100 Days of Data Engineering Day 92: Performance Tuning and Optimizing DLT Pipelines

Scaling Retail AI with Delta Live Tables

After integrating ML and GenAI into a single intelligent assistant (Days 88–91), we are now operating an advanced data and AI stack on Databricks. But the backbone of this assistant — the data pipelines feeding Customer 360, campaign metrics, GenAI input tables, and model features — must scale reliably and efficiently.

In Day 92, we focus on performance tuning and optimization of Delta Live Tables (DLT) pipelines, the engine powering our unified ML + GenAI assistant.

As a Databricks Solution Architect, I’ll guide you through:

• The role of DLT in our production pipeline
• Techniques to optimize DLT for performance and cost
• Monitoring and troubleshooting practices
• Example configurations using SAP, campaign, and GenAI data flows

DLT in the Unified Assistant Architecture

Here’s how DLT fits into our stack:

SAP / CRM / External APIs
       ↓
Bronze DLT Tables (raw ingestion)
       ↓
Silver DLT Tables (cleaned, joined, enriched)
       ↓
Gold DLT Tables (analytics ready for ML + GenAI)…