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Overview

Hightouch lets you pull data stored in your Lakebase data warehouse and push it to downstream destinations. Most of the setup occurs in the Hightouch UI, but you need access to your Lakebase instance for information like your host, port, database name, and credentials.
You may need to allowlist Hightouch’s IP addresses to let our systems connect to your warehouse. Reference our networking docs to determine which IP addresses you need to allowlist.

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Connection configuration

Hightouch officially supports Lakebase versions 1.0 and above. While some features may still work with earlier versions, compatibility isn’t guaranteed, and future updates might introduce changes affecting older versions. To get started, go to the Sources overview page and click the Add source button. Select Lakebase and follow the steps below.

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Choose connection type

Hightouch can connect directly to Lakebase over the public internet or via an SSH tunnel. Since data is encrypted in transit via TLS, a direct connection is suitable for most use cases. You may need to set up a tunnel if your Lakebase instance is on a private network or virtual private cloud (VPC). Direct connection vs. SSH tunnel Hightouch supports both standard and reverse SSH tunnels. To learn more about SSH tunneling, refer to Hightouch’s tunneling documentation.

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Configure your source

Enter the following required fields into Hightouch:
  • Host: The hostname or IP address of your Lakebase server.
  • Port: The port number of your Lakebase server. The default port number is 5432, but yours may be different.
  • Database: This specifies the database to use when Hightouch executes queries in Lakebase.
For authentication setup instructions, refer to the Databricks Lakebase authentication documentation.

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Choose your sync engine

For optimal performance, Hightouch tracks incremental changes in your data model—such as added, changed, or removed rows—and only syncs those records. You can choose between two different sync engines for this work. The Basic engine requires read-only access to Lakebase. Hightouch executes a query in your database, reads all query results, and then determines incremental changes using Hightouch’s infrastructure. This engine is easier to set up since it requires read—not write—access to Lakebase. The Lightning engine requires read and write access to Lakebase. The engine stores previously synced data in a separate schema in Lakebase managed by Hightouch. In other words, the engine uses Lakebase to track incremental changes to your data rather than performing these calculations in Hightouch. Therefore, these computations are completed more quickly. Standard vs Lightning engine comparison
Hightouch recommends using the Lightning sync engine when syncing more than 100,000 rows of data.
If you select the Basic engine, you can switch to the Lightning engine later. Once you’ve configured the Lightning engine, you can’t move back to the Basic engine without recreating Lakebase as a source. To learn more, including migration steps and tips, check out the Lightning sync engine docs.

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Basic versus Lightning engine comparison

The Lightning sync engine requires granting write access to your data warehouse, which makes its setup more involved than the Basic sync engine. However, it is more performant and reliable than the Basic engine. This makes it the ideal choice to guarantee faster syncs, especially with large data models. It also supports more features, such as Warehouse Sync Logs, Match Booster, and Identity Resolution.

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Lightning engine setup

To set up the Lightning engine, you need to grant Hightouch write access to Lakebase. You can do so by running the following SQL snippet.
The snippet creates a dedicated Lakebase user for Hightouch. It also provisions two schemas (hightouch_planner and hightouch_audit) for storing logs of previously synced data.

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Provide credentials

Enter the following fields into Hightouch:
  • User: This can be your personal Lakebase login or a dedicated user for Hightouch. At minimum, this user must have read access to the data you wish to sync. If using the Lightning sync engine, you must also grant this user additional permissions as described above.
  • Password: The password for the user specified above.

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Test your connection

When setting up a source for the first time, Hightouch validates the following:
  • Network connectivity
  • Lakebase credentials
  • Permission to list schemas and tables
  • Permission to write to hightouch_planner schema
  • Permission to write to hightouch_audit schema
All configurations must pass the first three, while those with the Lightning engine must pass all of them. Some sources may initially fail connection tests due to timeouts. Once a connection is established, subsequent API requests should happen more quickly, so it’s best to retry tests if they first fail. You can do this by clicking Test again. If you’ve retried the tests and verified your credentials are correct but the tests are still failing, don’t hesitate to .

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Create models

Once your source configuration has passed the necessary validation, your source setup is complete. Next, you can set up models to define which data you want to pull from Lakebase. The Lakebase source supports these modeling methods: You may also want to consider storing sync logs in Lakebase. Like using the Lightning sync engine versus the standard one, this feature lets you use Lakebase instead of Hightouch infrastructure. Rather than performance gains, it makes your sync log data available for more complex analysis. Refer to the warehouse sync logs docs to learn more.
You must enable the Lightning sync engine to store sync logs in your warehouse.

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Tips and troubleshooting

If you run into an issue this page doesn’t cover, .
Last modified on January 27, 2025