ETL vs ELT — Why Notebook Placement Matters Body / Content: Yes — the placement of your Databricks

Question

ETL vs ELT — Why Notebook Placement Matters

Body / Content:

The placement of your Databricks notebooks determines whether your pipeline behaves like ETL or ELT.

• If Databricks runs after loading data into the lake, it’s ELT.

• If Databricks runs

before loading transformed data, it’s ETL.

Business Analogy:

• Clean vegetables before putting them in the fridge → ETL

• Dump everything in the fridge and clean later → ELT

Architecture Mapping:

• RAW → BRONZE in ADF = Extract + Load (EL)

• SILVER → GOLD in Data-bricks = Transform (T)

✅ This makes your pipeline ELT, the modern standard:

• Cheap storage Scalable compute Delta Lake supports late
  transformations

Notebooks preserve raw data and give flexibility