The Snowflake Revolution: Unleashing the power of your organisation’s data 

Author: Senior Consultant, Ajit Singh

The growth of data in recent times has been nothing short of explosive, fuelled by a multitude of social and technological factors, such as increased digitisation, regulatory compliance, data streaming, real-time data, and the need for longer data retention periods. According to estimates, approximately 328.77 million terabytes of data are created each day, and global data creation is expected to reach an overwhelming 180 zettabytes (ZB) by 2025; a staggering increase from the 33 zettabytes (1 zettabyte = 1,000,000,000 Terabyte) in 2018.

A critical asset for asset managers in executing their roles and responsibilities that is often overlooked due to inconsistent practices across systems, tools, and teams is comprehensive data visibility. However, modern technologies like cloud computing and generative AI are enabling organisations to unlock the full potential of their data, leading to innovation, smarter decision-making, and enhanced experiences across diverse domains.

If you’re an organisation with on-premises solutions, you may be concerned about the risks that may come with moving to a cloud-based solution. After all, these on-prem solutions have been the backbone of any Asset Management organisation. At Liqueo, we are supporters of adopting a cloud strategy as we believe it enables teams to be creative, adaptive, and forward thinking. More importantly, in an era where the value of any business is increasingly derived from the data itself, utilising Machine Learning, advanced AI (Artificial Intelligence) like Deep Neural Networks and Generative AI, a cloud-based approach can uncover the hidden value in your data for a higher return-on-investment through cost-efficient, secure, and scalable solutions.

Snowflake Cloud Data Platform with its unique architecture is empowering organisations on this journey. Here we discuss the top 10 reasons why a move to Snowflake could help you unlock the power of data in your organisation.

1. Scalability

On-premises infrastructure struggles with scalability, leading to bottlenecks and delays during data surges. Scaling manually requires downtime and expertise, limiting agility. Snowflake, however, allows independent scaling of storage and processing. You can scale up for demanding tasks or out for distributed workloads without affecting storage. This automatic provisioning saves costs and is perfect for organisations with varying data needs. Notably, Aladdin, a leading investment platform from BlackRock, utilises Snowflake’s cloud-based scalability to analyse vast datasets and generate personalised analytics and insights for clients.

2. Security and Compliance

Managing security for on-premises systems is a demanding, constant battle against potential vulnerabilities. In contrast, Snowflake already complies with various industry regulations like HIPAA, PCI DSS, and SOC 2 etc making it suitable for highly regulated Asset and Wealth Management. Additionally, it offers built-in robust security features like encryption, access control, and data masking, shielding your data from breaches and ensuring regulatory compliance. One example is State Street Alpha Data Platform (ADP) connects to multiple source data from Snowflake’s Marketplace to streamline its entire investment process thereby reducing overall cost.

3. Cost Management

Setting up and maintaining on-premises infrastructure for data processing and analytics requires significant upfront capital expenditure and ongoing maintenance costs. These can be prohibitive, particularly for smaller organisations or startups because of on-going maintenance, archiving, purging, software upgrades, system audits which are necessary operational and project expenses. Cloud-based solutions, in contrast, offer a significantly cost-effective alternative with lower upfront costs and scalable subscription plans that can adapt to organisations changing needs.

4. Disaster Recovery

Data loss has severe consequences for on-premises setups. If systems fail, organisations must rely on backup systems or an onsite team to get things up and running again. Recovering from system failures, data corruption, or natural disasters can be time-consuming and complex, potentially leading to significant data loss and downtime. A move to cloud with the self-managed simple and robust system can help mitigate this risk.

5. Ease of Use and Management

Snowflake is a fully managed service, meaning you do not have to worry about installing, configuring, or maintaining hardware or software. This frees up IT teams to focus on more strategic tasks and reduces the overall complexity of managing your data platform. Additionally, it’s support for SQL, Python, scala, JavaScript, REST APIs and more unlocks flexibility and ease of use for developers and data analysts, enabling them to work with data and perform tasks using familiar tools and languages.

6. Performance and Concurrency

Snowflake’s multi-clustered shared data architecture allows multiple users to run concurrent queries simultaneously on the same data without impacting performance. This contrasts with traditional databases, where concurrent queries can compete for resources and lead to slowdowns.

7. Machine Learning / Generative AI Extension

A fully managed service that enables organisations to quickly analyse data and build AI applications. Access to leading AI models, LLMs (Large Language Models) and vector search functionality unlocks dynamic insight with enterprise specific data. As the ML/AI models can be trained and executed directly on data Snowflake, it adds additional layer of security.

8. Secure Data Sharing

These features enable secure and controlled access to live data across organisations, departments, and even across cloud platforms. This eliminates the need for data silos and manual data movement leading to improved data quality and reduced operational risk, while still ensuring data governance and compliance. Many of our clients are already utilising this capability to directly access and share data within and outside the organisation e.g. accessing ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance), Security etc data from multiple sources minimising operational overheads.

9.  Modern Data Architectural Design Support  

The landscape of modern data architecture is undergoing a paradigm shift, characterised by the emergence of innovative principles like Data Lakehouse, Data Mesh, and Data Fabric. Among these, Data Mesh stands out as a decentralised approach empowering domain teams to own and manage their data as products. Notably, many Data Mesh practitioners have successfully leveraged Snowflake as their self-service data platform. While no single technology offers a comprehensive Data Mesh solution, Snowflake’s capabilities significantly facilitate the implementation of this distributed data paradigm.

10. Zero Copy Cloning / Time Travel

Snowflake’s unique architecture, characterised by self-managed micro-partitions, facilitates the efficient cloning of database objects (databases, schemas, and tables) without data duplication. This minimises storage needs and processing time, resulting in significant cost savings. Furthermore, the Time Travel feature enables querying and retrieval of data at specific points in the past, providing an invaluable safety net and historical analysis tool.

Conclusion

While there are numerous examples of Snowflake’s successful use, no single solution is perfect for every scenario. Just like any other product Snowflake also requires some considerations such as potentially higher costs compared to on-premises solutions if used in an uncontrolled manner e.g. over-provisioning, not utilising Auto Suspend/Resume, poorly written queries, unnecessarily processing whole dataset into Development and Test environments etc. Ultimately, the best solution for you will depend on your specific requirements, budget, and return on investment. However, for many organisations, the benefits of Snowflake’s scalability, performance, ease of use, inbuilt support for structured and semi-structured data and security make it a compelling choice in their modern data ecosystem.

Liqueo is an official Snowflake partner. If your organisation is embarking on a Modern Data Platform journey, the Liqueo Data & Analytics Practice can help you to align your data capabilities with your overall vision for the future. We draw advisory and delivery expertise in Data Strategy, Data Governance, DataOps, Data Migration & Integration, Data Quality and Data Analytics & Insights. Please contact us.