BPP at Snowflake Data Cloud World Tour
Snowflake Data Cloud World Tour — the only time you look forward to a frosty reception!
Tom Hewlett-Taylor — Head of Data Engineering
I recently attended the Snowflake Data Cloud World Tour conference at ExCel London. At BPP, we are in the early stages of rolling out Snowflake as our new data platform, so this was a chance to get inspired about all the benefits it will bring. In this blog post, I’ll share my experiences and key takeaways from the event.
Earlier this year we decided to bring in Snowflake at the foundation for our new cloud-based data platform, as part of a wider transformation our Product & Technology team is leading at BPP.
Transforming your data architecture is a major undertaking (you might say it’s… snow joke). Of course, we want major benefits in return. But we also want a platform that makes the transformation itself as easy as possible.
Snowflake ticked all the boxes for us. It’s easy to learn, has a great community, and the usual work required in a data warehouse solution to plan things like clustering, indexes and scaling largely isn’t needed. It just works, which means our Engineering team can focus on the data itself.
In short, Snowflake lets your Engineers… chill.
Fast forward several months, and we now have our first production reports using Snowflake data. We’re still early in our journey, having spent those initial months setting up the environment and getting used to Snowflake.
The conference gave us a chance to step back and think more broadly about what Snowflake offers, beyond the basics.
I’m usually a bit skeptical about conferences. Sometimes they’re all about hype and buzzwords, or they feel like a long sales pitch. I was also a bit surprised to see Snowflake taking up the main space at ExCeL London when in my mind they are still an emerging company. That’s surely a testament to how quickly they have grown and their impact on the data industry, but I wondered if it was an overreach and if we’d just hear a lot of fluff.
But, pleasantly, I was wrong. As befits a Snowflake event, there was no hot air.
The day started with an engaging keynote. Snowflake’s CEO, Frank Slootman, shared insights into their strategic direction. There was also a live coding demo and a panel with Bentley and BUPA who shared their experiences and the benefits they’ve reaped from Snowflake.
The rest of the day consisted of smaller breakout sessions. The keynote had set the tone with a mix of different styles of content aimed at different audiences, and this continued with the breakout sessions.
I attended sessions on a wide range of topics including data governance, data mesh, data engineering with Python and Snowpark, cost optimisation and streaming analytics.
The variety kept me engaged all day, without feeling like I was being beaten over the head with the same message over and over again. (This has been a problem of some recent events I’ve attended where it has felt like every single talk had to mention generative AI.)
In my day-to-day work right now I’m more focused on topics like data governance, as we aim to build a strong foundation for our new data platform, so naturally it was good to cement my knowledge on that topic. But I’m also looking ahead to future goals like building a performant streaming analytics architecture, so it was great to hear about new features like Dynamic Tables that will make this easier for us.
My main takeaways from the event were:
1. Snowflake’s growth has, erm, snowballed, and they now boast an immense customer base. It feels like an incredibly safe choice for software because of its big community and many integrating vendors.
2. Snowflake is trying to become a one-stop-shop for data, a true platform rather than just a data warehouse. In a field where the number of potential tools you need has grown staggeringly over the last few years, I’m totally here for it!
Overall it was an energising day in which I learned something and expanded my horizons. I’m feeling inspired to lead BPP on its data transformation journey powered by Snowflake.
I want to thank the organisers, speakers, and everyone at the event for making it a success. If you were there or have any related experiences to share, please leave a comment below. Your thoughts and insights are always welcome!
P.S. Sorry not sorry for the puns.
