Snowflake is a data warehouse built on top of the Amazon Web Services or Microsoft Azure cloud infrastructure. There’s no hardware or software to select, install, configure, or manage, making it ideal for organizations that don’t want to dedicate resources for setup, maintenance, and support of in-house servers. But what sets Snowflake apart is its architecture and data sharing capabilities: the architecture allows storage and compute to scale independently, so customers can use and pay for storage and computation separately; And the sharing functionality makes it easy for organizations to quickly share governed and secure data in real time. Snowflake’s Data Cloud is powered by an advanced data platform provided as Software-as-a-Service (SaaS). It enables data storage, processing, and analytic solutions that are faster, easier to use, and far more flexible than traditional offerings. 

Why Snowflake? 

• Runs completely on cloud infrastructure. All components of Snowflake’s service (other than optional command line clients, drivers, and connectors), run in public cloud infrastructures. 
• Uses virtual compute instances for its compute needs and a storage service for persistent storage of data. Snowflake cannot be run on private cloud infrastructures. 
• Provides industry-leading features that ensure the highest levels of security for your account and users, as well as all the data you store in it. 
• Offers security validations like Soc 1 Type II, Soc 2 Type II, support for HIPAA compliance, PCI DSS compliance, HITRUST CSF compliance, etc.  
• Offers security services such as AES-256 strong encryption, periodic rekeying of encrypted data and support for encrypting data using customer-managed keys. 
• Ensures that all the files stored in internal stages for data loading and unloading are automatically encrypted using AES-256 strong encryption. 
• Snowflake employs Key Pair Authentication & Key Pair Rotation for increased security with client authentication. MFA (multi-factor authentication) and OAuth are offered for increased security. Key-Pair Authentication as an alternative to basic authentication.