In April, Snowflake continued enhancing its platform with new features for security, governance, data sharing, and more. We also added a wealth of providers to Snowflake Data Marketplace. Here’s a brief rundown of some of the key announcements from April 2021.

SECURITY AND GOVERNANCE

Sensitive Data Protection with Row-Level Security

Row-level security is now available in public preview, further extending Snowflake’s robust native security and governance controls. This new capability uses row-access policies to determine which rows are visible in the query results. This makes it easier to protect sensitive data across organizations by providing the ability to create policies once and have them apply to all objects and workloads in Snowflake. Learn more here or by attending Snowflake Summit in June.

External Tokenization on Google Cloud Platform

External tokenization enables organizations to tokenize sensitive data externally by using partner- or customer-developed solutions before loading that data into Snowflake. Organizations can then dynamically detokenize data at query runtime for authorized users via masking policies that call the external tokenization service using external functions. This provides enhanced data security and protection to the most sensitive data in an organization. External tokenization is generally available for Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure and is now available in preview for Google Cloud Platform. Learn more.

DATA LAKE

Hive Metastore Connector

To help transition to the Snowflake Data Cloud from an existing, in-use cloud data lake, use the Hive metastore connector, now generally available. This connector enables you to integrate an Apache Hive metastore with Snowflake by using external tables. The Hive metastore connector transmits metastore events to Snowflake, keeping the external tables synchronized with the Hive metastore. Now your IT team can manage their tables in Hive while allowing users to query them from Snowflake directly. Learn more.

DATA SHARING

Increased Visibility of Shared Data

In April, Snowflake introduced a new Shared Data page within the Snowflake data menu. The new page, now in public preview, provides a location for managing all your data sharing tasks, including creating a new share with another account, managing share requests, and viewing all data sets that are shared with you and all data sets you are sharing with others. Learn more.

ECOSYSTEM

Improved Support for Python, JDBC, and Node.js Drivers

Snowflake works with a wide array of industry-leading tools and technologies, enabling customers to access the platform through an extensive ecosystem of connectors, drivers, programming languages, and tools. In April, Snowflake announced improved support for its Python, JDBC, and Node.js drivers. Updates include a new parameter in Snowflake Connector for Python that configures the connector to return NUMBER column values as decimal values in Python;  the ability in Snowflake JDBC Driver to use PreparedStatement.setObject to specify the TIMESTAMP_* variation to use when binding a timestamp variable; and support in the Snowflake Node.js driver for native SSO authentication through Okta. Learn more.

SNOWFLAKE DATA MARKETPLACE

Snowflake Data Marketplace provides customers access to live, ready-to-query data sets for data scientists, business intelligence and analytics professionals, and everyone else who needs to make data-driven decisions. Snowflake Data Marketplace offers a wide range of open and commercial data sets across multiple categories including public health, weather, location, demographics, and software-as-a-service providers. In April, Snowflake added several new providers with offerings spanning business intelligence, data security, data analytics, marketing, and more.

CARTO

From smartphones to connected cars, location data is changing the way we live and the way we run businesses. CARTO is the world’s leading location-intelligence platform, enabling organizations to use spatial data and analysis for more efficient delivery routes, better behavioral marketing, strategic store placements, and much more. The platform enables organizations to see visualizations of location data and to gain a deeper understanding of the reasons behind location trends. Learn more.

Crisp

Crisp leverages the power of the cloud to connect and analyze disparate data sources and provide near real-time insights and trends. This includes automating your retailer and distributor data and making it more actionable in your own tools. Food manufacturers use Crisp to manage supply more efficiently, reduce waste, and increase profitability. Learn more.

Envestnet | Yodlee

Envestnet | Yodlee’s data aggregation platform enables financial institutions and FinTechs to help consumers achieve better financial outcomes. The power of Envestnet | Yodlee begins with the massive scale of financial data in the company’s platform, which is used to fuel the platform’s data intelligence capabilities. Additionally, Envestnet | Yodlee supports de-identified data analytics and insights for institutional investors and investment research companies so they can better manage investments on behalf of their customers. Envestnet | Yodlee follows leading industry practices for data security and privacy and does not sell data that identifies consumers. Learn more.

Estimize

Estimize is an open platform that collects forward-looking financial estimates from buy-side, independent, and sell-side analysts, along with those of industry experts and academics. By sourcing estimates from a larger and more diverse community of individuals, Estimize provides a more accurate, more timely, and more representative view of expectations compared to sell-side-only data sets. Learn more.

Neustar

Neustar is an information services and technology company and a leader in identity resolution, providing the data and technology that enable trusted connections between companies and people at the moments that matter most. Neustar offers industry-leading solutions in marketing, risk, communications, and security that responsibly connect data on people, devices, and locations, continuously corroborated through billions of transactions. Neustar serves more than 8,000 clients worldwide, including 60 of the Fortune 100. Learn more.

Oxylabs

Oxylabs is a market-leading proxy- and web-scraping service for gathering large-scale public data. It ensures that all its operations follow the highest business ethics standards. The company’s mission is to make sure that every company, no matter how big or small, has access to big data. Oxylabs is in trusted partnerships with dozens of Fortune 500 companies and global businesses, helping them unearth hidden gems of business intelligence data via state-of-the-art products and technical expertise. Learn more.

Preqin

Preqin provides the industry’s most comprehensive private capital and hedge fund data sets and tools. Alternative-assets investment professionals rely on Preqin to make data-driven decisions throughout the entire investment lifecycle. The company’s data is used by 110,000 fund managers, investors, placement agents, service providers, advisors, and other industry professionals from more than 34,000 firms worldwide. Preqin believes that the flow of information is critical for creating a better, more transparent ecosystem across opaque markets. Learn more.

PowerReviews

PowerReviews helps more than 1,000 leading brands and retailers capture high-quality user-generated content in more volumes to maximize buyer confidence and increase sales. It then powers analysis of this context-rich insight to drive product and customer experience improvements. Learn more.

Spiceworks Ziff Davis

Spiceworks Ziff Davis (SWZD) is a trusted global marketplace that connects technology buyers and sellers with actionable and precise intent data. Tech brands can gain unmatched visibility into accounts that are truly in-market by leveraging the scale, quality, and diversity of SWZD’s data. With unparalleled access to the world’s most influential technology buyers via a combination of first-party (community, tools, editorial) and third-party intent data, SWZD is a leader in intent-backed, intelligent, omnichannel marketing. Learn more.

SQL

New WAIT_FOR_COMPLETION Parameter for Resizing Computer Resources

When resizing a virtual warehouse, you can use Snowflake’s new WAIT_FOR_COMPLETION parameter, now generally available, to block the return of the ALTER WAREHOUSE command until the resize has finished provisioning all of its servers. Blocking the return of this command when resizing to a larger warehouse ensures that your servers have been fully provisioned and the warehouse is ready to execute queries using all the new resources. Learn more.

UNTIL NEXT MONTH

These are just a few of the new features and updates available in Snowflake. For the full list, see the Release Notes. And as always, watch for additional updates as Snowflake continuously adds new features and functions that help customers in every industry go further and faster with their data.