Snowflake Data Superheroes at the Builder’s Keynote
Last year I attended my first Snowflake Summit and my first in person conference since the pandemic. It was amazing. I remember feeling so energized and in awe of the Data Superheroes. I made it a personal goal to attend this year’s summit as a Superhero myself. I wasn’t quite sure how to make that happen but I just started putting myself out there, writing, speaking and evangelizing Snowflake.
And I DID IT! I attending Summit 2023 as a Data Superhero and the experience was beyond my wildest expectations! Sitting in the front row during the Builder’s Keynote with some new friends became a highlight of the trip for me. Connecting, talking, laughing and geeking out over a shared love of technology and data really energized me as a data engineer and excited me to return home and try new things again.
In addition to the Data Superhero highlights, Snowflake Summit revealed some pretty phenomenal product announcements that had everyone in the audience oohing and aahing.
1. Dynamic Tables bring a declarative approach to data pipelines compared to the imperative method of tasks and streams. If you are from the Oracle space, think “materialized table” but there are some nuances to it that are worth thinking through before blindly implementing.
2. Native Application Framework and Marketplace. This is the “App Store” for Snowflake and Data. Imagine building a native app that people can immediately connect with their data on snowflake without having to install, download or do anything. It JUST WORKS! I connect with some amazing app developers at Summit and I’m especially excited to try out the Astronomer hosted Airflow app (more to come on that).
3. Document AI. This might have been the coolest demo out there. Reading and interpreting PDF and text documents and images with predefined models that you can tune right in the snowflake UI? Yes, thank you! I actually have a use case that I’ve been noodling on for a few years and this makes that use case actually possible!
In terms of non-product announcements, Summit was filled with meeting old and new friends, exchanging war stories regarding different features and finding comfort in discussing challenges and successes with fellow Snowflake users and clients (potential and current).
I also had the opportunity to be interviewed for the live stream about my Summit experience and what I’m loving about Snowflake.
Live stream interview with Howard