Snowflake is a cloud-based data platform that enables secure data storage, processing, and analytics at scale. Unlike traditional data warehouses, Snowflake decouples storage and compute, allowing users to scale each independently for better performance and cost efficiency. It supports diverse workloads including data warehousing, data lakes, data sharing, and real-time analytics, all through a unified platform across AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud.
Snowflake operates on a multi-cluster shared data architecture. This lets multiple users and workloads access the same data concurrently without performance bottlenecks. Its architecture also simplifies data integration and supports structured and semi-structured formats like JSON and Parquet.
The name “Snowflake” reflects the product’s cloud-native design—flexible, lightweight, and scalable like a snowflake itself. The logo, a stylized snowflake with six symmetrical branches, symbolizes the platform’s precision, harmony, and cloud focus. It’s a nod to both its name and its aim to bring clarity and performance to complex data environments.
