5 Benefits of Snowflake Cloud Services for Your Brand

Many of the most successful modern businesses use cloud platforms and technologies to facilitate faster client solutions and greater data security. But some cloud platforms are certainly better than others.

In this article, we’ll take a look at Snowflake cloud services, how they work, and the benefits of using the Snowflake data cloud for your business. 

What is Snowflake?

Put simply, Snowflake is a cloud-native platform that unifies and connects several data and computational layers into a single, cohesive solution. Snowflake is one of the most pioneering data cloud companies, and its Data Cloud platform has already become a popular tool among brands of all sizes.

How Does the Snowflake Data Cloud Work?

At its core, the Snowflake Data Cloud is a cloud data platform built atop popular cloud infrastructure, including Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure, and Amazon Web Services.

With the Snowflake Data Cloud, companies don't have to install any hardware or software, and they don’t have to manage any key settings. Therefore, it can be used by businesses that don't have the resources necessary to set up and maintain in-house servers.

The Snowflake Data Cloud works thanks to the way its architecture and data-sharing layers are designed. Through the Data Cloud, storage and compute resources can scale independently, meaning that clients or customers can pay for storage and computation processes as they need or as they go.

More importantly, client companies can very quickly and securely share governed and secure data in real-time when needed.

The Three Layers of the Snowflake Data Cloud

The Snowflake Data Cloud is comprised of three major layers; here’s a breakdown of each layer one by one.

Database Storage Layer

The database storage layer decouples storage and compute resources. As a result, a business that has very high storage needs but less computational needs doesn’t have to pay for compute resources it won’t use. The reverse is true, of course, for companies that do need a lot of computation but less storage.

The database storage layer holds all of the data loaded into the Snowflake data platform, including both semi-structured and unstructured data.

Compute Layer

Meanwhile, the compute layer is made up of several virtual warehouses that can execute various computational and data-processing tasks. Every cluster can access any of the data in the storage layer and work separately.

As a result, companies can take advantage of automatic scaling for computational needs.

Cloud Services Layer

Last is the cloud services layer, which provides automation, metadata management, and optimization services. This layer uses ANSI SQL, coordinating the system. Authentication, access control, and query parsing or optimization are just a handful of the things clients can do when using this layer.

Benefits of Snowflake Cloud Services

Companies that use Snowflake cloud services often see several key advantages sooner rather than later.

Better Performance and Speed

For starters, companies benefit from much higher performance and speed. Scaling up a virtual warehouse to get extra compute resources is easy and streamlined when using Snowflake. Companies can then scale down virtual warehouses when they don’t need to load data faster, so they only pay for the compute time they actually need.

Flexible Storage

Furthermore, those that use Snowflake cloud services benefit from very flexible storage. Companies can combine both semi-structured and unstructured data for analysis, load it into a cloud database, and analyze it without having to convert or transform the data.

On top of that, Snowflake optimizes data storage and query solutions right out of the gate, making things even easier for company data officers or managers.

Easy Data Sharing

Speaking of data management, Snowflake cloud services facilitate very easy data sharing and integration across your corporate ecosystem. Organizations can share data with data customers quickly and easily, and businesses can create and manage their Snowflake accounts to determine who has access to what data and when.

This is great for convenience’s sake, but it’s also crucial for modern data security – another major benefit that Snowflake brings to the table. 

Fewer Concurrency Issues

Concurrency issues can crop up if there are a lot of queries competing for compute resources at the same time. Snowflake’s Data Cloud uses a unique multi-cluster architecture so that queries from a particular virtual warehouse don’t affect the queries from another and vice versa.

In other words, data analysts, scientists, engineers, and other users can get what they need quickly without having to wait for other processing tasks to wrap up.

Top Security in the Cloud

In addition to the above benefits, Snowflake cloud services guarantee very high security for all cloud data. Since Snowflake is distributed across several availability zones and it can operate continuously, it reduces any impact or delays for customers.

Furthermore, Snowflake is SOC 2 Type II certified. Other security measures, such as encryption, support for PHI data for HIPAA brands and businesses, and more, are available as needed.

Conclusion

As you can see, Snowflake cloud services could be excellent tools for your business. Whether your brand is primed to grow and needs a lot of computational power, or is already large but needs help with storage and analysis, Snowflake may be able to help.

The information in this blog post is for reference only and not legal advice. As such, you should not decide whether to contact a lawyer based on the information in this blog post. Moreover, there is no lawyer-client relationship resulting from this blog post, nor should any such relationship be implied. If you need legal counsel, please consult a lawyer licensed to practice in your jurisdiction.