avatarChristianlauer

Summary

Snowflake has released three significant updates aimed at enhancing data analytics capabilities, particularly for Data Scientists and Analysts, including the introduction of the GEOMETRY data type, and the general availability of Snowpark Stored Procedures in Java and Scala.

Abstract

Snowflake's recent updates in August have expanded its data analytics offerings, introducing the GEOMETRY data type to facilitate geospatial analysis and the implementation of stored procedures using Java and Scala through Snowpark. These enhancements, announced at the Snowflake Summit and now available for use, are expected to broaden the possibilities for data scientists and analysts by enabling geographic use cases and providing better Python integration. The updates are fully available on AWS and Azure, with preview access on GCP, and are seen as a positive step that should satisfy developers, data engineers, and data scientists by increasing their market value and salary prospects.

Opinions

  • The author believes that the new features and data types introduced by Snowflake will be particularly beneficial for data scientists and analysts.
  • The improved Python integration within Snowflake is highlighted as a significant advancement.
  • The author expresses that the ability to implement stored procedures in Java and Scala using Snowpark will be welcomed by developers and data professionals, especially those who are fans of Java.
  • Scala's support for stored procedures is noted to be popular among data scientists and engineers due to its status as an extension of Java and its widespread use in the field.
  • The updates are considered a successful enhancement of Snowflake's capabilities, likely to please a wide range of users involved in data analytics.
  • The author suggests that staying informed about Snowflake's developments could be advantageous for those interested in advancing their careers and increasing their market value and salary.

3 interesting Updates for Data Scientists in Snowflake

How Snowflake gives you more Data Anayltics Possibilities

Photo by Wladislaw Sokolowskij on Unsplash

Snowflake has introduced some interesting new features and data types in August. Especially Data Scientists and Analysts should find these updates helpful.

At the Snowflake Summit it was already announced that Data Engineers as well as Scientists will be provided with new functions such as UDFs and better integration with Anaconda. Now, they are following up with new improvements.

First New Future: GEOMETRY Data Type

With this you can now implement geographic use cases. For example, calculate geospatial features such as points, lines, and polygons on the Earth’s surface and use them for analysis [1]. This can be used to implement all kinds of interesting use cases such as transport routes, traffic and others.

Example of using geometry functions — Image Source: Snowflake[1]

Second New Feature: Snowpark Stored Procedures in Java

Here, Snowflake now offers the implementation of stored procedures via Java using the API. This of course creates new possibilities and should make especially Java fans happy. It is already generally available in AWS and Azure and can thus already be used for productive systems, while GCP users still have to live with the preview, but can at least already test it[2].

Third New Feature: Snowpark Stored Procedures in Scala

The same is now available for Scala. Scala is often used and is an extension of the Java language. It is very famous and often used by Data Scientists and Data Engineers.

Summary

In my opinion, this is a successful update of Snowflake, which should please developers, Data Engineers and Data Scientists alike. If you are generally interested in Snowflake, the following article might also be interesting for you.

Sources and Further Readings

[1] Snowflake, Geospatial Data Types (2022)

[2] Snowflake, August 2022 (2022)

Data Science
Programming
Snowflake
Data
Technology
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