Last week I attended Snowflake Data Cloud Summit in San Francisco. When I was at the first Summit in 2019, co-founder Benoît Dageville did a Keynote. At the time Snowflake was designed, the founders of Snowflake wanted to solve three challenges with Snowflake. Firstly, the challenge of analysing Machine generated (Big) Data with sometimes an enormous volume (scale) and great variety (structure). Secondly, elasticity and compute on demand. Simplicity as in Software-as-a-Service (SaaS). Thirdly, all the good things from the RDBMS (e.g. SQL).
The interesting thing when you hear the direction Snowflake is heading is still based on the same principles. Snowflake is developing more and more towards a platform where you can build your complete data environment. One version of the facts centrally stored in one platform. All logic is brought to the data instead of the other way around. Developing apps becomes easier than ever.
Although Snowflake keeps on developing and evolving, the original idea still stands; all data, ease of use and optimal usage of the cloud e.g. scalability. I am also grateful that besides all the Gen AI and LLM developments, there is still an eye for the quality of the data and Data Governance.
“Technology is no more the limit. Your imagination is!”
Data Complete
All Data (Structured, Semi-Structured and Un-Structure), Unistore (Hybrid Tables) and Iceberg Tables
Introducing Polaris Catalog, an Open Source Catalog For Apache Iceberg
Snowflake & Microsoft – One Lake supports Iceberg Tables
Native Connectors
- Database Connectors (PuPr soon)
- Snowflake Connectors SDK (PuPr)
- ServiceNow, Salesforce, Google Analytics integrations (GA)
- Native Connectors by Partners (GA)
Compute Complete
CPU’s and GPU’s on-demand. Separate and independent. Snowpark for non SQL. Snowpark Container Services
Snowflake Performance Index (SPI)
Enterprise AI
Cortex AI – Snowflake Artic
New collaboration with NVIDIA
Introducing Snowflake Notebooks, an End-to-End Interactive Environment for Data & AI Teams
LandingAI, unlocking Computer Vision Capabilities in Snowflake
Security & Governance
Snowflake Horizon – https://www.snowflake.com/en/data-cloud/horizon/
“Snowflake Trail, a rich set of curated observability capabilities that provide enhanced visibility into data quality, pipelines and applications, empowering developers to monitor, troubleshoot and optimize their workflows with ease.”
Global Collaborations
Cross Cloud, Cross Region – Data, Services and Apps
Exclusive Access to Data, Apps and AI Products.
Summary
Snowflake Data Cloud Summit proved that after all this years the core idea remains the same and is still strong. Technology should serve and Snowflake makes things simple. One Single Unified Platform, one product and one engine. Ease of use and Govenance. Maximum efficiency and maximum simplicity.
Bring the processing of data to the data instead of the other way around. Snowflake as a Platform where you build and share your Data, Apps and AI Products. Your data never has to leave the Platform and Snowflake takes care of this Platform.
Next Steps
For more details, please refer to the following information:
See you next year in the Moscone Center in San Francisco from 2 – 5 June 2025.
Till next time.
Snowflake Data Superhero. Online also known as; DaAnalytics.
