Why Data Warehousing with Snowflake is Gaining Popularity

Features and Benefits of Snowflake Data Warehousing

We’ve discussed the “Cinderella story” of Snowflake’s data warehouse offering. But we’re still missing the answer to one crucial question: why did Snowflake get so popular in the first place? In this section, we’ll investigate 4 reasons why Snowflake has received so much attention.
 

1. Cloud-first approach

   Older, more established enterprise software firms (e.g. Oracle and Microsoft) got their start by selling on-premises applications. With cloud computing now a business best practice, however, these software providers have also released cloud versions of their software—in many cases, preferring and prioritizing the version in the cloud.

   Snowflake is different. Because it was founded later in 2012, when cloud computing was beginning to take off, it could adopt a “cloud-first” stance immediately. The Snowflake data platform was built with the cloud in mind and could take advantage of the unique technical distinctions of this environment. Companies that are beginning their own IT migrations to the cloud therefore view Snowflake as a natural choice.

   Snowflake is truly Cloud Native. That means there is no hardware to manage, no software to manage, and all the traditional back-office work is managed by Snowflake.

 

2. Blazing-fast speed

   Another advantage of Snowflake data warehousing is the platform’s superior performance. While no single data warehouse solution is clearly better and faster in all situations, Snowflake certainly holds its own when compared with offerings from industry giants.

   For example, a data warehouse benchmark by the data integration company Fivetran ran a series of highly complex queries using four popular cloud data warehouse solutions: Snowflake, Google BigQuery, Amazon Redshift, and Presto. The report concluded that Snowflake was both the least expensive and returned the fastest results.

 

3. Rich feature set

   Snowflake has a feature rich set of of technical functionality that helps set it apart from other data warehouse solutions. These features include:

   • Separation of storage and compute, which allows users to scale both resources dynamically and independently of each other.
   • A cloud-agnostic approach, with the ability to run on public cloud providers like Amazon Web Services (AWS) or Microsoft Azure (preventing vendor lock-in issues).
   • A “Time Travel” feature that allows access to historical data (e.g. for backups or restoring information that was accidentally deleted).

 

4. On-demand pricing

   Like all cloud vendors, Snowflake uses an on-demand cost model. Data warehouse pricing can get complicated at the best of times, so many customers appreciate Snowflake’s (relative) simplicity and transparency. Snowflake storage costs a flat rate of $23 per terabyte per month, while compute costs start at $0.00056 per second per credit.

Conclusion

The frenzy surrounding Snowflake isn’t like the dot-com bubble 20 years ago: there are solid, legitimate reasons the company is so popular among investors and customers. So with that said, how can you enjoy the benefits of Snowflake data warehouses for your own organization?

If you’re considering a migration to a Snowflake cloud data warehouse, Datavail is here to help. We’ve assisted hundreds of clients in moving their IT infrastructure to the cloud. Looking for how to get started? Our white paper “Moving Your Data Warehouse to Snowflake: What You Need to Know” assembles all the tips and best practices you should know before a Snowflake migration.