Recapping the 2023 Snowflake Summit

At the end of June, SDG Group sponsored and attended the 2023 Snowflake Summit, the world’s largest data, apps, and AI conference. During the event, Snowflake revealed groundbreaking new capabilities, such as container services and native apps, and how they are working with NVIDIA to provide customers with capabilities for building custom Generative AI applications. Snowflake also talked at length about how they are focused on supporting AI capabilities on their platform.

SDG was a Blue Square Sponsor of the event, hosting a booth in the Basecamp exhibition area where we met with attendees from around the globe over the course of the conference. We presented sessions that outlined our customers' success (J&J, Classic Collision) with Snowflake and other tech partners, using modern data architectures and AI/ML techniques. We demonstrated our MLOps framework that is rooted in Analytical Ready Data (ARD), Model Ready Data, and a consistent, yet flexible, design. We also ran an interactive game where attendees could follow the journey their data takes through a modern ecosystem. Perhaps most notably, SDG was the proud recipient of the Snowflake EMEA Regional System Integrator Innovation Partner of the Year award:

SDG's Sessions Presented During the 2023 Snowflake Summit

Session #1: How J&J Innovated Their Architecture to Automate Process & Empower Their Analytics Ecosystem

Presented by: Bart Vandendriessche, Johnson & Johnson Manager, Global Data & Analytics for IT, Emilio Gomez, Janssen Europe, Middle East & Africa (EMEA) Data and Insights IT Director, and Alba Turrion, Executive Manager at SDG Group

In this session, we discussed how Johnson & Johnson's Pharma Commercial organization in EMEA is leveraging Snowflake to modernize and streamline their data architecture. By implementing a new architecture, J&J has:

• Reduced analytics time to market
• Increased agility with the adoption of automated DataOps processes
• Achieved stronger data quality through the use of a quality validation framework

This innovative architecture also enhances data accessibility and understandability by integrating automated documentation, lineage, and data catalog, providing the power user community with a federated build that maintains consistent governance and processes across functions and geographies. Additionally, the team showcased their modern approach to sharing PII Type 3 data with both internal and external partners.

Session #2: How Snowflake-Based Architecture Drives Cultural Impact and Value

Presented by: Ryan Alley, CIO of Classic Collision, and Jason Fishbein, Senior Executive at SDG Group

In this session, we covered how our client Classic Collision, an automotive repair and maintenance center, utilized the power and flexibility of cloud-based data architecture on top of Snowflake to re-energize its business leaders to solve complex problems in a scalable way. Initially, Classic Collision's unique industry space, paired with a traditional data architecture, presented several challenges: constrained scalability, limited collaboration between business functions, duplication of data, and inefficient manual processes to help bridge gaps created by the technical limitations of the technology. The difficulty of implementing value-added solutions predictably stifled creativity in leadership. 

To help address these challenges, SDG Group leveraged Snowflake to:

• Implement modern ELT pipelines with a wide variety of data ingestion possibilities
• Migrate previously manual solutions to scalable cloud-based solutions to enable collaboration and strong data governance

With these new solutions in place, challenges that were previously thought to be impossible to solve are now being tackled with ease. Classic Collision is now equipped with the ability to distribute the right data, to the right people, at the right time. This ultimately empowers business leaders and IT teams alike to make better decisions, materialize their ideas in a scalable way, employ creativity to solve complex challenges, and heighten their competitive advantage.

Session #3: Governed Data Engineering for MLOps: Provisioning Efficient and Scalable High-Quality Data

Presented by Matt Giroux, Senior Executive at SDG Group

Watch the full session here .

In this session, which was hosted at our partner Matillion’s booth, Matt discussed how we can operate and organize our data engineering teams and pipelines to optimize performance and outcomes. He reviewed examples of how data duplication can arise, as well as how to revise your engineering processes to avoid these data duplication issues. This session also covered the importance of Data Governance. Matt stressed that a strong Data Governance strategy that focuses on quality, observability, and organizational process can continuously improve and optimize data quality over time.  In the second half of the presentation, Matt reviewed SDG’s MLOps framework, a framework that is characterized by and rooted in Analytical Ready Data (ARD), Model Ready Data, and a consistent and flexible design. 

Contact us today to learn more about Snowflake's announcements or any of the session content we presented.