Snowflake integration connector to drive data quality and data governance excellence

Snowflake is a pure cloud based data storage and analytics service that is also referred to as “data warehouse-as-a-service.” With the help of Snowflake, companies can store and analyze data across the entire organization no matter where its divisions are located geographically, as well as across various clouds, namely Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud.

With the data warehouse being its core product, Snowflake has also gradually added data science, a data application feeder, data engineering, cloud data lakes, and a data interchange to its list of capabilities. Its innovative architecture enables near-instantaneous access to a virtually infinite number of compute resources.

About elastic.io’s Snowflake integration connector

This is a proprietary connector to allow to access data in your Snowflake data warehouse as well as to connect to other business applications, and use this data in workflow automations to facilitate data-driven decisions and improve data quality. It was developed specifically for the elastic.io platform and is delivered together with other available connectors by default.

Triggers and actions are both supported by the Snowflake integration connection. This implies that you can use it either to initiate or respond to a certain event. As a trigger, the connector allows you to poll new and updates rows from a given table. The trigger will remember the last time it was executed, so you can create queries around it.

Using Snowflake connector as an action, you can create, update, look up or delete Snowflake rows by their respective primary key, or execute an SQL query that can return multiple results, and much more. You will find more details about each trigger and actionon the connector’s documentation page, following the link above (please note, the Snowflake trigger and as well its action have there own dedicated pages which you can access from the main description of the connector).

The Snowflake integration connector is under the proprietary license, which means that you cannot change or extend it yourself. If you need additional triggers and / or actions for your integrations, please contact our pre-sales team at ps[at]elastic.io first to discuss the details.

PLEASE NOTE: In order to use the Snowflake integration connector in your projects, you’ll need to create an account on the elastic.io integration platform. You can sign up for a free 14-day trial of elastic.io here.

How to add Snowflake integrations on elastic.io

As a trigger:

Step 1

In order to connect Snowflake with other apps on the elastic.io platform, go to the Dashboard or Flows and click “Add new Flow”. For Snowflake to be used in your flows as a trigger, select it first from the list of the apps as shown on the screenshot below.

Step 2

Once you’ve selected Snowflake, the currently available trigger will be selected by default – no action is required on your part here. You will only need to create your own credentials to connect to your Snowflake data warehouse and the specific database you’ll be working with. Please note that both the warehouse’s and database’s names are required fields for authentication.

Step 3

Once authenticated, you will be able to configure fields such as Table and Column, and set the polling time frame (optional). Please note that with the available trigger, the supported type for polling a table column is SQL TIMESTAMP without timezone.

Step 4

Next, you’ll be prompted to request a sample record. This is a way for you to validate your configuration. After that, your Snowflake connector is fully set up as a trigger.

As an action:

When Snowflake connector is selected as an action, it simply follows another system or app in an automation flow. Apart from that, the configuration process is similar: select Snowflake from the list of available apps, choose a function and create new or choose the existing credentials for your Snowflake data warehouse.

When it comes to functions, with Snowflake as action you have a lot of options. You can insert SQL queries into the specified table, call a specific stored procedures, or create, update, look up and delete specific rows within a selected table. You can even execute a custom SQL query, although a word of warning – this is an advanced action and it’s not protected from SQL injection.

OUR TIP: The fastest way to review our Snowflake connector’s configuration as an action in a flow would be selecting our Simple Trigger to start with. Please note, though, that the Simple Trigger is not optimal to actually test the Snowflake connector for your automation project as it doesn’t provide the required data objects to sync. It’s merely there to help you get a first impression of our Snowflake connector.

Popular Snowflake integrations scenarios

Snowflake can contain massive amounts of valuable information that can help companies do better analysis of e.g. the decision-making process and purchasing behaviour of users, or improve their customer acquisition and customer management activities. Also, using it with an integration platform like elastic.io and a data replication system such as HVR Software, you can easily build your own enterprise data lake.

Some of the most notable systems that have been used with our Snowflake connector so far are:

Snowflake and Salesforce

To migrate customer data from Snowflake to Salesforce to gain a better understanding of the customer’s behaviour

Snowflake and Database

To let the data from a respective database such as MongoDB or PostgreSQL to flow uninterruptedly and effortlessly to Snowflake data warehouse

Snowflake and Google PubSub

To ingest third-party data to Snowflake as part of developing a 360-degree view of the customer

… and there are many more apps to connect to.

Take a look at all of the applications and systems available on our platform, from which you can pull data into your Snowflake data warehouse to provide timely data insights, sync with business intelligence tools for reporting and analysis, keep all the data in one place organized and ready-to-use, help your data analysts make data-driven decisions, and so much more. Get your free 14-day demo now, no strings attached.