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reviewer1113963 - PeerSpot reviewer
Data Architect and ETL Manager at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Oct 8, 2020
A stable data warehousing solution that is simple to set up and has good support
Pros and Cons
  • "The initial setup is very simple."
  • "We would like to see more security including more masking and more encryption at the database level."

What is our primary use case?

We use Snowflake for data warehousing.

What needs improvement?

We would like to see more security including more masking and more encryption at the database level.

For how long have I used the solution?

We have been using Snowflake for three months.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Stability-wise, this product is good.

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What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Snowflake is quite scalable. We have four people who are using it.

How are customer service and support?

So far, technical support has been good.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is very simple.

What other advice do I have?

My advice for anybody who is implementing Snowflake is to start small, then prove out the value and you can grow.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
SaravananThiagarajan - PeerSpot reviewer
Data Scientist at a computer software company with 5,001-10,000 employees
Real User
Top 10
Aug 7, 2020
Good performance and it is easy to write queries
Pros and Cons
  • "The querying speed is fast."
  • "We would like to have an on-premises deployment option that has the same features, including scalability."

What is our primary use case?

I work as a data scientist and our primary use of Snowflake is for machine learning.

Recently, we were trying to extract data to determine the best configuration settings for one of our products.

What is most valuable?

As it is SQL-like, it is easy to write queries.

The querying speed is fast.

What needs improvement?

We would like to have an on-premises deployment option that has the same features, including scalability.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been working with Snowflake for six or seven months.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

From what I have seen and heard, I think that Snowflake is pretty stable. I haven't faced any such problems, myself. I am not aware of the entirety of the lifecycle, but I haven't heard any complaints.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

My impression is that this product is pretty scalable.

How are customer service and technical support?

I have not been in contact with technical support, although my team has been and they are okay with it. My impression is that they are good.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The pricing for Snowflake is competitive.

What other advice do I have?

My advice for anybody who is considering implementing Snowflake is that from a user's standpoint, it is a good product. Having a database in a cloud setup means that you don't have to scale and it has got many features already included.

For our use case, we found this Snowflake was good enough and did not need any enhancements. I recommend using it.

I would rate this solution a ten out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer. Partner
PeerSpot user
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Senior Software Engineer at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
Jul 29, 2020
Stable and capable of processing data in bulk but needs to have SLAs in place
Pros and Cons
  • "The solution is very stable."
  • "They don't have any SLAs in place. It would be better if they did."

What is our primary use case?

We primarily use the solution in order to have the daily transactions of trades. It's to manipulate and find out the benchmark of every broker and institutional manager.

What is most valuable?

The solution's most valuable aspect is the ability to process the bulk amount of data and try to clone the database. We try to clone the production database. Instead of syncing the whole database, we can just clone it up and start working on it. Basically, the cloning and the database are very user-friendly.

The solution is very stable.

What needs improvement?

Right now, Snowflake doesn't have any analytical functions, especially in comparison to Oracle and other databases. The analytical performance needs to improve. It would be ideal if Snowflake was able to use the analytical functions, and what we have in the relational database. That would be really helpful. 

They don't have any SLAs in place. It would be better if they did.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been working with the solution for two years now. The company, however, has been using it for three years at this point.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The solution is quite stable. It's reliable. It doesn't crash or freeze. There aren't bugs or glitches.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The solution is definitely scalable. We're able to add nodes to grow it out when we need to. If an organization needs to expand the solution, they can do so easily. We find it to be very reliable.

There are about 300 people using the solution at this time. We don't plan on increasing usage at this time.

How are customer service and technical support?

Technical support is very, very good. It's a responsive and knowledgable team. We're quite satisfied with the level of service we receive.

That said, Snowflake technical support doesn't have any SLAs. If they had a small amount of SLAs, then it would be helpful for us to clear or solve any production issues, etc. that we may run into.

How was the initial setup?

We need about 50-60 people to maintain the solution.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Snowflake's pricing is a bit higher than other competitors.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We were looking at Amazon Redshift previously. However, we decided that Snowflake was more reliable and scalable.

What other advice do I have?

We're a customer. We don't have a business relationship with the solution.

Users considering adding the solution should understand that Snowflake can be used only for transactional processing, not for analytical processing. If they want to go for transaction processing, they can go for Snowflake and if they want to go for analytical processing, they should look at or go for an Oracle database.

I'd rate the solution seven out of ten.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
reviewer1364460 - PeerSpot reviewer
Principal Consultant at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Consultant
Jun 19, 2020
Excellent data warehousing, quick to scale, and knowledgable technical support
Pros and Cons
  • "From a data warehouse perspective, it's an excellent all-round solution. It's very complete."
  • "The user interface continues to be an issue, especially when we need to get data out of Snowflake. It's very easy to get data in, but it's not too easy to get it out or extract it."

What is our primary use case?

We use the solution for data. We like that there are so many different formats and many structures for analysis.

What is most valuable?

The architecture we'll be using due to being on the cloud will assure we have less to do. There will be no indexing, for example. Everything's managed by the servers. That way, we can focus on the data warehouse and on the data.

From a data warehouse perspective, it's an excellent all-round solution. It's very complete.

What needs improvement?

The user interface continues to be an issue, especially when we need to get data out of Snowflake. It's very easy to get data in, but it's not too easy to get it out or extract it.

It would be nice to have some built-in solutions that would solve. for example, how to delete data from a customer when they request it.

There needs to be stronger data protection.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using the solution for just a bit less than a year at this point.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Our clients have been very impressed with the solution's overall stability.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The scalability is incredible. It's the best I've ever seen. Organizations can scale easily. I can scale up four times faster as well. Something that usually takes 60 minutes can be done in 15 or 20 minutes. It's faster and I save costs because I only pay for the time. Even though I'm paying "more" I end up saving money with this time based costing.

How are customer service and technical support?

I've only contacted technical support a handful of times. I have, however, found them to be very savvy product-wise and very helpful. Their technical support staff are all experts. They know the product extremely well.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is very straightforward. I wouldn't describe it as complex.

How long it takes to deploy depends on your knowledge and your background. It's difficult to judge. I've been working for 20 years now with data warehouses. For me, it was very easy because of my extensive background. However, it depends on what someone knows, and their technical background. It can be difficult for others who maybe don't have as much knowledge or first-hand experience with warehouses.

What about the implementation team?

We're partners with Snowflake. We support our customers and can help them implement it as necessary.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The solution has an excellent pricing strategy. The costs are open and transparent. If you don't use it, you don't pay for it. It's that simple.

What other advice do I have?

We're partners with Snowflake.

The difference between Snowflake, and, for example, Azure, is that there is real separation between the computer and storage. Snowflake is the only one that's really separate and it's much simpler to scale or shift data. It makes everything much easier.

One of the best options on the market right now is to have a cloud-only setup. Not everyone is using the cloud, but everyone will catch up.

I'd rate the solution nine out of ten. If the user interface was better and they had a few more features and did some useability tweaks it would be perfect. Also, it's hard to get the data out of Snowflake, and that's a real issue design-wise.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer. Partner
PeerSpot user
it_user1251369 - PeerSpot reviewer
Principal IT Technologist- BI Platform Architect at a healthcare company with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Jun 1, 2020
Good snapshot and rollback features and has good scaling options
Pros and Cons
  • "The snapshot feature is good, the rollback feature is good and the interface is user-friendly."
  • "Availability is a problem."

What is our primary use case?

We use this product basically for developing an IoT (Internet of Things). Currently, we are sending data from our S3 (Simple Storage Service) storage. In the future, we are planning to directly stream data to Snowflake.

What is most valuable?

In terms of features, we have not yet explored the product completely. So we are still in the proof of concept phase. As of now, the product meets our preliminary requirements. The snapshot feature is good and the rollback feature is good. That is why we have the product and these are the key things we need.

What needs improvement?

The recovery process is very simple and very user-friendly as well. The constraint files could be improved. But the most important things are there. Also, the interface is good to work with and user-friendly.

If I had to say what needs improvement, in my experience is that the availability is a problem. Availability should be high and has to be enhanced.

I still have not explored all of the existing features. Because I have not been deeply involved with using the program it is hard to say what else is missing or what I would need.

For how long have I used the solution?

We have just explored the product for a few months.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The stability of Snowflake is very good.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Scalability is very good and very simple.

Within the company, we currently have a total of fewer than 50 people using the product. Their general roles vary from data analyst to data scientist, to IT professionals, and maybe one or two of the upper managers.

How are customer service and technical support?

I tried using technical support once and they were very helpful. But after that, I have not had any reason to explore the support services.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup was simple.

What about the implementation team?

The implementation was done by the vendor.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

Before choosing to work with Snowflake we looked at virtual solutions and we looked at Redshift, we looked at Qubole and a couple of other cloud options. Earlier when we did a mining site, I was working with Alteryx, so I was already familiar with that product and its capabilities to use for comparison. We decided to go with Snowflake because it seemed mature and had what we wanted.

What other advice do I have?

My advice to someone who is looking at Snowflake is that if they are looking at analytics tools in addition to warehousing and certain advantages of cloud computing, then I would suggest Snowflake. But if they are just looking for the warehousing part where you will later just use another solution on top of it, then I would not suggest Snowflake.

On a scale from one to ten where one is the worst and ten is the best, I would rate Snowflake as an eight or nine. Let's say 8.5.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud

If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?

Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
it_user1322136 - PeerSpot reviewer
Pre-sale Leader, Big Data Enterprise Solutions at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Consultant
Apr 21, 2020
In one second, you can take a snapshot of the database for test purposes
Pros and Cons
  • "The most valuable feature is the snapshot database. In one second, you can just take a snapshot of the database for test purposes."

    What is our primary use case?

    The primary use case is big data warehouses.

    How has it helped my organization?

    • Excellent performance
    • Very easy to use
    • Amazing UI

    What is most valuable?

    The most valuable feature is the snapshot database. In one second, you can just take a snapshot of the database for test purposes.

    For how long have I used the solution?

    One year.

    What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

    Basically, it is not cheap.

    Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
    PeerSpot user
    reviewer1077408 - PeerSpot reviewer
    R&D Operations Manager at a manufacturing company with 1,001-5,000 employees
    Real User
    Jan 20, 2020
    You can assign roles and responsibilities, limiting access to data
    Pros and Cons
    • "I like the idea that you can assign roles and responsibilities, limiting access to data."
    • "If you go with one cloud provider, you can't switch."

    What is our primary use case?

    We are a big data company. We have many thousands of devices deployed from our customer base. These devices upload data, on an hourly basis, to a central storage. Next, we run some ETF processes that crunch and process data, then we store that data in a structured way on Snowflake.

    Over the past six months, it has been more of a development project.

    I am using the latest version.

    What is most valuable?

    • I like the idea that you can assign roles and responsibilities, limiting access to data. That has been very interesting to us. 
    • The robustness of the system is very useful to us. 
    • The availability of the system. 

    What needs improvement?

    We would like Snowflake to be able to do inter-cloud migrations. That would be great. I want to be able to switch clouds.

    For how long have I used the solution?

    Six months.

    What do I think about the stability of the solution?

    It is stable.

    What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

    If you go with one cloud provider, you can't switch.

    We have very few users. There is just a very limited number who are mostly developers. We did not roll out the end product. We did not roll out product and services based on that foundation/infrastructure yet.

    How are customer service and technical support?

    I have not personally contacted technical support.

    Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

    We previously used HPE and Microsoft Insight. We switched to Snowflake for the availability, security, and loading times.

    How was the initial setup?

    The initial setup was very straightforward. It was very quick. The complexity came from our specific use case scenario.

    Which other solutions did I evaluate?

    We also looked at HPE and Microsoft Insight.

    What other advice do I have?

    Analyze your user scenario. If your scenario is managing large amounts of data in extremely, different environments in a structured way, then this is a good option.

    I would rate this solution as an eight (out of 10).

    Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

    Public Cloud
    Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
    PeerSpot user
    Divya-Raj - PeerSpot reviewer
    Sr. Consultant cum Assistant Manager & Offshore Lead at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
    Real User
    Top 10
    Jan 13, 2020
    Impressive performance from massively parallel processing, supports ELT for importing data, and has awesome technical support
    Pros and Cons
    • "It has great flexibility whenever we are loading data and performs ELT (extract, load, transform) techniques instead of ETL."
    • "They do have a native connector to connect with integration tools for loading data, but it would be much better to have the functionality built-in."

    What is our primary use case?

    The primary use case for Snowflake is in our data warehouse project. We have a private DW and whoever has the credentials can access it. I am a data integration developer and we are using ETL tools to extract the data from different source systems and then load it in the data warehouse.

    What is most valuable?

    Snowflake is the latest technology. It has great flexibility whenever we are loading data and performs ELT (extract, load, transform) techniques instead of ETL.

    This solution automatically performs micro-partitioning when the data is loaded. This creates a dynamic partition and based on the cluster, the performance is fast and really impressive.

    Snowflake is using MPP, massively parallel processing techniques, which is a great feature. It saves developers time and allows us to focus more on client requirements.

    What needs improvement?

    It is difficult in some cases to perform ETL and this is something that should be included. As it is now, I use Informatica PowerCenter to load data from on-premises to the Snowflake cloud-based data warehouse. If this could be done by Snowflake directly, without an external integration tool, then it would become a full package. It would be awesome.

    They do have a native connector to connect with integration tools for loading data, but it would be much better to have the functionality built-in. We would like to be able to just write an SQL query and do our work.

    For how long have I used the solution?

    I have been working with Snowflake for six months.

    What do I think about the stability of the solution?

    We have not had any major issues with stability.

    What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

    Snowflake does not require manual scaling because it does it for you. Developers just need to load the data and process the query. That's it. The developer's job is not to spend time improving performance, as it was with an on-premises solution. We had to do the partitioning, collect the stats, and everything else. In the case of this cloud-based solution, it doesn't require as much work. Instead, we can focus on the queries.

    We are planning to increase our usage of Snowflake.

    How are customer service and technical support?

    I have been in contact with technical support many times and it was awesome. I got great support. Whenever I needed anything they were ready to help me out, which was nice.

    Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

    I have experience with Informatica PowerCenter and Oracle. PowerCenter uses ETL techniques instead of ELT. Oracle does not automatically perform micro-partitioning. Instead, you have to partition manually and it is a static partition.

    Prior to Snowflake, I was using an on-premises data warehouse. Snowflake is the first experience I have had with a cloud-based data warehouse. It is an awesome tool.

    How was the initial setup?

    There is no need to install this software, which is the best part. It doesn't require any maintenance, and although DBA support is required, it is much less compared to an on-premises solution. This type of cloud-based solution has no requirement for software, hardware, or maintenance because everything is managed by Snowflake's system.

    What about the implementation team?

    The only assistance I had during the setup was from the integration tool, Informatica PowerCenter. This was used to export our on-premises data from Oracle and import it to Snowflake on the cloud.

    What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

    You pay based on the data that you are storing in the data warehouse and there are no maintenance costs.

    What other advice do I have?

    This is an awesome tool, but there is room for improvement in terms of integration. Also, in terms of management, nothing is perfect and everything can be improved.

    I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

    Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

    Private Cloud
    Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
    PeerSpot user
    Buyer's Guide
    Download our free Snowflake Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.
    Updated: January 2026
    Buyer's Guide
    Download our free Snowflake Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.