What is the difference between a normal ATL pipeline and a DLT pipeline?

A normal ATL (Azure Data Lake Analytics) pipeline is a batch-oriented, manually orchestrated workflow that runs on a schedule or trigger, typically using U-SQL or Spark jobs. It requires explicit job submission, monitoring, and error handling. A Delta Live Tables (DLT) pipeline, on the other hand, is a managed, incremental data pipeline built on Databricks. DLT automatically handles data ingestion, transformation, and lineage, provides schema enforcement, data quality checks, and automatic retries. It also supports continuous or batch modes and integrates with the Databricks workspace for monitoring. In short, ATL is a traditional, manual batch pipeline, while DLT is a managed, incremental pipeline with built‑in governance and observability.