As a Microsoft partner, Snowflake is a powerful tool that offers support for Azure-based data warehousing, including integration and easy access from Azure Blob Storage to Snowflake, easy implementation of data pipelines from Azure Data Lake into Snowflake, and connection with Microsoft Power BI Desktop to visualize analytics. There is no question that businesses seek to improve outcomes and reduce risk, and we’re here with this guide to share some steps you can take to set up your data warehouse with Snowflake on Microsoft Azure.

1. Create your Snowflake account through Azure

First, click the option to create a new account and make sure to select “Microsoft Azure” in the last drop-down field for Azure integration benefits and to avoid inbound and outbound network transfer fees from Amazon AWS. You’ll be asked to share your credit card information, but the transaction is only for verification to try out the Snowflake trial period. You can then start the provisioning process after you click the registration page.

In the Snowflake Management portal, you’ll see three main components and options to use: Databases (including samples to use for testing), data warehouses (to create or resize), and worksheet (an SQL panel to run ad-hoc queries)

Here’s a snapshot of what your Snowflake interface will look like:

2. Managing your Snowflake virtual data warehouse

Resizing your data warehouse

When you are resizing your data warehouse, go to the “Warehouses” section, select “COMPUTE_WH” warehouse and then “Configure”. You can then change the size of your warehouse to match your need.

A capability that you’ll want to use is selecting the best time to resize your data warehouse. You may need it bigger during times when you have more volumes of data to filter through, but you can also scale it down when there are seasons of lower volumes of data. Resizing a warehouse to a larger size is useful when the operations you’re looking to perform need more compute resources and can improve the performance of large, complex queries against large data sets. With this agility, you can improve performance while loading and unloading significant amounts of data.

Using your data warehouse

To execute a query or statement in Snowflake, a warehouse must be up and running, and as a user, you’ll need to specify which session the query or statement is submitted. Remember that a Snowflake session can only have one current warehouse at a time (if you need to change or specify the current warehouse, you’ll have to use the USE WAREHOUSE command)

Note: the syntax: USE WAREHOUSE <name>

3. Download Snowflake drivers

After managing data warehouses, the next step is to look into connecting 3rd-party tools and technologies that form the extended ecosystem with Snowflake. The tools and drivers are available for you to download (you can find them in the “Help” icon). The Go Snowflake Driver provides an interface for developing applications using the Go programming language to connect to Snowflake and perform all standard operations.

Snowflake’s cloud-based data warehouse platform enables instant, secure, and governed access to an entire network of data. It supports various data workloads for developing modern data applications in an efficient and cost-saving way. With Snowflake data warehouse, companies can realize a single source of truth to enhance data quality and improve decision-making processes. Given that this is simply a basic guide, there’s a lot more that is left unwritten and can be complicated to practically execute without technical guidance and support.

4. Configure network access settings

Data access controls are part of the data governance for databases, which are necessary to protect data from unauthorized access and usage. You can create a network policy through the web interface or using SQL, and you’ll also need to have the necessary permissions as only administrators or higher can create or alter network policies. According to Snowflake’s documentation, they recommend designating at least one other user as an account administrator. This helps ensure that your account always has at least one user who can perform account-level tasks. Moreover, Snowflake also strongly recommends using Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) for any user login to ensure the highest level of security, and this can include account admin as well as security admin and system admin as well. You can also have the capability to set future grants and privileges depending on the extent of authorization and visibility of the user. For more detailed guidelines and rules, check out the Snowflake documentation on access control.

If you are interested in moving further on, CloudMoyo offers a FastTracktoValueTM  Implementation with a technical and robust step-by-step methodology to help companies implement Snowflake on Azure.

The demand for digital services is growing faster than ever, and it does not appear to be slowing down. You’ve probably seen and heard about the power of low code and its ability to optimize the entire development process to accelerate the delivery of applications. Gartner Research predicts that “By 2024, low-code application development will be responsible for more than 65% of application development activity.” The explosion of mobile apps, and the change in consumer expectations, was a catalyst for a revolution in application development.

With low code technology, you can increase the speed while designing applications, and there is no need for traditional coding languages such as C# or JavaScript. You can eliminate challenges such as inefficient administrative processes and risks in budgeting. However, a practical question you may be asking is how exactly to execute low code for your team? Are you wondering how to implement low code and no code app development technologies into your workflows?

Here is a basic guide on how to adopt low code tech for your application development and improve your company’s digital capability.

1. Choose a low code platform or tool to use for the application you want to build. There are numerous application platforms to choose from, such as Appian, OutSystems, and Microsoft Power Apps are some of the tools. While it may be a challenge to decide on which tool you’d like to adopt, the general principles of creating apps are similar and not too distinct from each other. Take Power Apps, for example, there is a workspace featured with simple layouts and design options to select, which is visually similar to Microsoft Power Point.

2. Select a pre-made template for your application, which includes an interface with multiple screens, components, and different design elements. There are some out-of-the- controls in Power Apps like gallery, view, forms, etc, and the capability to embed multimedia elements like videos, images, and icons, as well as other features such as bar code scanning, camera, navigation, and other options.

3. There are also advanced features that allow you to decide what kind of data you want to show and display to the user. In addition, you can also choose your desired theme to match your intended visual layouts and formats if needed. These are features infused with AI models that can automatically enable desired outcomes for your applications. With a user-friendly drag and drop controls, you can easily create application interfaces that are compatible with both mobile and desktop.

4. With the help of connectors, it is easy to achieve integration with existing applications such as SharePoint, OneDrive, Google Drive, HubSpot, and SQL. This is an area where the CloudMoyo team can bring in their expertise, helping enterprises move away from relying on conventional integration methods such as the point-to-point approaches to integrate applications or systems across the business.

With a tool like Power Apps, you can also easily configure and manage real-time workflows. Workflow automation is cheaper and quicker to develop and deploy, allowing you to automate processes and gain better visibility and oversight, as well as achieve standardization for compliance purposes for tasks.

The overall concept is simplistic and easy to grasp – think about it as using Canva instead of Sketch or Figma to create a design asset. With pre-made templates and components, it can save up time and effort to deliver an application in a short turnaround time, and free up the bandwidth of developers as well. With the pre-built connectors, businesses can quickly create data connections and streamline data exchange among applications.

Connect with us to get a more concrete idea of how other companies have implemented low code technologies to speed up their processes, enable optimization, and generate business values like greater efficiency in teamwork and results. Low code technology is an innovation that you won’t want to miss for your organization, as it delivers data exchange, improves productivity, and enables security to meet changing needs and drive growth. All it takes is a simple adoption to build a custom solution for your desired application.