Snowflake is a modern cloud data platform used by companies to store, manage, and analyze large amounts of data. But there’s often confusion about where your data lives and who manages it. Let’s break it down:
1️⃣ Snowflake is NOT a Cloud Provider
-
Snowflake doesn’t own physical servers or cloud infrastructure.
-
Instead, it runs on AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud (GCP).
-
When you create an account, you choose your cloud provider and region.
2️⃣ Where Your Data Actually Lives
-
Your data is stored in the cloud storage of your selected provider:
-
AWS → S3
-
Azure → Blob Storage
-
GCP → Google Cloud Storage (GCS)
-
-
But you never access this storage directly. Snowflake handles everything.
3️⃣ Snowflake Manages Everything For You
-
Storage & Maintenance: Data is compressed, encrypted, backed up, and optimized automatically.
-
Compute: Virtual warehouses handle queries and scale up or down on demand.
-
Security: Role-based access, masking policies, and encryption are handled by Snowflake.
-
Recovery: Time Travel lets you query past versions of your data.
4️⃣ Do You Need a Cloud Account?
-
No, you don’t need an AWS/Azure/GCP account to use Snowflake.
-
You only need a cloud account if you want to:
-
Load data from your own cloud storage
-
Export/unload data to your cloud account
-
Integrate with cloud-specific services
-
5️⃣ Accessing Data
-
Through Snowflake: SQL, SnowSQL CLI, or BI tools like Power BI/Tableau
-
Directly from Cloud: Only if you export/unload data or connect via external stages
6️⃣ Key Takeaways
-
Snowflake = fully-managed data warehouse service
-
Cloud provider = physical storage and compute under the hood
-
You focus on queries, analytics, and data pipelines, Snowflake handles the infrastructure
Analogy: Snowflake is like a hotel built on AWS/Azure/GCP land.
-
You stay in the hotel (use Snowflake features)
-
You don’t own the land (cloud storage)
-
The hotel handles security, maintenance, and services