Top 5 takeaways from Snowflake Summit 2023

1. Snowpark Container Services

Containers have become vital in today’s business landscape to ensure seamless portability and consistency across various environments, particularly for AI/ML models and data-intensive applications. However, managing these workloads and safeguarding data can present productivity obstacles for small and large development teams alike. That’s where we can step in with Snowflake’s Snowpark Container Services.

Developers will now deploy, manage, and scale containerized workloads securely within Snowflake’s infrastructure. This feature eliminates the complexities associated with intricate processes and specialized expertise, enabling our developers to focus on what they do best – generating value for the business. By leveraging Snowflake’s secure environment, we can confidently utilize governed data for advanced AI/ML models and applications while maintaining top-notch security. This runtime option not only streamlines development processes but also enhances data protection, allowing organizations to effectively tackle their business problems head-on.

Developers can enjoy the flexibility and convenience provided by Container Services when it comes to deploying and managing containerized applications. With support for multiple programming languages and configurable hardware options, developers can code in their language of choice—be it C/C++, Node.js, Python, R, or React. This seamless integration empowers the smooth blending of AI/ML models, front-end user interfaces, and optimized logic within Snowflake’s governed data boundary. The best part? It handles the hosting and scaling of containers, sparing developers the need for extensive knowledge of Kubernetes or complex processes.

Snowpark Container Services address industry challenges by streamlining container management, eliminating the need for data movement, supporting diverse programming languages and hardware options, and simplifying the end-to-end lifecycle of containerized applications. This empowers developers to concentrate on solving business problems, enhances data security, offers flexibility, and boosts productivity.

With our strong expertise in container services and as a Snowflake partner, Nortal can help you deploy and manage containerized workloads securely within Snowflake’s infrastructure.  We can guide you in leveraging this feature to streamline development processes, enhance data protection, and tackle your business problems head-on. Our team of experts can ensure a seamless integration of AI/ML models, front-end user interfaces, and optimized logic within Snowflake’s governed data boundary, enabling you to fully exploit the potential of Container Services.

2. Snowflake and NVIDIA NeMo

Snowflake and NVIDIA have teamed up to alter the way businesses utilize data in the cloud, unleashing the power of generative AI. This exciting collaboration aims to push the boundaries of the data cloud, empowering organizations to leverage their data and unlock fresh insights for AI-driven innovation.

By combining Snowflake’s robust data platform with NVIDIA’s AI expertise and accelerated computing capabilities, this partnership takes data utilization to new heights. The integration of NVIDIA’s powerful GPUs and NeMo framework into Snowflake’s Data Cloud empowers businesses to tap into the vast potential of generative AI across domains like natural language processing, computer vision, and deep learning.

The possibilities this collaboration opens for businesses across industries are truly thrilling. It allows organizations to harness their data more effectively, unveil hidden patterns, and gain valuable insights that drive innovation and fuel business growth. Businesses can now expedite the development and deployment of AI models, transforming how they leverage data and positioning themselves at the forefront of their respective industries.

Our experience in AI/ML allows Nortal to assist you in leveraging Snowflake’s robust data platform integrated with NVIDIA’s AI expertise and accelerated computing capabilities. Together, we can explore the possibilities of generative AI across natural language processing, such as Nortal’s TARK (LLM offering), computer vision, and deep learning, enabling you to gain fresh insights and drive innovation.

3. Document AI

Snowflake has made another noteworthy announcement with the introduction of Document AI, a cutting-edge feature that equips businesses with advanced document processing capabilities. With Document AI, organizations can now extract valuable insights from unstructured data sources like PDFs, images, and other documents.

The potential impact of Snowflake’s Document AI on the industry is truly significant. It empowers businesses to tap into the wealth of untapped information buried within unstructured data, transforming it into actionable insights. By automating document processing tasks and leveraging powerful AI algorithms, businesses can save valuable time and resources while gaining a competitive edge in understanding their customers, optimizing operations, and making well-informed decisions.

Adopting this new functionality offers several impactful benefits for organizations. Firstly, it enhances efficiency by automating manual document processing tasks, resulting in faster and more accurate data extraction. As a result, organizations can handle large volumes of documents at scale, accelerating workflows and boosting overall productivity.

Secondly, the insights derived from unstructured data sources can provide businesses with a deeper understanding of their customers, market trends, and operational performance. Nortal’s experience in eGov and logistics sectors has shown us the power of unstructured documents and the importance of extracting key information from them.  We have helped organizations uncover meaningful patterns, detect anomalies, and make data-driven decisions with greater precision and we are excited to expand your knowledge to the Snowflake platform.

4. ML-Powered Analysis

Snowflake’s ML-powered analysis features bring a new level of ease to data analytics by harnessing the power of machine learning. These features are designed to empower businesses to gain deeper insights and make accurate predictions without requiring extensive knowledge of machine learning techniques.

This feature leverages machine learning models to analyze time-series data and uncover patterns and trends over time.

Forecasting:

Time series forecasting is a powerful technique that predicts future data based on historical input data. Historical data with a timestamp column and a target value column representing the quantity of interest is required to perform forecasting. Additional columns that may influence the target value can also be included. By training a machine learning model using this data, accurate forecasts for future timestamps can be generated. This forecasting capability is applicable to both single-series and multi-series data.

Anomaly Detection:

Detecting and removing outliers from your data can significantly improve the accuracy of statistics and machine-learning models. Anomaly detection helps identify unexpected deviations and pinpoint the origin of problems or anomalies in processes. Snowflake’s anomaly detection feature can be applied to both single-series and multi-series data, allowing for separate analysis of independent events. By creating an anomaly detection object and fitting a model to training data, you can detect anomalies by comparing actual data to forecasted values.

Contribution Explorer:

Contribution Explorer simplifies root cause analysis by identifying the factors driving shifts in observed metrics. It analyzes changes in data segments with respect to a specific metric, helping to pinpoint the drivers of those shifts. For example, in supply chain management Nortal can use this model to identify the contribution of different suppliers, logistics partners, or nodes within the supply network. By integrating this function into queries and pipelines, users can extract the most significant dimensions influencing the metric and understand the factors contributing to data variation.

Nortal can use Snowflake’s ML-powered analysis to assist you in unlocking hidden patterns, making accurate predictions, and gaining valuable insight from your data. By leveraging our machine learning capabilities and experience, businesses can confidently make data-driven decisions and stay ahead in today’s competitive landscape and hard economic times.  We can help you leverage Snowflake’s machine-learning capabilities to enhance efficiency, improve data quality, and drive data-driven decision-making in your organization.

5. Marketplace Capacity Drawdown Program

The Marketplace Capacity Drawdown Program is a valuable offering that allows organizations with a Snowflake Capacity commitment to utilize a portion of that commitment to cover the costs of listings on the Snowflake Marketplace. This program offers organizations the flexibility to draw down up to 5% of their Capacity commitment in US dollars, with a maximum cap of $50,000 USD, for marketplace purchases. By taking advantage of this feature, organizations can optimize their operational costs and budgets more efficiently.

The program eliminates any complexity and ensures convenience for organizations. The specific amount that can be drawn down depends on the capacity amount, providing a tailored approach. For example, a $200,000 contract allows for a drawdown of 5% or $10,000, while a $1,200,000 contract permits a drawdown of 5% or $50,000.

This new feature empowers organizations to leverage their commitment to effectively manage costs, simplify procurement processes, allocate budgets strategically, and make purchases on the Snowflake Marketplace with ease. It’s a win-win situation that enhances the overall value of Snowflake’s flexibility for businesses.

At Nortal, we can guide you through the overall management of your Snowflake organization, enabling you to effectively manage costs, simplify procurement processes, and strategically allocate budgets for marketplace purchases. Our team can assist in leveraging this program to optimize your operational costs and achieve your business goals more efficiently.