  • 30-day free trial
  • No credit card
  • Read-only access
  • Set up in minutes