<p>Most companies looking for a new data warehouse or analytics platform start their searches with Azure Synapse and Snowflake. Why? - Because these two cloud services support massively parallel processing (MPP), which enables data computation to be distributed over multiple cloud nodes with ease.</p><p>The comparison between these two options is inevitable as both these market leaders are growing at a rapid pace. Azure Synapse and Snowflake are two popular and highly recommended ETL technologies for enterprises that need to handle massive amounts of data. Choosing between the two will be based on the qualities and the unique strengths of each service and the needs of your company.</p><h2 id="azure-synapse-overview">Azure Synapse Overview</h2><p>When it comes to data management, Synapse is considered one of the best. Synapse provides an easy-to-use master repository for all forms of data using the Azure Data Lake. All you have to do now is submit your data to the lake and begin constructing your analytics on top of it.</p><p>A dedicated and serverless SQL pool are both available in Synapse, enabling you to grow your computational power without regard for storage capacity. The unit of scale for a dedicated SQL pool is a data warehouse unit, which is an abstraction of computer power. Because a serverless SQL pool is serverless, it automatically scales to meet query resource requirements.</p><h2 id="snowflake-overview">Snowflake Overview</h2><p>Snowflake is a lot easier to set up and operate, and the zero-copy cloning feature is always beneficial. Snowflake's automation is what sets it apart from the competition. Database optimization, partitioning, and indexing, among other things, can be all done automatically, which implies less time wasted on data warehouse administration. Snowflake also has a fee system that is dependent on usage. You will not be charged if you choose not to use Snowflake.</p><h2 id="azure-synapse-vs-snowflake-comparison">Azure Synapse Vs Snowflake Comparison</h2><h3 id="cost">Cost</h3><p>Snowflake's costs are calculated on a per-second basis and are billed on a pay-as-you-go basis. The minimum duration of time required to auto-suspend and auto-resume operations is 60 seconds. So, if your query takes three minutes to process, you'll only be charged for three minutes if the virtual data warehouse is suspended after the query is finished.</p><p>Azure Synapse, on the other hand, charges on an hourly basis for computing. As a result, if your data warehouse is only operational for 12 hours every month, you will only be billed for those 12 hours. Even if the data warehouse is only active for 30 minutes, you will be charged for an hour.</p><h3 id="scalability">Scalability</h3><p>When it comes to scalability, Snowflake dominates due to its multi-cluster and shares data design. Snowflake allows you to isolate diverse workloads into a common data layer at the same time. You can also employ Virtual Warehouses to achieve unrestricted growth and concurrency while avoiding downtime.</p><p>Both dedicated SQL pools and serverless SQL are available in Azure Synapse. The former has a per-defined scale unit (called a Data Warehouse Unit (DWU)), whereas the latter scales automatically to match your scaling requirements.</p><h3 id="admin-and-management">Admin and Management</h3><p>Snowflake's main goal has always been to require minimal maintenance. This is fantastic news for data managers because it eliminates the need to recruit and train a specialized Snowflake account manager. It is user-friendly and thrives on automated solutions.</p><p>The admin side of things will be much more involved with Azure Synapse. Because performance monitoring is not automated, everything from tuning to concurrency control will require human intervention.</p><p>When it comes to administration, Snowflake is the clear victor because it is as close to hands-free as it can be.</p><h3 id="performance-and-future-proofing">Performance and Future-proofing</h3><p>Performance and Future-proofing is another area where the similarities between Azure Synapse and Snowflake make it tough to choose between the two. Both are ultra-fast, cutting-edge MPPs that provide real-time data access.</p><p>Both Synapse and Snowflake continue to evolve, but neither has forgotten about the cloud's core requirements. Both have put in a lot of effort to set the bar for data warehousing.</p><h2 id="azure-synapse-and-snowflakes-limitations">Azure Synapse and Snowflake's Limitations</h2><p><strong>The following are some of Azure Synapse's limitations:</strong><br>If you've never used it before, there'll be a steeper learning curve.<br>Queries that span multiple databases are not supported by Azure Synapse.<br>The setup procedure is lengthy.</p><p><strong>The following are some of the Snowflake's limitations:</strong><br>Some database use cases, such as online transactional processing situations, are not suitable for it.<br>For newbies, Snowflake might be challenging to utilize.<br>The user interface is not user-friendly.<br>Snowflake is too pricey for most users and small businesses.</p><h2 id="conclusion">Conclusion</h2><p>There isn't much of a difference between the two most popular MPPs in the market. Both are highly optimized, simple to use, and capable of handling large workloads.</p><p>Snowflake should be considered before Azure Synapse for small-sized businesses with significant growth expectations. It's made to make scaling easier, which can save you a lot of time and effort. Azure Synapse, on the other hand, is what you should be looking at more closely for larger businesses.</p>

Baba Nadeem

Azure Synapse vs Snowflake: Which MPP Platform Is Right for You?

<p>Over the years, we have learned to see the digital ?cloud? as the glue that binds all of our important files and digital accessories. This includes our mobile apps, email access, and access controls for the organization network altogether. We thought that the cloud never stops working, right? </p><p>A global Azure outage earlier this year proved to be a gruelling experience for those working at Microsoft as well as the organizations or individuals utilizing its services. How exactly did this happen? What are the implications and dangers that lie ahead for businesses worldwide if such outages frequent the cloud computing platform? In this article, we'll take a deeper look at these questions and try to figure out what the answers really indicate.</p><h3 id="what-exactly-happened-during-microsoft%E2%80%99s-azure-outage">What exactly happened during Microsoft?s Azure outage?</h3><p>Microsoft has claimed that a 'rotation of keys' that manage login and authentication was responsible for a 14-hour Azure outage caused on March 15, 2021. This global Azure outage affected Office 365, Dynamics 365, Xbox Live, and several other Microsoft services.</p><p>Soon afterward, Microsoft amended its service health status page, confirming that users may be having trouble using the company's major online collaborative project, networking, and productivity capabilities. Microsoft Teams went offline for several hours as a result of this outage. </p><p>A normal rotation of the security keys for Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) started the nearly 14-hour outage. These key rotations are beneficial to users and keep them secure.</p><p>Microsoft, on the other hand, was completing a difficult data move between cloud providers on this particular day. They had designated one key as "don't rotate." This key had to be kept for the time being in order to complete the migration. However, the automated rotation mechanism overlooked the "don't rotate" indication, and individuals were unable to log in when the new keys arrived at the Azure services.</p><p>Microsoft users who were affected by the mishap expressed their annoyance, with many asking why the company would upgrade its authentication mechanism during the workweek rather than on the weekend when the danger of business interruption to users would be minimal.</p><h3 id="how-did-the-global-azure-outage-happen">How did the Global Azure Outage happen?</h3><p>Microsoft has released a tentative root cause investigation of the Azure Active Directory outage that occurred on March 15th. For encrypted signature activities, Azure AD uses 'certain 'keys to facilitate the usage of OpenID as well as other Identity security standards. An automatic mechanism removes keys that are out of use on a time-to-time basis as part of Azure's routine security hygiene. </p><p>A certain key had been tagged as "retain" for considerably longer than usual in the previous few weeks to enable a difficult cross-cloud transfer. This revealed a fault in which the automation improperly omitted the "retain" state, causing the key to be removed.</p><p>Azure AD publishes metadata about the signing authentication keys to a worldwide location in accordance with Universal Internet Identity standard protocols. Applications utilizing these protocols with Azure AD started to pick up the new metadata when the public metadata was modified at 19:00 UTC on March 15, 2021. Furthermore, it ceased validating tokens/assertions issued with the key that was withdrawn. End users were no longer allowed to use those programs at that moment.</p><h3 id="what-does-this-mean-for-businesses-using-various-cloud-computing-services">What does this mean for businesses using various cloud computing services?</h3><p>Countless defects and errors in the form of 'bugs' will always be present in any kind of software. And no cloud technology service can guarantee zero downtime. However, you and I may aspire for faster recovery times and greater clarity about what went down at Microsoft's Azure earlier this year - and what is currently being done to prevent future problems.</p><p>Microsoft, for one, is adopting certain strategies in order to prevent future interruptions. As stated in the Azure issue reporting the outage, "Azure AD is working on adding extra protections to the backend Safe Deployment Process (SDP) system in a multi-phase effort to prevent a class of vulnerabilities, including this issue."</p><p>Companies that rely on Windows VMs, including Azure DevOps, may have been impacted as well, according to the status page.</p><p>There are certain business implications as a result of any cloud outage on such a large scale. Some of these are as follows. </p><p>1) The contemporary digital milieu does not allow for poor customer interactions. As a result, individuals have come to demand a consistently high quality of service as a result of modern technologies. </p><p>2) Because of the 'always on' slogan, any disruption in day-to-day cloud services has a negative impact on consumer trust.</p><p>3) With far too many choices, flexibility, and even benefits of switching cloud service providers, interruptions may drive consumers to rivals, so businesses can no longer afford to take a band-aid approach to a gaping hole.</p><h3 id="final-thoughts">Final Thoughts</h3><p>While the crisis of losing network connection might result in an instant loss of productivity and opportunity, cloud system downtime can have a longer-term negative impact on a specific business. Platforms with this much sophistication such as Microsoft Azure should include an ample number of bug-catching features and capabilities. Although there are much more advantages to cloud computing than disadvantages, outages can occur. </p><p>As enterprises continue to embrace digital transformation, IT systems will become increasingly complex, prompting the deployment of efficient monitoring options to overcome the hurdles.</p>

Top Writers

Get full access
for only $7/month.

Top Writers

Subscribe to Magazine

Get full access for only $7/month.

Get full access
for only $7/month.