Cloudera, Snowflake Team Up to Unleash New Hybrid Data Management Integration

Cloudera, the only true hybrid platform for data, analytics, and Artificial Intelligence (AI), announced on EVOLVE 2024 an integration with Snowflake, the AI Data Cloud company, to bring enterprises an open, unified hybrid data lakehouse powered by Apache Iceberg. Now, enterprises can leverage the combination of Cloudera and Snowflake—two best-of-breed tools for the ingestion, processing, and consumption of data—for a single source of truth across all data, analytics, and AI workloads.

Data is a business’s most powerful asset. It drives informed decision-making, provides a competitive advantage, and reveals opportunities for innovation. A 2022 study revealed 80% of businesses report higher revenue due to real-time data analytics, and 98% report an increase in positive customer sentiment due to leveraging data. However, to fully harness the power of data, businesses need a single, unified source of truth for storing, managing, and governing all enterprise data, regardless of where it resides.

Remus Lim, Senior Vice President of Asia Pacific and Japan at Cloudera said, “Extending Cloudera’s open data lakehouse interoperability with Snowflake provides customers with industry-leading data management and governance capabilities powered by Apache Iceberg. This integration offers enterprises greater interoperability with topnotch tools to ingest, process, and consume all of their data in a single source of truth, regardless of where it resides. This leads to reduced operational complexity and a lower total cost of ownership for faster insights. Our customers can now leverage the best of both worlds in an optimised data platform to accelerate data-driven innovation.”

Cloudera has extended its Open Data Lakehouse interoperability to Snowflake, allowing joint customers seamless access to Cloudera’s Data Lakehouse via its Apache Iceberg REST Catalog.  Customers benefit from an optimized data platform powered by Apache Iceberg, which enables them to ingest, prepare, and process their data with best-in-class tools. Also, Snowflake users can now query data stored on Cloudera’s Ozone, an on-premises AWS S3-compatible object storage solution, directly from Snowflake.

Cloudera-Snowflake Partnership Promises Even More Benefits

Customers now have access to all major form factors from one cohesive collaboration, on-premise, and as a platform-as-a-service (PaaS) and software-as-a -service (SaaS)

In addition to enabling greater interoperability between the two systems, Cloudera customers will experience the ease of Snowflake’s Business Intelligence engine. The Snowflake engine can access data from Cloudera’s Open Data Lakehouse without requiring data duplication or transfer, reducing complexity, streamlining operations, and maintaining data integrity.

Moreover, this collaboration leads to a reduction in the total cost of ownership of the integrated stack for enterprises. The elimination of data and metadata silos, rationalisation of data pipelines, and streamlining of operational efforts are key factors in this cost reduction.

These improvements help deliver analytics and AI use cases at scale more efficiently, further enhancing the value proposition for businesses leveraging both Cloudera and Snowflake. This strategic integration not only optimises analytic workflows but also provides a robust framework for enterprises to drive innovation and gain competitive advantages in their respective markets.

Additional benefits of this integration include:

• Managed Iceberg tables. Iceberg tables enhance data performance and reliability, allowing joint customers to unlock the full potential of their data through better organisation, faster queries, and simplified data management, regardless of where the data is stored.
• Best-of-breed engines. Joint customers benefit from top-tier engines to ingest, prepare, and manage their data, enabling seamless management of both AI and business intelligence workloads.
• Unified security and governance. This integration consolidates data security and governance across the entire data lifecycle. Joint customers can apply consistent security measures, track data origin and movement, and manage metadata within a single platform, on-prem or the cloud.

“By extending our open data lakehouse capabilities through Apache Iceberg to Snowflake, we’re enabling our customers to not only optimise their data workflows but also unlock new opportunities for innovation, efficiency, and growth,” said Abhas Ricky, Chief Strategy Officer at Cloudera. “This will help customers simplify their data architecture, minimise data pipelines, and reduce total cost of ownership of their data estate while reducing security risks. Together, Snowflake and Cloudera are bringing about the next era of data-driven decision-making for every modern organisation.”

“Apache Iceberg is a leading choice for customers who want open standards for data, and Cloudera has been an integral part of the Iceberg project,” said Tarik Dwiek, Head of Technology Alliances at Snowflake. “Our partnership expands what’s possible for customers who choose to standardise on Iceberg tables. We are excited to break down silos and deliver a unified hybrid data cloud experience with multi-function analytics to all of our customers.”

“Through this collaboration, customers gain access to a unified, robust data management platform that provides a single source of truth for all of their data, whether in the cloud or on-premises,” said Sanjeev Mohan, Analyst at SanjMo. “This enables them to streamline and secure their data operations while efficiently analysing and extracting insights across the entire data lifecycle—from ingestion to AI and analytics. It’s a strategic move from two industry giants to partner in a way that will deliver immediate value to businesses.”

In addition, reaffirming its commitment to advancing Iceberg adoption, Cloudera is excited to announce the technical preview of Cloudera Lakehouse Optimiser. This new service autonomously optimises your Iceberg tables, further reducing costs while significantly enhancing the performance of your Lakehouse. To learn more about this technical preview, click here.