What format do data providers use to share their data tables according to the Delta Share Protocol?

Data providers utilizing the Delta Share Protocol share their data tables primarily in the Delta Lake format. This format is designed for handling big data and offers advantages such as ACID transactions, scalable metadata handling, and the capability to work seamlessly with various compute engines like Apache Spark.

Delta Lake enhances data lakes by providing data reliability, ensuring that data remains consistent and easily queryable despite the vast amount of data typically involved. By using the Delta Lake format, data providers can enable better performance and manage large data sets more effectively, which is a crucial requirement in many data environments.

Other formats like CSV, JSON, and XML are commonly used for data exchange, but they do not provide the advanced capabilities and optimizations for transaction management and metadata handling that Delta Lake offers. This distinction makes Delta Lake the correct format for sharing data in this specific context.