Snowflake has announced its data cloud availability within the UK on Microsoft Azure. The decision by Snowflake was prompted by increasing customer demand for local data residency from its private and public sector clients in the UK.
Organisations can now take advantage of all three cloud platforms that host Snowflake. AWS and GCP already have active hosting environments for Snowflake according to its regional footprint. Snowflake now has fifteen Azure regions, eighteen AWS regions and four GCP regions supported. In some ways, it is a surprise that the Azure UK region has taken so long to appear.
The Snowflake Data cloud enables organisations to deploy data and analytical workloads to suit their business-critical needs. Organisations can take advantage of the data cloud across different platforms and regions on every continent except Africa and Antarctica.
Since Brexit, the looming issue of data sovereignty has become even more important for the public sector, and especially financial services organisations, as regulations tighten and data privacy laws in the UK, Europe and across the world evolve. Customers in the UK can now take advantage of the Azure platform with its flexibility and scalability. Existing Azure customers will benefit from the low latency and adjacency of their solutions.
Julien Alteirac, area vice president UK&I, Snowflake, commented, “This Microsoft Azure deployment further highlights Snowflake’s commitment to helping businesses in the UK take full advantage of cloud technology while also enjoying data residency. Snowflake customers in the UK can keep their data in the country, and at the same time benefit from the flexibility of multi-cloud to drive innovation and adaptability for their organisations. This deployment is a further representation of our ongoing commitment to data innovators in the UK.”
Microsoft also benefits
For Microsoft UK, this is also a substantial announcement. Whilst at times competitors, the Snowflake instance will enable Microsoft to secure existing clients and attract others as Snowflake continue to dominate the market.
Orla McGrath, global partner solutions lead, Microsoft UK, said, “This launch further demonstrates our commitment to meeting our customers’ most stringent requirements, working hand in hand with our key partners.
“By ensuring availability of the Snowflake Data Cloud in our UK data centres, customers and partners across a wide range of industries can be better prepared to meet local data residency requirements, whilst leveraging the tools they need to accelerate their own data and AI strategies.”
Enterprise Times: What does this mean?
For Snowflake and Microsoft, this announcement opens up the possibility of a synergistic relationship with the UK that could benefit both companies. Snowflake hopes to attract Azure customers onto its platform and attract new ones because it is using the Microsoft platform. For Microsoft, it means that Snowflake UK customers no longer have to host on GCP or AWS platforms if they have concerns about data sovereignty. For customers, it ultimately delivers choice.
Snowflake customers using Azure use the same pay consumption per second model that it uses worldwide. It enables organisations to discover and securely share data and execute diverse analytic workloads on the Snowflake platform.
Now the solution is available, will they opt to deploy on Azure, and what initial feedback will they deliver?
