Snowflake Unveils the Data Cloud So Organizations Can Connect, Collaborate, and Deliver Value With Data
June 2, 2020
Snowflake, the cloud data platform, today unveiled the Data Cloud – an ecosystem where thousands of Snowflake customers, partners, data providers, and data service providers can break down data silos, derive insights, and deliver value from rapidly growing data sets in secure, governed, compliant, and seamless ways. Snowflake also announced new product features for Snowflake Cloud Data platform – the technology that unites this data ecosystem and powers the Data Cloud.
The Data Cloud provides many opportunities around data. Governments, healthcare organizations, and businesses have used COVID-19 data sets available on Snowflake to help them navigate the global pandemic, including their efforts to control its spread, anticipate where crucial resources are needed, and determine when to relax social distancing measures, while avoiding future outbreaks. To learn about this and other recent use cases, click here.
The Data Cloud will continue to grow as organizations move their data siloed in cloud-based repositories and in on-premises data centers to the Data Cloud. These organizations gain access to the Data Cloud via the Snowflake Cloud Data Platform, which scales instantly and near-infinitely, enabling any organization to operate seamlessly across different cloud providers and their regions, all in a governed manner.
“Organizations have historically struggled to fully mobilize data in the service of their business,” Snowflake CEO, Frank Slootman said. “Snowflake was specifically architected to leverage the incredible scale and computing power of the cloud. As part of the Data Cloud, organizations fully mobilize their data by blending and joining data with broader context, giving them the power to achieve crucial insights beyond what has previously been possible.”
Snowflake has also developed a multitude of new features for Snowflake Cloud Data Platform, including:
Snowsight – A new analyst experience within Snowflake to execute queries and commands against Snowflake, including SQL auto-complete, collaboration, visualizations, and dashboards for a streamlined experience.
Dynamic Data Masking – Create masking policies for data, so users see data with varying levels of fidelity based on their permissions.
External Tokenization – Integration with third-party tokenization solutions for increased protection of sensitive data.
Search Optimization Service – Dramatically improved performance for point lookup queries on large tables of data.
External Functions – Use Snowflake to call external services for richer query support and to build robust data pipelines that integrate with third-party libraries or services.
Java UDFs – Leverage Snowflake to run business logic developed in Java, bringing computation closer to data.
Organizations – Centrally operate and manage multiple Snowflake accounts with ease, including provisioning and managing accounts across multiple clouds.
Data Exchange – Create your own data exchange to seamlessly and securely share live, governed data with other business units, partners, suppliers, or customers. Eliminate data silos in your ecosystem, empowering your organization and business partners to securely access your data sets without having to move, copy, or transfer that data.
Snowflake Data Marketplace – Discover and access third-party data sets that are ready to query from your Snowflake account. Snowflake Data Marketplace allows consumers to access a single, live copy of data. No copying files, no moving data, and no delays.
“The feature enhancements we’re announcing today will help companies unify, integrate, analyze, and share virtually any amount of data, eliminating the complexity and friction of alternative solutions,” Snowflake’s Senior Vice President of Product, Christian Kleinerman said. “In addition, the Snowflake Cloud Data Platform gives our customers access to the Data Cloud, so they can achieve new levels of success as members of a global ecosystem of data consumers, providers, and service providers.”
Customers such as DoorDash,a US based on-demand logistics platform, and Rakuten Rewards, which operates leading cash back site Rakuten, leverage Snowflake’s single, integrated platform for strategic business planning and decision-making. DoorDash is also an early user of Snowflake’s just-announced Snowsight feature.
“What stands out the most about Snowflake’s Snowsight feature is its speed and simplicity,” DoorDash Data Product Manager, Brian Lu said. “The product is ultimately a very fast, very simple, and very clean interface that people love. By having charts and dashboards as native components of Snowsight, our team can write a query, create a chart very quickly, customize it, and send it out seamlessly to investigate a new data anomaly or trend we’re seeing. Snowflake as a data platform gives us the ability to make fast, effective, data-driven decisions with confidence, on a daily basis.”
“We use data in almost every aspect of the business, from all of our business planning teams all the way down through product analytics, into our member services team, and into our sales team, so everything is a data-focused, data-driven decision,” Rakuten Rewards VP of Analytics, Mark Stange-Tregear said. “With data insights as a core focus for our organization, we’re always looking for ways to consolidate and simplify our ecosystem. Snowflake’s platform-as-a-service makes that possible in a cost-efficient and scalable way.”
