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reviewer2009835 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Solutions Architect at a tech consulting company with 201-500 employees
Real User
Top 5Leaderboard
Highly stable, extremely scalable, and easy to install
Pros and Cons
  • "Data Science capabilities are the most valuable feature."
  • "To ensure the proper functioning of Snowflake as an MDS, it relies heavily on other partner tools."

What is our primary use case?

We use Snowflake as a data migration platform.

What is most valuable?

Data Science capabilities are the most valuable feature.

What needs improvement?

To ensure the proper functioning of Snowflake as an MDS, it relies heavily on other partner tools. As a result, our solution architects must devote most of their time to addressing this issue.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Snowflake for two years.

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What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I give the stability a nine out of ten.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

I give the scalability a nine out of ten.

How are customer service and support?

The technical support team is good.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is straightforward. Since Snowflake is software, the only requirements to start using it are to select a subscription and activate our account.

What other advice do I have?

I give Snowflake a nine out of ten.

Snowflake is being used at the enterprise level.

If an organization is interested in embarking on its cloud journey and Snowflake fulfills its requirements, I would recommend it as a viable solution.

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: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
reviewer1175826 - PeerSpot reviewer
Data & Analytics Practitioner at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
Could use better integration, but very stable with an easy initial setup
Pros and Cons
  • "They separate compute and storage. You can scale storage independently of the computer, or you can scale computing independently of storage. If you need to buy more computer parts you can add new virtual warehouses in Snowflake. Similarly, if you need more storage, you take more storage. It's most scalable in the database essentially; typically you don't have this scalability independence on-premises."
  • "The solution should offer an on-premises version also. We have some requirements where we would prefer to use it as a template."

What is our primary use case?

We primarily use the solution for data warehousing.

What is most valuable?

The entire managed service operations for the solution is great. Snowflake does everything for us. Whatever version they have, they implement the latest for us; we don't have to worry about any versions, any upgrades, anything else because they handle it.

What needs improvement?

The solution should offer an on-premises version also. We have some requirements where we would prefer to use it as a template. 

The integration capabilities could be improved.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using the solution for six months.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The solution has been very stable for us.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We have not tested scalability, but the solution claims that it's scalable. It's on the cloud, so I imagine you could scale rather easily if you needed to. 

They separate compute and storage. You can scale storage independently of the computer, or you can scale computing independently of storage. If you need to buy more computer parts you can add new virtual warehouses in Snowflake. Similarly, if you need more storage, you take more storage. It's most scalable in the database essentially; typically you don't have this scalability independence on-premises. 

We have about 40 people using the solution. They're mostly business users.

How are customer service and technical support?

Technical support is good. Occasionally, they take a bit of time to resolve issues, but other than that they are okay. We're mostly satisfied with them.

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

We're system integrators, so we use different solutions including SQL Server Data Warehouse and Greenplum as well as Snowflake at the moment.

I've used many data warehouse solutions, including Hadoop, and Oracle SQL Server Data warehouses. I switched from those to Snowflake because Snowflake is on the cloud and gives you separate computing and storage scalability, which Hadoop is unable to offer.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is straightforward. There's no deployment; it's just your code solution that needs to get up and running. You have a deal with Snowflake in terms of what environment you want, and when you want to use it, and they'll set it up within a day for you.

What about the implementation team?

Snowflake helped us with the implementation.

What other advice do I have?

We are system integrators, so for all our customers, we offer different solutions.

We only use the cloud deployment model. Snowflake doesn't offer on-premises deployments.

Snowflake on cloud is the best right now. There are only a few other options. Redshift is not scalable. With SQL Data Warehouse the concurrency is an issue, as well as scalability. Also, it does not have all the features that you see in an on-premises SQL Server.

Snowflake a good database. I'd recommend the solution to others.

I'd rate the solution seven out of ten. We are still new to the solution. There are a few things we still have to explore before we would give it 10. Typically, I come from a Hadoop background, so compared to Hadoop I think everything looks good before the data warehouse side. We're quite pleased with Snowflake and moving from Hadoop into Snowflake has been a very good transformation.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
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Mohammad-Huda - PeerSpot reviewer
Data & Analytics Practitioner (BIDW, Big Data) at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Internally optimizes well, scales automatically, and offers great performance features
Pros and Cons
  • "I like the fact that we don't need a DBA. It automatically scales stuff."
  • "It's not that flexible when compared to Oracle."

What is our primary use case?

We are using the Matillion as the ETL tool and Snowflake has storage and there is no data warehouse component for storage.

What is most valuable?

I like the fact that we don't need a DBA. It automatically scales stuff.

Snowflake has better performance features; it automatically knows the difference between the data volume. It adjusts itself.

The performance is great. It internally optimizes well.

The product is stable.

The solution is scalable.

What needs improvement?

There are certain special features that are not available. For example, in Oracle, we have an SQL field. We have functions, procedures, packages, et cetera, which you can create similarly in Snowflake. However, it's not that flexible when compared to Oracle.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've used the solution in the last year.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The product is stable and the performance is excellent. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. It's extremely reliable. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Snowflake scales well. If a company needs to expand, it can do so.

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

We also use Matillion. I find Snowflake a bit better.

What other advice do I have?

We're partners.

While I can't speak to the version number we are using, we're always on the latest version of the solution.

Snowflake is a good product. It is quite robust and scalable. However, a few of the functions are a little complex in Snowflake. 

I would rate the solution at a nine out of ten.

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: partner
PeerSpot user
reviewer1401216 - PeerSpot reviewer
CEO, Senior Consultant at a tech services company with 1-10 employees
Consultant
Sophisticated- cutting edge technology with zero clone copy and near zero maintenance
Pros and Cons
  • "Great scalability and near zero maintenance."
  • "Some SQL language functions could be included."

What is our primary use case?

The solution is mainly used for analytics in data warehouses. We are independent consultants and customers of Snowflake. 

What is most valuable?

The scalability of this product is great and the fact that it has a so-called zero clone copy and is near zero maintenance is also great. There are a lot of good features, it's a very sophisticated, cutting edge technology and is super easy to use. They are developing the platform very, very quickly so there are plenty of new features implemented all the time. You can concentrate on implementing things in Snowflake without tuning or configuring it.

What needs improvement?

There are some functions in the SQL language in other products which are not yet included in Snowflake's SQL. It would be helpful to have those included, they're nice features. It's a minor issue because all those things can be implemented in some other way. Not essential, but it would be nice to have them. 

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using this solution for 18 months. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

This is a stable solution and the maintenance and updates are automatic. Snowflake is responsible for that.

How are customer service and technical support?

I have been quite satisfied with the technical support.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is very simple, just go to the internet and start using it. Of course, if it has to implement to part of the customer's own cloud infrastructure, then there are more steps to configure. We provide that service for our customers. 

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

Everything is included in the license fee which is mid-range in terms of pricing.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

The advantage of Snowflake is that you can focus on implementing things in Snowflake without tuning or configuring it. That's the advantage of this solution compared to others. Many other data warehouse solutions need some kind of maintenance or database administration, and that takes time. The extra time means you're being taken away from other things and in that regard, Snowflake is an absolutely great product.

What other advice do I have?

I think the solution is suited to big companies because they tend to have lots of data. The more data you have, the more you need power and scalability to process it. I would recommend finding a good partner already familiar with the solution for implementation. It's good to have someone familiar with the architecture.

I rate this solution a 10 out of 10. 

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: Consultant
PeerSpot user
reviewer1467771 - PeerSpot reviewer
Technology & Innovation at a consultancy with 201-500 employees
Real User
Reasonably-priced, scalable, and the technical support is good
Pros and Cons
  • "The technical support is pretty good, particularly if you are a more technical user."
  • "Every product has room for improvement, although in this case, it needs some broadening of the functionality."

What is our primary use case?

We are a management consulting firm and do not use this product for ourselves. Rather, it is a service for our clients.

What is most valuable?

The overall package is quite nice, and there is not one specific feature that I have found more valuable than the others.

The vendor is quite willing to implement requests for development, in particular for larger clients. It is a nice company to work with.

What needs improvement?

Every product has room for improvement, although in this case, it needs some broadening of the functionality. They could become more complete.

Including more AI functionality would be nice. Microsoft does have more in this regard, although that also has to do with the size of the company.

For how long have I used the solution?

We have been using Snowflake for a couple of years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Snowflake is a stable product.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

This is definitely a scalable solution.

How are customer service and technical support?

The technical support is pretty good, particularly if you are a more technical user. The people they have are quite technical, so compared to a lot of other companies where you first get somebody on the phone who has never seen the product, but he or she just works at the center and has to answer the first calls, if you connect with Snowflake, you immediately get somebody who is actually at the proper level.

It also means that if you have less experienced users, it's not that they find it difficult, but then they may get some questions to resolve the issue, which they don't really know the answer to. Sometimes, users may find themselves a bit lost because they don't know how to answer those questions. However, it's not in a negative way. It's more like you get a proper engineer to respond to your issues with Snowflake.

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

The price of Snowflake is quite reasonable.

What other advice do I have?

Personally, if I have the choice, I would rather recommend Snowflake to my clients over a product from Microsoft, for example. They have some overlapping functionality, but they also have some separate stuff. Snowflake does not have the size to develop at that pace but personally, I find them a more sympathetic company than Microsoft.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Co-founder & Delivery Lead at a tech services company with 1-10 employees
Real User
An extremely stable and easy-to-set-up solution with valuable features like cloning and data sharing
Pros and Cons
  • "The cloning functionality has been the most valuable. I have been able to completely copy databases. The data sharing concept is also useful. As compared to, for example, SAP, Snowflake is a lot more open, and it allows a lot more connectivity for other providers than an SAP ecosystem."
  • "It needs a bit more rigor and governance, which is something you don't get with newer tools. This makes it less enterprise scalable. Its governance and structure can be enhanced, which would really be valuable. I would like to see some kind of prebuilt functionality in terms of having almost like a pre-built data warehouse. A functionality for generating automated kind of pieces would be good."

What is our primary use case?

I work for a company that are Snowflake partners and help clients implement solutions using Snowflake.

How has it helped my organization?

Snowflake solves many of the challenges that traditional data warehousing tools have such as a lack of agility, scalability and fine-tuning.

What is most valuable?

The use of micropartitions and metadata means that there is very little management needed and the user can focus purely on actually getting value out of their data. In addition, the cloning feature makes problem resolution and cutover extremely pain-free.

What needs improvement?

Whilst flexibility is one of its key strengths, it would be useful if there could be some better governance built into the product. In addition, functionality out of the box to deal with common data warehousing scenarios (e.g. slowly-changing dimensions etc.) would be great.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Snowflake for about a year and a half.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It is extremely stable.

How are customer service and technical support?

The support from Snowflake is absolutely great. All kinds of content and things are available to support yourself as well as to be able to talk through issues and have their engineers take a look at the problems. They are very responsive.

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

We use Snowflake alongside other data warehousing tools. Ultimately it depends on what the client wants to implement and their existing architecture as to what would be the best choice.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is very straightforward.

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

Snowflake has a very efficient pricing mechanism where you only pay for what you use by the second making it very easy to control costs.

What other advice do I have?

The best advice I would give is to push for a POC. Pick a couple of use cases where you think you could quickly get value and just see how quickly you can get it implemented. One of the key features of Snowflake is that you can get it up and running straight away. 

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: partner
PeerSpot user
Chief Data Architect - Europe at a computer software company with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Data sharing and data marketplace aspects are amazing, but it should support integration with some of the Azure and AWS native services
Pros and Cons
  • "We find the data sharing and data marketplace aspects of Snowflake absolutely amazing."
  • "There is a scope for improvement. They don't currently support integration with some of the Azure and AWS native services. It would be good if they can enhance their product to integrate with these services."

What is our primary use case?

We are using it as a data lake. We are using it as a data warehouse and a data mart. It is basically the entire BI and analytics platform.

I am using its latest version.

What is most valuable?

We find the data sharing and data marketplace aspects of Snowflake absolutely amazing.

What needs improvement?

There is a scope for improvement. They don't currently support integration with some of the Azure and AWS native services. It would be good if they can enhance their product to integrate with these services.

It would also be great if it can support stored procedures.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been working with it for four years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It is stable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It is scalable.

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

You need to be aware of the bloating costs. It is easy to use, but if you don't use it wisely, then your monthly bill can bloat a lot. You need to be a bit aware of its consumption cost.

What other advice do I have?

I would rate it a seven out of 10.

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Integrator
PeerSpot user
it_user865563 - PeerSpot reviewer
Data Engineer at Celebal Technologies
Real User
Easy to scale, a simple initial setup, and good stability
Pros and Cons
  • "The initial setup is straightforward. You just need to follow the documentation."
  • "The solution could improve the user interface and add functionality to the system."

How has it helped my organization?

We mainly used SQL scripts and provided a solution for different owners who want to query a database but have several tables. Typically, it is not an easy task to read several tables, so we provided our client with a very crisp data model where they can get results in a very quick manner. We implemented distribution as well as weekly partitioning. 

What is most valuable?

The relational piece and how one dimension relates to another just by using a key is the solution's most valuable aspect. We are managing everything by using simple relations. It's all about the relationships between dimensions.

What needs improvement?

Right now, we need to write code, but if they could create a version of Snowflake that was more drag and drop for those managers that don't know how to code, it would be great for our business.

The solution could improve the user interface and add functionality to the system.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've used the solution for two years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The solution is stable. We bring in incremental loads into Snowflake. There are pipelines that daily seed data from Oracle to a data warehouse. It's a prebuilt code and it allows for great stability.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It's very easy to scale because Azure cloud's own data warehouse gives us that capabilities to scale up or down at any time we want. There are a great number of users on the solution, but it differs from client to client. One client, for example, has about 30,000 users.

How are customer service and technical support?

We've never been in touch with technical support.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is straightforward. You just need to follow the documentation.

What about the implementation team?

We handled the implementation ourselves. I've handled two or three projects previously, so I'm comfortable with the solution. We don't need assistance because we handle the consulting part.

What other advice do I have?

The solution is deployed on the cloud using Azure, where there's a data warehouse. We primarily use SQL scripts.

For those considering implementing, I'd advise that they understand the business very deeply first. Not every business would have a demand for Snowflake, so it's not for everyone. It's important to understand the requirements and then, if it makes sense, to implement Snowflake.

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten. I'd rate it higher if it had a better user interface.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Snowflake Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.
Updated: December 2024
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Snowflake Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.