​Open table formats promise engine-agnostic data access, but adopting them is costly — each engine must implement and maintain protocol support independently. The Delta Kernel solves this by abstracting the Delta Lake protocol behind a clean API, letting engines plug in their own optimized readers. In this session, we'll explore how ClickHouse integrated delta-kernel-rs into its single-binary, zero-external-dependency C++ build system. We'll cover the Kernel's architecture, the real-world challenges of embedding Rust in a C++ codebase — from static linking and sanitizer support to cross-compilation failures — and what's next!

​Speaker

​Melvyn Peignon is a Product Manager at ClickHouse, focusing on the core database. His background spans real-time analytics, information retrieval, and distributed systems, and he works closely with engineers to translate complex technical challenges into a clear, executable roadmap for the open-source database.

​Host

​Scott Haines is a seasoned software engineer specializing in massive distributed data systems and streaming technologies. Over the past 15 years, he’s built and scaled data infrastructure at leading companies, including Yahoo!, Twilio, Nike, and, currently stepped into a role as a Staff Developer Advocate at Databricks.

Scott was a Databricks Beacon/MVP for five years before joining Databricks, he’s the author of books on Apache Spark and Delta Lake, and makes it his mission to help organizations successfully adopt open-source.