Securing Success: Immuta is Snowflake’s 2023 Data Security Partner of the Year

It’s no exaggeration to say that virtually any contemporary organization relies on data. And as data assets and use cases multiply, teams need to be able to store, access, and analyze their data securely and at the speed of business. Platforms like the Snowflake Data Cloud have met this need head-on, offering users a global cloud-based solution that enables collaboration across workloads, use cases, and teams at scale.

This mission to streamline and democratize data-driven insights has rooted Immuta’s years-long partnership with Snowflake. We’ve worked closely with Snowflake’s product teams to natively integrate the Immuta Data Security Platform so that joint users can simplify operations, improve data security, and unlock more value from the Snowflake Data Cloud.

It is in light of this continued collaboration that we are honored to have been named Snowflake’s 2023 Data Security Partner of the Year.

Snowflake’s 2023 Data Security Partner of the Year

Snowflake recognized Immuta with this honor due to the continued success of keeping our customers’ data secure as they collaborate, innovate, and drive business advancements.

“Immuta’s comprehensive Data Security Platform delivers deep value to the Snowflake ecosystem,” said Tarik Dwiek,  Head of Technology Alliances at Snowflake. “We look forward to continuing to build upon our partnership to further empower joint customers.”

This is another exciting step in Immuta and Snowflake’s long-standing partnership. In addition to ongoing product enhancements, Immuta has earned Snowflake competency badges for driving innovation in both the Healthcare and Life Sciences Data Cloud and the Financial Services Data Cloud.

“As the leader in delivering integrations with new Snowflake data governance capabilities, we’re excited to continue expanding this partnership as we bring enterprise-grade security to the Snowflake Data Cloud ecosystem,” said Immuta Co-Founder and CEO Matthew Carroll. “This honor further demonstrates both Immuta’s integrated partnership with Snowflake and our dedication to providing peace of mind for Snowflake users through end-to-end data security and access controls.”

Securing Snowflake Workloads at Scale

The Immuta Data Security Platform applies holistic data security by integrating natively with Snowflake Data Governance capabilities to enable a range of complex scenarios that require dynamic data access controls. This native integration is achieved through close collaboration with the Snowflake product teams, ensuring that data engineering workloads can be achieved under the protection of seamless data security policies.

Data resources that are ingested into Snowflake undergo automated sensitive data discovery, during which Immuta tags and classifies sensitive data and enriches metadata to monitor for user and schema changes. This process gives teams a more comprehensive understanding of the data in their Snowflake ecosystem, which in turn informs the policy creation process.

Snowflake users can also author plain-language attribute-based access control (ABAC) policies in Immuta, determining access to their sensitive data based on dynamic attributes and contextual purposes rather than simple, static roles. These granular controls are crucial to timely and secure data access across Snowflake workloads. Looking to collaborate on a Snowflake data set by sharing data with a peer? Access determinations can be made at query time in order to control which types of data your colleagues can and cannot see. This uninterrupted application of security controls on user activity ensures cybersecurity standards are continuously maintained across Snowflake data lakes, warehouses, and projects.

To buffer granular access controls, Immuta provides Snowflake users with data monitoring and breach detection, giving them insights into any risky or abnormal behavior across their workloads. Whether it be in a data science workflow, machine learning project, or analytics application, risky and/or abnormal behavior can be detected and addressed immediately–before becoming a bigger issue. Any action taken on data is logged and can be analyzed for any research, remediation, or compliance needs.

Enabling Secure Use Cases with Snowflake & Immuta

Despite the strength and innovation of our partnership, Immuta’s recognition as Snowflake Data Security Partner of the Year would be unfounded without real world evidence. We’re proud to have unlocked secure workloads for a range of large-scale enterprises around the world by combining the power of the Snowflake Data Cloud with the granularity and scalability of Immuta. Together, we have helped our customers successfully execute use cases including:

Data Mesh

Data mesh architectures are considered by many to be the next step in the evolution of data management. By decentralizing and democratizing data ownership, data mesh appeals to organizations that need to provide access to a growing number of data users for self-service analytics.

To implement this architecture, teams need cloud data platforms that can support data storage, sharing, and security in a decentralized, domain-based framework. When a multinational pharmaceutical organization decided to pursue a data mesh, it turned to Snowflake and Immuta to leverage the power of the distributed Data Cloud with flexible, scalable data access and security policies. Combining dynamic technological capabilities with organizational buy-in and support, the team was able to successfully stand up a data mesh framework that enables self-service data use and reduces required access groups by 94%.

[Video]: Roche on Data Mesh Security and Access Controls

Cloud Migration

As industry norms shift towards cloud-based storage and computing, organizations need to find ways to smoothly transition their data resources and operations to the cloud. And while there are many benefits of cloud computing, the actual process of migrating data to the cloud is not always a walk in the park.

This is especially true when migrating from a host of fragmented legacy databases, which often bottleneck data storage and access. This requires a greater shift away from static and time-consuming access determinations, and towards dynamic cloud-based data usage. When Thomson Reuters made the decision to pivot to the cloud, the team found itself in this type of compromising situation. They needed to deprecate old, disparate data warehouses and move to a unified and scalable Snowflake model, which required creating an entirely new access control framework.

By leveraging Immuta’s native integration, the team can manage access to Snowflake tables by administering Snowflake row access policies and column masking policies, allowing users to securely query tables directly in Snowflake. This resulted in faster access to Snowflake data and a 60x increase in data usage.

Data Sharing

In order to collaborate with their peers, data users need to be able to share resources without encountering unnecessary roadblocks or bottlenecks. This process is easier said than done, as ensuring secure data sharing requires dynamic controls that protect against inadvertent exposure or leakage in the sharing process. Balancing compliance with privacy and security standards is key to efficient data sharing that is not encumbered by excessive red tape.

When one universal bank needed to ensure secure and private data sharing in its broker-dealer business line, it required controls that would not inhibit real-time communications between brokers and high-profile clients. The bank also could not allow brokers to access information from other business units that might lead to conflicts of interest or corporate misuse. To facilitate collaborative and compliant Snowflake data sharing, the bank enlisted Immuta’s dynamic fine-grained access control capabilities. These dynamic controls reduced the time for regular analytics processes and audits from weeks to hours, and lowered costs while increasing data science productivity by 100%.

A Continued Partnership

It is customer success stories like these that keep us eager to continue innovating as a Snowflake data security partner. As the Data Security Partner of the Year, Immuta is committed to making product-to-product advancements and providing data-fueled teams with the most capable, accessible, and secure data for their initiatives.

By discovering, securing, and detecting sensitive data, the Immuta Data Security Platform empowers teams to unlock the value of their Snowflake data. If you’d like to dig deeper into Snowflake and Immuta’s integration, visit our partner page here. You can also try the integration yourself with this hands-on product tour, or schedule a demo with our team to learn more.