Databricks unifies OLTP and OLAP, depending on what counts as a copy

When Databricks claimed to have cracked an age-old database problem, it came with a clear marketing message: "One data, zero compromises, zero copies." Inevitably, that led engineers to search for clarity. After all, the company claimed to have unified OLTP and OLAP with "no data duplication." Databricks, which was founded around the open source unified analytics engine Apache Spark, called its invention LTAP, which stands for lake transactional/analytical processing.