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Data Observability

Enhancing Query Performance with Snowflake Materialized Views

November 4, 2024
10 Min Read

Simply waiting for queries poses a significant business risk. Snowflake Materialized Views is an efficient way to run your queries, where queries that are run more often are precomputed beforehand. According to McKinsey, businesses that use data effectively are 23 times more likely to acquire customers.

However, not all data platforms are built to handle the real-time demands of modern businesses. This is where Snowflake Materialized View comes in. Snowflake Materialized View can enhance query performance, cut costs, and keep your data operations fast and smooth.

This article discusses how Snowflake Materialized View works, why it is crucial for your business, and how industry leaders such as Acceldata help optimize your data workflows to help you stay ahead of the competitive curve.

What Is Snowflake Materialized View?

A materialized view in Snowflake is a precomputed data view that enhances query performance and conserves resources. It achieves this by calculating complex query results in advance and storing them as cached result sets.

Do you wish to streamline the process of managing those tedious views? Think of Snowflake materialized views as the ultimate time-saver. Unlike traditional views, which compute data every time the query is run, materialized views precompute and store the results for later use. This means that whenever you need the data, it's ready instantly—no waiting, no wasted time. This can make a significant difference to businesses that deal with large, complex datasets.

Materialized views are ideal for scenarios such as financial modeling, real-time reporting, and sales analytics, where speed and accuracy are integral metrics of success. Leveraging the power of Snowflake and Acceldata, Snowflake materialized views are a powerful tool in your data arsenal, enabling faster and more efficient decision-making.

Benefits of Snowflake Materialized Views

Now that we have understood what materialized views are, let us discover what you stand to gain when you leverage this snowflake optimization tool:

1. Superfast queries

Queries that would take minutes now take seconds—that's the power of materialized views. Businesses that optimize query performance experience a decrease in execution time by as much as 40%. This speed directly translates into quicker insights and a more agile business.

2. Significant cost reductions

Snowflake charges you based on compute usage. Why pay for the same query multiple times? Companies can lower cloud expenses significantly by using materialized views to reduce redundant queries.

Looking to save costs? You can download the official Snowflake Optimization Guide to help you reduce the prices of materialized views by up to 80%.

3. Real-time data access

Real-time data access is essential, and by 2025, most real-time decisions will influence how quickly your enterprise can process data, according to McKinsey. Snowflake materialized views provide instant access to the latest data, which ensures that your teams can react quickly, without the lag of traditional query execution.

4. Fewer repetitions, more productive teams

Not only does faster access to data accelerate the decision-making process, but it also boosts productivity across your organization. Businesses with optimized workflows experience an increase in productivity, allowing teams to focus on high-impact tasks rather than waiting for data.

Case Study: Optimizing Snowflake Performance

Acceldata, a leader in the space of data observability, enabled T-Mobile, a Fortune 500 company, to overcome slow query performance and high data processing costs.

Acceldata improved query speeds and data quality by 46% by implementing Snowflake materialized views. This helped reduce data processing costs and allowed 10 data engineers to focus on higher value-added tasks for a Top 10 Global Bank. These improvements enabled the company to generate timely reports, meet strict regulatory requirements, and enhance strategic decision-making.

Best Practices to Implement Snowflake Materialized Views

Now that you understand the benefits of materialized views, let us explore how you can best utilize them to maximize value in your business.

Focus on high-impact queries

Implementing Snowflake materialized views can help you maximize savings and derive the maximum benefit from Snowflake. These views store actual data, offering quicker access than regular views, and are especially beneficial for frequently run, resource-intensive queries. Focus on snowflake optimization for data-intensive tasks such as dashboards, reports, and analytics.

Automate refresh intervals

Data is only useful if it is up to date. Schedule regular refreshes to keep materialized views updated. Snowflake's automatic clustering helps keep your data fresh and accurate without manual intervention.

Monitor and finetune performance

How do we gauge how our material views are performing? Snowflake has a query profiler tool to assess the performance of materialized views. For advanced insights, Acceldata's data observability tools help provide real-time monitoring and optimization guidance.

Balance cost and performance

Materialized views can enhance performance; however, they carry storage costs. Regularly review the storage space costs to ensure they deliver value without inflating expenses.

Real-world Applications of Materialized Views

Businesses across multiple sectors are realizing significant gains with the help of materialized views:

  • Retail: A major retailer improved management operations by using materialized views, cutting query times during peak shopping periods, and reducing stock-outs.
  • Healthcare: A hospital network deployed materialized views to accelerate patient data access, which enhanced emergency care and reduced query delays.
  • Fintech: PhonePe, a fintech company, saved computing costs by optimizing transaction analysis with materialized views.

Power Up Your Data Strategy with Snowflake and Acceldata

Snowflake materialized view is the ultimate tool for businesses that need fast, efficient data access. Reducing query times and costs will empower teams to make informed decisions in real time.

Consider integrating Snowflake with Acceldata's data observability platform to maximize its benefits. Acceldata provides tools to help you monitor, optimize, and fine-tune your data operations, ensuring that you get the most out of your data investments.

Summary

Snowflake Materialized Views offer a powerful solution to optimize query performance, reduce costs, and improve real-time data access. By precomputing data, these views enable faster decision-making, increase productivity, and help lower compute costs. Acceldata's data observability platform helps businesses monitor and optimize their Snowflake workflows to ensure maximum efficiency. Together, Snowflake and Acceldata can help you transform data operations and drive business success.

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