Course Prerequisites

Welcome back. In this part, let's talk about what you need before starting this course.

We will cover two things:

1. What skills you should already have.
2. What resources (accounts, tools) you will need to follow along.

Skills You Should Already Have

1. Working knowledge of Apache Spark

This course does not teach Apache Spark. You should already know it — DataFrames, Spark transformations, and basic Spark SQL syntax. These are things you should walk in with, not learn here.

2. Comfortable with Python and SQL

This course does not teach Python or SQL either. You will use Python and SQL throughout the course, and especially in the capstone project. So, you should already be comfortable writing code in both.

Resources You Will Need

1. A Databricks free account

Most of this course runs on the Databricks free account, and we cover how to set it up. This alone is enough for around 70–80% of the course.

2. An AWS account (for some parts)

Some features and capabilities need Databricks Premium running on AWS. For that, you will need an AWS account too. Here's the good news — an AWS free tier account is enough for this.

You will also need Databricks Premium on AWS. Databricks offers a 14-day free trial with $400 in credits, which should be enough to cover this course.

So here's the bottom line: you don't need to spend any money to learn this course. The AWS free tier, plus the 14-day Databricks trial, should cover everything. Just keep in mind — if you take longer than 14 days and keep using it beyond that, you may incur some moderate cost.

3. Or — skip AWS and Databricks Premium altogether

Here's an alternative, if you'd rather not set up AWS at all: you can skip it completely.

• 70–80% of this course runs entirely on the Databricks free account.
• The remaining 20–30%, which needs AWS and Databricks Premium, you can simply watch in the videos instead of doing hands-on.

This is a completely acceptable way to take the course. You won't lose out on the learning in any meaningful way.

What You Don't Need

• No prior Databricks knowledge. This course starts from scratch, assuming you've never touched Databricks before.
• Git and command line basics are helpful, especially for the CI/CD, deployment, and Databricks Asset Bundle (DAB) modules. But they are not required — these are simple things, and the course teaches you what you need along the way.

Summary

That's everything you need. I'm waiting to see you in the course.

Keep learning, and keep growing!