Breaking down internal data barriers

Snowflake has launched the Snowflake Private Data Exchange™, a centralised and internally managed data hub that enables organisations to privately share data sets with a select group of people within their chosen ecosystem for collaborative, real-time, informed decision making.

"The Snowflake Private Data Exchange represents the future of managing and sharing data broadly and securely inside enterprise and institutional boundaries,” Snowflake CEO, Frank Slootman said. “The data exchange model will become the deployment standard for exploring, discovering and sharing data enterprise-wide."

Snowflake first announced The Snowflake Data Exchange™, a public marketplace built on Snowflake’s secure data sharing technology in June, 2019 at Snowflake Summit, Snowflake’s annual user conference. The Snowflake Data Exchange enables Snowflake data consumers to seamlessly discover, access and generate insights from data publicly listed by Snowflake data providers.

The new Snowflake Private Data Exchange enables organisations to create their own branded internal or private ecosystem version of a data marketplace with complete control over what data assets are listed and who has access to them. While other data exchanges provide access to third-party data, the Snowflake Private Data Exchange is the only platform that enables customers to securely and privately access real-time second-party and alternative data sources on a large scale.

Key benefits of the Snowflake Private Data Exchange include:

• Centralised place for business analytics and data science teams to browse and access data in a secure and curated environment.
• Improved data integrity, increased security and shortened time-to-insights without the burdens of ETL processes and associated costs.
• Direct access from the customer’s Snowflake account with the option to invite others to become data providers and data consumers.
• Secure bi-directional data interchange with third-party vendors to help augment internal datasets.
• Ability to monetise data sets through securely sharing them with customers for a fee.

Organisations can also use the Snowflake Private Data Exchange to evaluate new data assets within their data ecosystem or with the option of “tunneling” in data assets from the Snowflake Public Data Exchange. Coatue, a technology sector hedge fund, is planning to use the Snowflake Private Data Exchange as a tool to explore new data assets in a private “data store” where they are the only consumer.

“At Coatue, we understand the role data plays in smart investing and we aim to be at the leading edge of data management,” Coatue Co-Founder and Senior Managing Director, Thomas Laffont said. “The Snowflake Private Data Exchange blazes a trail for how data will be organised, discovered, augmented and accessed in the future. It eliminates traditional data boundaries and enables real time, frictionless data sharing that will yield key benefits for our ongoing data investments.”

Other types of organisations, such as the data-driven marketing business Wunderman Data, plan to use the Snowflake Private Data Exchange to expand the reach of their ecosystem of data products to partners, customers and internal business units in an environment offering secure collaboration across their most critical data.

“The Snowflake Private Data Exchange provides a tremendous step forward in meeting the needs of enterprises to effectively connect data while maintaining control, security and compliance,” said Martin Smith, GM of Digital and Data, Wunderman Thompson Data. “We are excited that Snowflake’s continued innovation in this area addresses the wider enablement of data within and across enterprises.”

Cerberus Technology Solutions, the technology operating company and subsidiary of Cerberus Capital Management is focused exclusively on leveraging emerging technology, data and advanced analytics to drive transformations. Cerberus plans to use the Snowflake Private Data Exchange to give the business a leading edge in the Private Equity industry.

“Success in the private equity industry requires being at the forefront of technology and timely data insights are a big part of that,” Cerberus Technology Solutions Chief Technology Officer, Michael Aguiling said. “We’ll be using the Snowflake Private Data Exchange to empower our business and Cerberus affiliates with the ability to share, collaborate and build various proprietary datasets securely, in real-time. Snowflake’s technology will transform the way Cerberus and its affiliates do business, realise new sources of revenue and deliver value to our customers.”

Financial institutions and other data-forward organisations across industries are especially positioned to leverage the benefits of the Snowflake Private Data Exchange with their growing interest in making informed business decisions bolstered by high quality, real-time data.