What is Enterprise Data Warehouse and How does it Benefit Your Business?

Enterprise Data Warehouse (EDW) is the core of your data architecture. It stores your enterprise data in a normalized form. You can also call it an Enterprise-wide Data Warehouse or an Enterprise Data Store.

The purpose is to serve all departments and users in the organization with consolidated, integrated, consistent, and reliable data. In short, it is a single version of the data for all users across the enterprise. EDW has many capabilities that make it the most critical part of your data ecosystem.

There are several types of EDWs, and one of the most popular and reliable is Snowflake. This article looks at the benefits of Snowflake EDW and how it can impact your business.

What is Snowflake Enterprise Data Warehouse?

Snowflake EDW provides a way for you to bring together data from different applications and programs. It becomes easier for you to get a clear picture of how your whole organization is doing in terms of data.

In the past, organizations had diverse databases and systems that handled different information. They had a payroll system, an accounting system, a customer management system, etc. Each used their own database to store information about employees, customers, sales, financial transactions, etc.

So, when someone in finance wanted to see whether there was a correlation between employee salary and customer satisfaction rates to evaluate training needs for the support team, they would have to go into each database and pull extract information manually. It was time-consuming, error-prone, and expensive.

Snowflake EDW helps you bring all the information into one place so that you don’t need as many databases. And because it’s all in one place, it is easier to analyze and make sense of it.

What is the difference between Snowflake EDW and traditional warehouse?

• One of the differences between Snowflake EDW and a traditional warehouse is the design of the two systems. Snowflake enterprise warehouse supports the entire organization, while a traditional warehouse assists a single application.Another vital difference between Snowflake EDW and a traditional warehouse is data organization. With Snowflake EDW, data from across the whole company gets stored in one location. The design is in a way that anyone can access it from any application within the enterprise.With a traditional warehouse, each application has its own data store. It means that different applications need integration for data sharing among them.

Components of Snowflake EDW

• Data sources from disparate systems (e.g., CRM, ERP, mobile platforms)
• Data aggregation and cleaning area
• Data analytics and sharing layer
• Data tool integrations and APIs

Benefits of Snowflake EDW for Businesses

Here are some benefits of data warehouse in a business setting.

• Data Integration: Snowflake EDW eliminates data silos, centralizing information for quick and easy access. Start with a few domains and expand incrementally to manage complexity and ensure success.
• Improved Reporting: Manual reporting processes are time-consuming and error-prone. Snowflake automates reporting to deliver accurate, timely insights with minimal effort.
• Reduced Risks: Manual systems like Excel are prone to corruption and human error. Snowflake ensures access to the latest, accurate data at all times.
• Improved Profitability: By centralizing data and streamlining workflows, your teams can focus on higher-value tasks, leading to increased business efficiency and profitability.

Enterprise data warehouse use cases

Here are the different areas where you will find Snowflake enterprise data warehouse useful for your business.

• Real-Time Data Access: Snowflake’s extract-load-transform (ELT) approach allows you to access and analyze real-time data more effectively than traditional ETL methods.
• Data Compliance: Snowflake helps ensure compliance with regulations such as GDPR by offering streamlined data access, auditability, and control.
• Customer Knowledge: Understand your customers better through advanced analytics. Improve campaigns, reduce churn, and increase revenue using data-driven insights.
• Single Data Source: Even when data is spread across different cloud environments, Snowflake presents a unified dataset for querying and analysis.

Bottom line

In a competitive environment, Snowflake EDW provides the robustness and reliability needed for effective data management and business intelligence. Whether you’ve already invested in BI or are planning to, Snowflake can support your data-driven journey.

Emergys is a leading Snowflake consulting services provider that can help you make the best use of your EDW. We have a team of experienced Snowflake developers who can help you leverage the platform like no other. Leading businesses worldwide are already experiencing improved agility with their data using our services.

Contact us today to know more about our Snowflake cloud data services.