What is our primary use case?
We are a consulting company so our primary use depends on the niche that we are providing the services to and on which of the different versions they have. I think we are mainly using Snowflake Enterprise.
In general, it is being used for integrating information. Snowflake is a database platform, it gives information to support analytic needs, such as advanced data analytics like machine learning. In some of those cases it is also used for descriptive analytics, for instance BI.
How has it helped my organization?
One of example of how Snowflake has improved a client's organization is the democratization, it makes information available to more of the users.
What is most valuable?
The features that I have found most valuable are the ease of use, the rapidness, how quickly the solution can be implemented, and of course that it's been very easy to move from the on-premise world to the Cloud world because Snowflake is based on SQL also.
What needs improvement?
I think that the area of improvement with Snowflake is to improve the administration. It would benefit from an administration that allows you to be aware of your credit consumption once you have the service so that you may be sure how many credits you are consuming when you use the platform and to make sure that you are making the most efficient use of these resources. In other words, to improve their interface so that you may monitor the consumption of your credits on Cloud.
I also heard from a company we work for that it could be more user-friendly because it provides some tools but they are not user-friendly.
Additionally, it would be very helpful if Snowflake integrated machine learning and some other advanced analytics features within their language or product capabilities. Right now, they do it through some other company where you have to buy these capabilities from other vendors. There are some customers that don't have complex needs for machine learning or advanced analytics so they don't have to buy it from another vendor but can use it from the product itself if they have it.
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For how long have I used the solution?
The whole company has been using Snowflake for about three years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
In terms of stability, so far it is very stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Snowflake is very scalable. Our client companies where we implement Snowflake are medium to large sized. These companies have offices in different parts of the world, not just some regions, but companies with office users in different parts of the world. We are dealing with international companies. Their tendency is to increase the use of the Snowflake platform. It would serve all the analytical needs in these companies.
How are customer service and support?
I have not directly experienced the technical support. It's not part of my job to be involved on those kind of issues, but we constantly receive information as a partner from them and we are very in good touch with them and with the people we are working with, meaning the representatives that are within the Latin American market, which is where I work. They are very open and very fast with communication.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is easy. Full deployment takes a few weeks. The initial deployment for the first initiatives might take weeks. It's not complex, really. You may have it loaded after a full day and already providing results or interacting, but there are some other companies that have to be implemented to extract and consume the information from the database. But it's very easy.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
There have been a couple of other solutions that we've been participating in the evaluation process of and some others that have been included in the decision process, including Redshift from AWS and also Azure Synapse from Microsoft.
For instance, AWS Redshift looked like it was easier to implement and to be adopted by the technical users, the programmers and database programmers. So far it has been far easier to adapt this technology. I'm not saying that AWS is a better technology. It's very complex, but at least what I've seen is that for them, it looks like it's been easier to use the first time.
We liked that Snowflake is able to be used as a multi-Cloud service - it can be used in AWS Cloud, Azure Cloud, or Google Cloud. Whereas AWS, or even Synapse, can only be used in their corresponding networks.
What other advice do I have?
I would definitely recommend Snowflake.
On a scale of one to ten, I would give Snowflake an eight.
I give it an eight out of 10 due to its room for improvement in the user interface for the monitoring of the credit consumption and that the user experience is not friendly. And also because the machine learning is lacking some advanced analytic features.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Private Cloud
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: partner