Immuta & Snowflake Horizon: Integrated Solutions for Data Governance Use Cases

For organizations like Thomson Reuters and Instacart, which rely on Snowflake to execute advanced analytics on complex workloads, the Immuta Data Security Platform provides peace of mind through end-to-end data security and access control. Immuta’s native integration with Snowflake delivers automated, scalable data discovery, security, and monitoring, and the seamless user experience and close collaboration earned Immuta the title of Snowflake Data Security Partner of the Year in 2023.

But our partnership runs even deeper, and throughout its course Immuta has earned Snowflake competency badges for Financial Services and Healthcare; been named a Premier Technology Partner; and achieved Snowflake Ready Technology validations.

Now, we are excited to be a part of the Snowflake Horizon Partner Ecosystem to further extend Snowflake Horizon across our joint customers’ entire data estate.

Immuta & Snowflake Horizon

In the rapidly evolving world of data security and analytics, the integration between Immuta and Snowflake represents a joint commitment to innovation. Snowflake Horizon is a built-in governance solution with a unified set of compliance, security, privacy, interoperability, and access capabilities in the Data Cloud. Immuta’s native integration with Snowflake builds on these capabilities by automating sensitive data discovery, security and access control, and data monitoring, allowing joint customers to achieve scalable security and governance, no matter their size or use case.

How Immuta Works with Snowflake Horizon to Protect Data

Unified Data Access Control

At the heart of Immuta’s inclusion in the Snowflake Horizon Partner Ecosystem is unified data access control. Immuta’s attribute-based access control (ABAC) augments Snowflake’s RBAC (role-based access control) capabilities, allowing you to determine access permissions using metadata about users, objects, environments, and intended usage purpose.

Since Immuta’s approach permits or restricts access based on multiple factors instead of just a user’s role, it is more dynamic and scalable than the standard role-based approach. One policy can protect hundreds of data sources, without requiring the manual oversight or approval processes that make RBAC difficult to manage. As a result, independent research found that ABAC reduces policy burden by 93x.

Real-Time Policy Updates

The dynamic nature of today’s business environment demands agility, particularly in data access. Role-based access control requires manual updates whenever changes occur or new users are added to a system, which is time- and resource-intensive.

Immuta’s real-time updates to access and governance policies ensure that any changes are immediately reflected. Working alongside Snowflake’s data lineage and data quality monitoring features, this maintains the integrity and relevance of data access in a constantly changing landscape, without additional overhead or fear that policies are irrelevant.

Data Discovery

Proper governance requires knowing what sensitive data you have. Immuta automatically scans connected data sources for sensitive information like PII and PHI, then systematically tags and classifies that data based on its level of sensitivity. When combined with Snowflake’s object tagging and data governance interface, this eliminates the need for error-prone human inspection and simplifies the policy enforcement process.

For Snowflake users, Immuta Discover also monitors systems for schema and user changes, easily tags data with external information, and uses Snowflake lineage for tag propagation, all of which give a holistic view into all of your data. In turn, this allows you to get value from Snowflake Horizon by leveraging the most relevant capabilities for your needs.

Enhanced Privacy and Compliance

Navigating the complex web of data privacy regulations like GDPR and HIPAA is a challenge for many organizations. But with easy-to-understand policies and continuous monitoring, auditing and proving compliance is no longer a burden.

Immuta allows you to author policies in plain language that is easily understood by governance and compliance stakeholders. This simplifies the typically complex process of translating legal standards into policy, and contributes to a more straightforward auditing process. Additionally, Immuta’s purpose-based access controls make compliance with regulations like GDPR and HIPAA more straightforward and auditable. These regulations require explicitly stated purposes for which data can be used, so having purpose written into the policy removes any guesswork.

Snowflake’s clean rooms further facilitate secure, compliant data sharing by allowing you to control how data is accessed and processed within authorized environments, and providing visibility via listing access history. For organizations that need to collaborate on sensitive data without violating privacy policies, this is a key feature.

Immuta Detect takes achieving compliance a step further by monitoring data activity, evaluating your risk profile, and providing user behavior analytics, all of which improve data security posture management (DSPM) and help proactively pinpoint potential risks that could save you from costly fines. Since the platform easily integrates with SIEM tools like Snowflake, you can consolidate and streamline DSPM and simplify compliance across lines of business, geographies, and more.

Advanced Data Governance

While Snowflake Horizon lays a robust foundation for data governance, Immuta adds additional advanced security and governance capabilities extending what customers can do through Snowflake Horizon. Key features include automated data discovery, detailed audit logging, and intuitive policy management, which contribute to a more detailed understanding of data lineage and its impact. To implement these capabilities, Immuta builds on work that was already done. Immuta can leverage Snowflake APIs to ingest Snowflake object tags and use Snowflake lineage for tag propagation. With better tag propagation, you’re able to better govern and track data lineage with confidence.

Immuta also introduces dynamic data masking, row-level security, and advanced privacy enhancing technologies (PETs) to Snowflake Horizon’s framework. These allow you to strike the balance between data security and utility, without sacrificing time, insights, or value. This adds sophistication and granularity to data access policies, ensuring that the right people have the right access at the right time.

Conclusion

The integration of Immuta with Snowflake is more than a partnership; it’s a strategic alignment that addresses the complex needs of large and intricate data environments. Organizations seeking to fortify their data governance and compliance will find this combination particularly beneficial, ensuring their data security framework is not just robust but also agile and forward-thinking.

Your feedback and thoughts are invaluable. Let us know how your organization leverages these platforms, or see for yourself how the integration works. Talk with a member of our team today.