It has been another busy season for Snowflake. At Snowday, we announced general availability for Snowpark for Python, new Snowgrid capabilities, and even more performance enhancements. Read on to learn more about all the new releases in October and November.  

Snowpark

Snowpark for Python now generally available

Build data pipelines and machine learning (ML) models with confidence with this milestone that brings production-level support for the Snowpark for Python Client API and a variety of programming contracts (UDFs, batch UDFs, UDTFs, Stored Procedures). This release also comes with even more pre-installed open source packages built and provided by Anaconda such as Prophet’s forecasting library, h3-Py library for geospatial analytics, and others. Learn more about this Snowpark for Python release. 

Snowpark-optimized warehouses now in public preview

New warehouse option provides 16x the memory and 10x the cache compared to a standard warehouse, thereby unlocking ML training and other memory-intensive operations inside Snowflake for large data sets. Available in a limited set of regions across AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud regions. Learn more

SQL and Performance

Search Optimization Service: Support for Column Configuration, Substring and Regular Expression searches, VARIANT, and GEOGRAPHY available in all regions, now in public preview

Public Preview support for enabling search optimization for specific columns in a table is now available in all regions along with support for Substring and Regular Expression Searches, VARIANT, and GEOGRAPHY. This enables users to run fast lookup queries on tables with these supported properties. Learn more.

Larger warehouses now generally available

We are pleased to announce the general availability of larger (5X-LARGE and 6X-LARGE) warehouses in all AWS regions except for US Government regions (in preview). The larger warehouse sizes accommodate the need for more compute resources stemming from more complex operations, especially on larger volumes of data.

Search Optimization Service: Support for tables with masking policies and row access policies now in public preview

We are pleased to announce a public preview of support for tables with masking policies and row access policies in the search optimization service. Accelerate searches on masked data so you can take full advantage of Snowflake’s performance while maintaining privacy and compliance. Learn more about how you can improve the performance of queries on columns in tables with this feature. 

New Account Usage view: LOCK_WAIT_HISTORY

The LOCK_WAIT_HISTORY view has been added to the Account Usage schema in the Snowflake database. This view returns transaction details that can be useful in analyzing blocked transactions. Each row in the output includes the details of a transaction that is waiting on a lock, and the details of transactions that are holding that lock or waiting ahead for that lock.

Snowgrid

Cross-Cloud Business Continuity

Database replication: Streams and tasks support now in public preview

Database replication and failover/failback now includes preview support for the replication of stream and task objects. This feature replays pipelines from the last replication point to fully recover data in idempotent way (i.e. deduplicating data). Learn more

Account replication UI now in Private Preview

Easily manage account replication and failover at global scale with a single, intuitive UI that allows users to set up and configure account replication sources, the actual destinations, the objects to be replicated, and timings. Learn more

Cross-Cloud Data Governance

Column lineage in access history now in public preview

Column lineage is now in preview. Column lineage (that is, access history for columns) extends OBJECTS_MODIFIED column in the Account Usage ACCESS_HISTORY view to specify how data flows from the source column to the target column in a write operation. Snowflake tracks the data from the source columns through all subsequent table objects that reference data from the source columns (for example, INSERT, MERGE, CTAS).

Increased number of tags that can be set on objects and columns

Snowflake increases the number of tags that can be set on objects and columns so users can better know their data and protect from unauthorized data access:

  • 50 unique tags on objects that are not tables and views

For tables, views, and columns:

  • 50 unique tags on the table or view object itself
  • 50 unique tags on all columns combined within a table or view
  • A total of 100 tags on a table or view and all of its columns

Tag-based masking policies now generally available

Snowflake is pleased to announce the general availability of tag-based masking policies. This feature automates policy assignment to sensitive columns by allowing administrators to associate masking policies to tags. Once a policy is associated with a tag, the policy is automatically applied to any column to which the tag is assigned. 

Snowflake Marketplace 

Snowflake customers can tap into Snowflake Marketplace for access to more than 1,700 live data sets, packages of data sets, or data services (applications are currently in private preview) from over 360 third-party data providers and data service providers (as of Oct 31, 2022), as well as market their own products across the Snowflake Data Cloud. Visit Snowflake Marketplace.

Recently Added Marketplace Product Features

Fixed-term billing for listings now in private preview

Providers now have additional options for charging customers for their offerings in the Data Cloud. In addition to the existing usage-based pricing models that let you charge consumers per month, per query, or a combination of both, you can now also charge for fixed-term access to your listings. With the fixed-term pricing plan, your customers pay to gain access to your offering up front for a fixed term, rather than paying when they access the listing on a monthly or per-query basis. 

Timed trials for Snowflake Marketplace listings now in public preview

All paid listings on Snowflake Marketplace include a free trial to help your customers evaluate your offering. The ability to limit access to your trial offer can now be based on a designated amount of time in addition to the previously available usage-based trials. This feature is now in public preview.

Legal terms specification in Snowflake Marketplace listings

All listings now show whether the provider is using Snowflake’s recommended standard legal terms for their listings or whether consumers have to accept provider-specific, custom legal terms. This new specification on Marketplace listings will help prospective customers understand how they need to involve their legal teams before accessing listings.

Data dictionaries for Snowflake Marketplace listings in private preview

Providers can now add data dictionaries to their Marketplace listings, now in private preview. Data dictionaries are a new element of a listing that allows up to five tables, secure views, or secure functions to be featured on any Marketplace listing. Consumers benefit from an overview of data structures and content to accelerate evaluation and determine if a listing meets their needs.

Recently Added Marketplace Providers

Commerce

Jungle Scout

Jungle Scout is the leading all-in-one platform for selling on Amazon and beyond. Founded in 2015 as the first Amazon product research tool, Jungle Scout today features a full suite of best-in-class business management solutions and powerful market intelligence resources to help enterprise brands, agencies, and investors manage their ecommerce businesses.

90 West Data LLC

90 West Data provides data and insights from U.S. gift card transaction data. The company collects both closed loop (merchant-specific) and open loop (pre-paid Visa/Mastercard) transaction data.

Kpler

Kpler offers commodity and energy market data and analytics (oil, gas, dry, coal, grains). It also provides detailed information about flows, inventories, and freight data.

Financial

IVolatility

IVolatility is currently known as a market data leader providing options and volatility data to the professional community. The company’s customers are represented in all segments of the global derivatives market covering top U.S. brokers, U.S. and global banks, investment banks, advisories, hedge funds, quants, researchers and academics, and much more.

Black Knight

Black Knight’s industry-leading data and analytics solutions help clients reduce risk, satisfy regulatory requirements, improve retention, and create opportunities for growth. Mortgage, real estate, capital markets, and other professionals across the U.S. leverage the company’s comprehensive data and innovative analytics to help inform their critical business decisions. By being a premier technology provider as well, Black Knight’s operational data insights and firsthand knowledge of how clients use data provides a unique, customer-centric difference. 

Context Analytics

Context Analytics, formerly known as Social Market Analytics, has expanded its depth of data to include all textual data. The company sources, cleans, structures, and analyzes textual data for investable insights and business intelligence.

ClearScore Technologies

ClearScore is a GDPR-compliant, U.K.-based data and technology company currently servicing over 13 million U.K. customers to make informed credit decisions. Exact.One is a ClearScore service that offers clients access to U.K. transactional data. The service aggregates the financial transaction data of a user’s financial accounts, such as bank accounts, credit cards, and debit cards, across multiple providers into a single platform.

My Data Outlet

My Data Outlet International, LLC, was founded in 2017 as a software company that connects open-source analytical software to investment data. The company connects to data providers such as Refinitiv, S&P Global, FactSet, ICE, and others to simplify your investment data workflows and technologies.

Axco Insurance Information

Axco is the leading supplier of global insurance market information and data, with over 55 years of experience in researching and publishing industry intelligence on insurance and employee benefits. Established in 1965, Axco was created to provide expert, independent research to the non-life (P&C) insurance industry. Since then Axco has gone from strength to strength adding life insurance, healthcare, and employee benefits information to establish itself as the number one insurance market information publisher globally. In 2010, Axco was acquired by the Wilmington plc group.

Local

Kaiko

Kaiko is the leading cryptocurrency market data provider for institutional investors and enterprises. Kaiko provides seamless connectivity to historical and live data feeds from 100+ centralized and decentralized exchanges.

Look Up Tables

Visualisedata

Visualisedata provides a range of speciality data visualization services using Tableau, Snowflake, Python, and more. The company also provides data that is important to democratize on the Snowflake platform.

Marketing

Cordial

Cordial is a cross-channel marketing platform built to help marketers create unique and unified customer experiences across all channels. Using unlimited data and advanced messaging capabilities, Cordial helps brands communicate with customers in highly personalized ways across email, SMS, mobile apps, and more. Today, brands like Revolve, Backcountry, and Purple rely on Cordial to drive revenue growth by sending a better message.

Sports

Stats Perform – FIFA Men’s World Cup, Sample

The mission of Stats Perform is to capture the story of sports through data and video that reaches into every corner of the game and transforms it through advanced technology. The company’s industry-leading Opta data powers sports experiences and analysis for leading media and technology companies, global sportsbooks, leagues, and teams.

Weather

Vaisala

Vaisala is a global leader in weather and environmental measurements with over 85 years of experience in providing observations for a better world. The company helps businesses run safe, efficient operations in all conditions by providing accurate forecasts, uninterrupted real-time observations, and comprehensive historical data sets of weather and environmental information.

—–

​​Forward-Looking Statements

This post contains express and implied forward-looking statements, including statements regarding (i) Snowflake’s business strategy, (ii) Snowflake’s products, services, and technology offerings, including those that are under development or not generally available, (iii) market growth, trends, and competitive considerations, and (iv) the integration, interoperability, and availability of Snowflake’s products with and on third-party platforms. These forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks, uncertainties and assumptions, including those described under the heading “Risk Factors” and elsewhere in the Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q and Annual Reports of Form 10-K that Snowflake files with the Securities and Exchange Commission. In light of these risks, uncertainties, and assumptions, actual results could differ materially and adversely from those anticipated or implied in the forward-looking statements.  As a result, you should not rely on any forward-looking statements as predictions of future events. 

© 2022 Snowflake Inc.  All rights reserved.  Snowflake, the Snowflake logo, and all other Snowflake product, feature and service names mentioned herein are registered trademarks or trademarks of Snowflake Inc. in the United States and other countries.  All other brand names or logos mentioned or used herein are for identification purposes only and may be the trademarks of their respective holder(s).  Snowflake may not be associated with, or be sponsored or endorsed by, any such holder(s).