Whether you’re starting to explore the benefits of the Snowflake Data Cloud, sorting resources needed for cloud-based systems, or determining the data platform best suited for your needs, you want to know that your data will be in expert hands. At Blankfactor, our Snowflake experts and elite engineers help companies at every stage of their cloud journey, from data strategy to infrastructure design to migration — and we work to transform systems and outcomes with data.
Since joining Snowflake’s Partner Network over a year ago, we’ve helped major firms manage cloud migrations securely and efficiently. We’ve used Snowflake to build innovative wealth management products, modernized data platforms, and more. Our partnership also means we’re at the forefront of the platform’s latest advancements, which means our clients are, too.
We recently caught up with VP of Engineering and Data Officer Nikolay Nyagolov to understand a few key ways our data engineering and Snowflake technology expertise can help you maximize business impact by moving to the cloud.
1. Service partner program: expertise from Snowflake & Blankfactor
Moving to the Snowflake cloud can mean transformations for companies, turbo-charging data insights, a more agile, efficient, and innovative culture, and driving other business goals. But a lot is at stake in a migration initiative, like delayed project timelines or a lift-and-shift approach that offers minimal long-term impact to the business.
Working with Blankfactor means that you get Snowflake-certified engineers on your team, and you get direct access to Snowflake’s experts — making the most of your digital initiative the first time.
With our SnowPro Core Certification, all of our data engineers have a deep understanding of the architecture and features of Snowflake. Paired with our expertise in financial services technology, our data team knows how to leverage the Snowflake platform for data storage, security and compliance, and reporting and analytics needs unique to banks, card networks, and other financial institutions.
And our teams’ side-by-side collaboration with Snowflake engineers ensures that you get answers to complex project requirements, producing top-tier solutions tailored to your unique business needs. With this dual expertise behind each project, our data team can rapidly accelerate your time-to-value.
2. Access the latest features, like LLMs
Every day, Snowflake is working to upgrade its cloud platform. As a Snowflake services partner, we see all the latest features first. Our privileged access means that we can look ahead to upcoming releases and advise our clients’ data strategy and implementation plans accordingly.
Take Snowflake’s latest LLM capabilities announced at this year’s Snowflake Summit, which allows Snowflake cloud users to build AI applications with proprietary company data in Snowflake. We’ve already begun designing our clients’ data projects with an AI-first approach, placing our clients one step ahead of the competition.
We’re also working to shape the future of the Snowflake platform. Since we have access to privately-available features, our teams are providing crucial feedback to help continually improve the Snowflake platform.
3. Design for optimization & cloud-native services
We think that our clients should migrate to Snowflake not just to bring their data to a better warehouse, but to develop innovative and agile products, integrate their services, streamline maintenance, and leverage the full power of cloud-native services.
With that, our data team designs every Snowflake project for cloud-native services, looking to replace existing systems with a more efficient, cloud-native approach.
We also create opportunities to drive efficiencies and cost savings in Snowflake, fully optimizing the cloud’s performance and impact. With our in-depth knowledge of the platform, we can help you tap into powerful features to unlock all that Snowflake can do. For example, we leverage Snowflake’s pay-as-you-go model to optimize our client’s computing resources, designing for scalability based on complexity.
5. Snowflake-native data processing design
With some of our recent projects, we started to recognize that companies don’t always have an ideal data ingest process tailored to the Snowflake platform — and we saw an opportunity to create a better solution.
Working together with Snowflake’s team, our data experts developed an advanced data ingest architecture for Snowflake. With this streamlined approach featuring native encryption, our teams are using the most advanced, fastest way to encrypt and decrypt data during processing.
For this work, we received recognition from Snowflake for our comprehensive understanding of the platform and innovative solutions — and we’re now working to implement this improved data ingest process for our clients.
6. Robust data cloud security design for financial services
Our data team doesn’t settle for acceptable industry norms when it comes to security. We go beyond the standard by designing with double encryption. While many companies rely on a top layer of encryption, we encrypt the content of files themselves to provide advanced data protection — a crucial measure for data security in financial services.
(Of note: Nyagolov has been working closely with Snowflake for over seven years, ensuring that our clients see the latest features in cloud data security design.)
7. IT resource planning for Snowflake migration
The unknowns and resource challenges of moving to the cloud can hold some companies back from the project. To better support our clients in the cloud migration process, we recently introduced data administration into our data practice.
This empowers companies to have a clear grasp of their resourcing needs for migration to Snowflake. By considering all data administration needs at the outset, we work to ensure a smooth, efficient, and optimized move to the cloud.
Our Snowflake experts can transform your business
Investing in a migration to Snowflake is a major opportunity to leverage the latest technologies and unlock all that data can do for companies in financial services and beyond. From data strategy to digital engineering to unlocking enterprise AI with data, our experts can help you accelerate your growth and transformation.
Contact Blankfactor today to get solutions tailored to your business and find out what working with a Snowflake services consultant can mean for you.