Unleash an Avalanche of Insights with Snowflake and Tableau
Modern Data Architecture the Slalom way
Snowflake wants every company to be data-driven, and their built-for-the-cloud data warehousing solution is a clear place to start. The multi-directional auto-scaling that Snowflake brings to the market is hard to beat when we apply to a modern data architecture solution. Of course, if you fail to match this power with the right analytics layer, you could find yourself stuck in the powder.
Modern Data Architecture means enabling companies for faster, easier and more flexible access to the massive amounts of data that the most innovative organizations now treat as strategic assets. Slalom‘s signature interactive approach, combined with the wealth of modern SaaS platforms at our fingertips, is a sure bet for intelligence everywhere.
the challenge
A Data Warehouse is meant to be a single source of integrated historical data derived from many different sources and data formats. As a central component of Business Intelligence, a Data Warehouse enables enterprises to support a wide range of business decisions, including product pricing, business expansion, and investment in new production methods.
Cloud Computing represents a switch for businesses from a traditional on-premise IT infrastructure to utilizing computer services such as servers, storage, databases, software and more — all over the Internet. The emergence of Cloud Computing over the last five years has significantly impacted Data Warehouse architecture, leading to the increasing need for scale and speed while lowering cost. Traditional enterprise architecture can no longer handle the workloads needed to drive businesses forward — they simply can’t handle the volume and different types of data at the rate that they are generated. Below are some of common challenges we see in a traditional architecture.
the solution
Snowflakes multi-cluster architecture is designed for the cloud, and it’s made to handle logarithmically larger data volumes at speeds not readily available in other enterprise platforms. In addition to exceptional performance, the automatic scaling and low maintenance features create deep cost savings — additional reasons that Snowflake delivers more value and faster ROI than traditional deployments.
each snowflake is unique
You can quickly meet the unique needs of each data workload by enabling IT to create separate warehouses tailored to their respective task. Each warehouse contains its own dedicated standby resources pointed to a single data source.
- Auto-Scale In/Out — Snowflake will add clusters based on the number of active users — either of the data warehouse itself, or of systems querying it, like Tableau — and then will scale down as demand tapers off.
- Auto-Scale Up/Down — Just as Snowflake scales clusters elastically based on requests, it scales compute power as needed, as well, you can enable your data scientist to run complex query analysis on billions of rows without jeopardizing the performance of other workloads.
humans making better decisions
Storing your data is only part of the story: the payoff is the human connection. Tableau is the feature-rich enterprise analytics platform, but what makes it a particularly suitable match for Snowflake is its ability to natively leverage a live connection. This enables users to develop and deploy dashboards that people in their organizations can use to make data-driven decisions in real time, accessing petabytes of live data in the beautifully rendered visuals! 😍
Tableau matches Snowflake’s flexibility with a range of options for analyzing and sharing data. You can create a multitude of different visualizations which can be combined, with a drag and drop, into interactive dashboards. When it’s time to share data or dashboards with others, Tableau can fit your business needs with fully managed, cloud hosted, and local options. Business and IT teams alike can maintain security and governance through simple permission controls, giving users the freedom to tweak or refine dashboards and visualizations directly in their browser, making updates and changes seamless. The reality of the modern data landscape is that businesses run on a multitude of different data sources and formats, though — Tableau has created the ability for you to connect and relate data from more than 65 different sources, so users can join their Snowflake data with other system of record to tell complete stories about the state of their business.
Companies are already utilizing this powerful combination as a critical part of their Modern Data Architecture roll-out. If you’d like to find out how Slalom can help you create new competitive advantages with data and analytics, connect with your local Slalom office for more info.
who we are
Slalom is a modern consulting firm focused on strategy, technology, and business transformation. At Slalom, personal connection meets global scale. Our consultants across the US, UK and Canada move fast and share insights to deliver high-impact business results.
To learn more, visit slalom.com
