Thank You Snowflake for Naming Alation the Data Governance Partner of the Year

On behalf of all Alationauts, we’re thrilled to receive this award from our strategic partner Snowflake. Snowflake has a vibrant partner ecosystem, so to be recognized as a major partner is a true honor. We’re so proud to join this growing community of leaders in data, where we plan to deliver more value to our joint customers for years to come.

And we’re only just getting started! Our partnership is still gaining momentum, bringing new benefits to the 70 mutual customers we jointly serve today. Leading companies like Cisco, Nielsen, and Finnair turn to Alation + Snowflake for data governance and analytics.

By joining forces, we can build more potent, tailored solutions that leverage data governance as a competitive asset. In these past few months, we’ve delivered two integrations with Snowflake that bring new values and abilities to joint customers. This was recently featured at Snowflake Summit by our Chief Product Officer, Raj Gossain.

Joint Success with Texas Mutual Insurance

“Our most influential customers frequently highlight the importance of data governance when attempting to mobilize data across their organizations,” says Chris Atkinson, Global Partner CTO, Snowflake. “Alation is a fantastic example of how the Snowflake Data Cloud open partner ecosystem gives customers the flexibility to choose offerings which best suit their needs.”

Texas Mutual Insurance Company (TXM) is one joint customer of Snowflake and Alation. TXM has capitalized on our shared solution — and reaped the benefits. Harnessing the power of our joint solution, Texas Mutual increased operational insight and agility within weeks.

With Alation and Snowflake, Texas Mutual sped up the time it took to deliver pivotal business dashboards to business leaders by 80%. This has granted them an essential competitive advantage, empowering quicker decisions in an industry where time to insight can mean the difference between profit and loss.

3 Powerful Use Cases

Indeed, accelerating analyst productivity is a key use case, which Alation + Snowflake support together. Analysts are finding that, with our platforms tightly integrated, they can find and analyze data much faster.

Alation supports analyst understanding by cataloging all data assets in Snowflakes and adding crucial business context. When users can see business labels, lineage, and top users, they can work with more confidence and speed. They can even share queries across departments.

Data migration, too, is much easier with both platforms. Alation spotlights great data, so you only migrate what matters and leave the junk behind. And migrating legacy data can be tricky for the web of dependencies between assets; the data catalog helps you understand and list all dependencies, to ensure they’re moved and working properly before going into production.

Lastly, active data governance simplifies stewardship tasks of all kinds. Business stewards can manage business glossaries and key descriptions. Technical stewards have the tools to monitor data quality, access, and access control. A compliance steward is empowered to monitor sensitive data and usage sharing policies at scale. These three joint “superpowers” deliver powerful value to our shared customers.

Alation + Snowflake = A Natural Pairing

“Alation and Snowflake complement each other incredibly well, and we are honored to receive this award,” shares Satyen Sangani, CEO of Alation. “We will build on this joint momentum and collaborate on product development and go-to-market initiatives worldwide.” An innovative, active approach to data governance welcomes more Alation users to the data catalog.

“Data governance is critical to Snowflake customers and Alation drives data governance across the enterprise,” said Colleen Kapase, SVP of Worldwide Partner and Alliances at Snowflake. “Alation combines governance and data democratization capabilities into one unified solution and is a foundational part of the Snowflake platform. Both technologies are essential to helping enterprises unlock the value of their data and build thriving data cultures.”

The Data Swamp Problem. The Governance Solution.

As enterprise information surges in amount, leaders must ensure their data lakes don’t turn into data swamps. Data consumers know how it feels to slog through a swamp of too much data! Operational inefficiencies will pile up. Processes get stuck in the muck. Making agile, data-driven decisions becomes impossible. Meanwhile, competitors move at speed, and opportunities are lost. The Creature from the Black Lagoon at work.

Companies with data swamps are both unable to enforce key data policies or monetize what data they have. Leaders need an adaptive form of data governance that both mitigates risk and empowers data democratization.

Alation’s active data governance stops the swamp formation; active governance spotlights the most trusted data, so data lakes stay crystal clear. By syncing with Snowflake’s Data Cloud ecosystem, Alation can ensure all cloud data is both governed and accessible.

In terms of architecture, Alation’s active data governance sits as a layer atop Snowflake, locating trusted data to spotlight for wider use. Joint users are empowered to find the best data instantly and collaborate with one another across the enterprise. Folks can connect, innovate, and solve business problems together more quickly and efficiently.

Active data governance equips people to use data without fear, promoting a foundation of trust, collaboration, and transparency on which thriving data cultures are born. With active governance streamlining data management in the Snowflake Data Cloud, enterprises can harness the power of data intelligence at scale.

More Innovation on the Horizon

This new strategic partnership comes at an exciting time for Alation. We’ve got a lot in the works, and more announcements we’ll be thrilled to share in the months ahead.

Alation recently announced we had raised $110M in Series D funding, led by Riverwood Capital, at a valuation of $1.2B. New capabilities and use cases, particularly around data governance, are just over the horizon.

Again: we’re only just getting started.

Joint customers of Alation + Snowflake drive greater value for their business and their team. Learn more about why every Snowflake user needs Alation.

Ready to see how Alation can help with your data governance challenges? Sign up for a weekly demo today.