Introduction
In an increasingly competitive and evolving landscape, it has become mission critical for businesses to leverage the power of real-time data for making decisions.
Irrespective of the industry and the scale of a business, data is at the heart of every modern company and enterprise.
With data, businesses can make smarter, personalized and real-time decisions in the present and generate valuable insights for the future.
However, to enable faster, streamlined and seamless data analytics and business intelligence, businesses need more than traditional tools and databases to get the job done.
Legacy systems relying on on-premise infrastructure are no match for today’s high-tech, flexible and scalable tools and platforms.
Moving from a traditional database solution like SQL server to a more modern and future-ready platform like Snowflake can help your business embark on a journey to digital transformation.
However, migrating your SQL server to Snowflake is easier said than done – it poses certain challenges and requires a thorough know-how of technologies, processes, databases and platforms.
In this article, we will dive deeper into how to plan enterprise data migration to Snowflake and what are the common pitfalls you must avoid.
Why Choose Snowflake
Snowflake is one of the most promising and popularly used cloud data warehouse platforms as it offers a suite of features and benefits.
Snowflake’s cutting edge, robust technology infrastructure is widely adopted by companies and enterprises, especially due to its cross-cloud capabilities which is ready to be deployed with Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud and Amazon AWS.
On top of offering strong support for structured, semi-structured and unstructured databases, Snowflake also offers the additional advantage of being a fully managed, scalable and flexible solution which is not constrained by on-premise infrastructure.
As a leading cloud-as-a-service platform, Snowflake offers faster, more efficient and cost-effective data storage, replication, processing and analysis solutions in one package.
Since many legacy companies and enterprises still rely on traditional tools and platforms for storing, processing and analyzing data, it takes longer than usual for them to stay updated with the speed of data.
Thanks to Snowflake’s industry leading massive parallel processing capabilities and columnar storage, businesses can utilize real-time data replication and processing at scale.
Based on their needs and usage, businesses can easily scale up or down using Snowflake’s flexible, on-cloud infrastructure.
Due to its separate compute and storage layers, businesses have complete control over what capabilities are deployed to meet their needs.
Plus, Snowflake allows companies to save costs on hosting, managing, administering and configuring infrastructure on their own.
Another advantage of migrating from SQL server to Snowflake is the less complex architecture which requires significantly fewer resources and maintenance compared to traditional, on-premise databases.
Overall, if your business utilizes real-time, data-intensive applications and functions, then migrating to Snowflake can help you store, analyze and backup data at a more affordable cost in the long run.
Key factors to consider before SQL server migration
Since business and consumer data is mission critical to the functioning of your company, it is important that you are well-prepared for the transition.
If you are ready to embrace the power of a cloud-based data warehouse solution like Snowflake, here are some key tips to keep in consideration before taking the plunge.
- Analyze data thoroughly:
Your data is more than just bits and bytes, it is a varied and diverse kaleidoscope of valuable information.
Before you migrate from an on-premise to a cloud based platform, it is important that you take stock of the data and ensure it is structured, updated and relevant.
- Budget the transition:
Before migrating from the on-premise fixed cost SQL server model to a cloud based, pay-as-you-go Snowflake model, it is important that you factor in the costs.
Switching to Snowflake might free you up from the overheads of maintaining and updating infrastructure on your own, but you must be clear about the various computer costs.
Generally, cloud based data warehouses are always connected and on, it could result in unpredictable expenses without any practical benefits.
- Train your team:
Embracing a new technology isn’t just a management decision, it is a transition for your team and staff as well.
Although SQL server and Snowflake might share many common aspects, yet, it is important that your database administrators and managers are equipped with the knowledge and skills of the new platform.
The best way to ensure a seamless transition is to get your teams a hands-on tour and demo of Snowflake.
Needless to say, there are many additional aspects to be considered before migration to Snowflake and yes, the process and transition can be complex and overwhelming, especially if your business has massive data volume.
However, there is an easier and more seamless way to get your SQL data migrated to Snowflake.
Want the easiest way to migrate?
With Bryteflow, your business can experience the power of a no-code, fully automated platform built for securely migrating your data from SQL to Snowflake in real-time.
Bryteflow supports migration of all the commonly used data types and utilizes change data capture to ensure the data between the source and the target is updated and synchronized.
