Optimizing Snowflake Costs And Governance For A Global E-Commerce Enterprise

Problem Statement

The client stated: Our Snowflake environment is powerful, but we need to rein in costs and implement proper controls without disrupting operations.

The client approached us with the following concerns:

• High compute costs due to over-provisioned virtual warehouses.
• Warehouses remained active during downtime, driving up unnecessary costs.
• Poor role-based access control led to uncontrolled resource usage.
• Limited insights into usage patterns made it challenging to optimize resources.
• Weak governance policies increase risks of non-compliance and security vulnerabilities.

Objectives

• Reduce compute and storage costs through efficient resource management.
• Introduce automated policies to suspend inactive warehouses.
• Strengthen role-based access control to enforce accountability.
• Enable real-time monitoring of costs, usage patterns, and security risks.
• Enhance compliance and governance to align with regulatory standards.

Solutions Offered

Our team implemented a comprehensive cost optimization and governance framework:

• Right-sized compute warehouses based on historical usage patterns and query demand.
• Configured warehouses to suspend automatically during idle periods and scale dynamically based on workload.
• Enforced least-privilege access for users and service accounts to control spending and secure data.
• Developed real-time dashboards using Power BI and Snowflake cost views for actionable insights.
• Streamlined SQL queries to reduce redundant computations and enhance efficiency.
• Implemented automated notifications using AWS Lambda and Snowflake Event Notifications for unusual activity or cost spikes.