Combining Atlan, Snowflake, and Sigma to Democratize Entry to Effectively-governed Knowledge
At a Look
- North, a number one funds resolution supplier processing over $100 billion in annual transactions, aimed to enhance knowledge discovery and governance atop their Snowflake- and Sigma-powered fashionable knowledge stack
- Adopting Atlan as their energetic metadata platform, North has since achieved end-to-end visibility of 225,000 knowledge belongings, securing delicate knowledge, and rising adoption of self-service analytics
- In lower than a 12 months, their group is projecting $1.4mm in annual effectivity positive aspects and a 200% progress in Sigma adoption whereas realizing a 700% enhance in tagged Snowflake belongings which has contributed to mitigating tens of millions of {dollars} in threat
For over 30 years, North has established itself as a number one funds resolution supplier, now processing over $100 billion in transactions yearly. With a various portfolio of over 20 manufacturers and subsidiaries, they assist a broad vary of fee wants, supporting brick-and-mortar and on-line shops by way of fee gateways, cell options, and extra. Dedicated to serving industries that span eating places to authorities entities, North goals to be the simplest end-to-end funds supplier to do enterprise with.
With an enormous knowledge property comprising 225,000 belongings, totaling 41 terabytes on Snowflake, the accountability of managing and governing North’s knowledge belongs to Daniel Dowdy, Vice President of Knowledge Analytics & Governance, serving for 13 years on the firm. Becoming a member of Atlan at Snowflake Summit 2024, Daniel shared his group’s journey, constructing and governing a contemporary knowledge stack that helps each inside knowledge customers and their flagship merchandise.
What do 20 subsidiaries and types, and 100,000+ retailers, imply for our group? It means we have now a variety of knowledge. We use that knowledge to assist a few of our hottest merchandise.”
Daniel Dowdy, Vice President, Knowledge Analytics & Governance
North’s flagship choices, Payanywhere and Funds Hub, equip retailers with something from {hardware} and software program, to safe on-line portals, simplifying the complexities of funds for retailers.
Funds Hub, a complete funds and operations platform, serves as a command middle for every little thing from transaction monitoring and reporting to stock administration and fraud safety. To ship essential, transaction-level reporting to their prospects, North depends on Snowflake.
“We make the most of Snowflake for each of those on the backend to supply close to real-time reporting and transaction-level reporting to our prospects,” Daniel shared. “With out Snowflake, this simply wouldn’t be doable.”
Earlier than Snowflake, Knowledge Silos
Earlier than Snowflake, North struggled with unchecked and unclear knowledge. Easy duties like pulling uncooked knowledge or producing reviews may take days and even weeks, hindered by ETL bottlenecks and knowledge silos scattered throughout a number of servers and databases, or Excel recordsdata circulated throughout the group.
As soon as a file goes out, that knowledge is already stale. To not point out that when that file leaves you, customers can then modify it and make their very own supply of fact. So, you’re combating a number of sources of the reality.”
Daniel Dowdy, Vice President, Knowledge Analytics & Governance
The shortage of a single supply of fact sophisticated efforts to drive belief in North’s knowledge, and with out clear lineage and governance, controlling that knowledge as soon as it left their arms proved tough.
After Snowflake + Sigma, Correct, Actual-time Knowledge
In 2019, North adopted Snowflake as their enterprise knowledge lake, considerably bettering their knowledge science, analytics, and reporting capabilities. By shifting from outdated batch processing to real-time CDC options, their group traded cumbersome ETL workflows and embraced the effectivity of contemporary ELT processes.
“We went from a ‘Knowledge Desert,’ the place retrieving info took days, to an oasis the place knowledge was out there in actual time, and we may question it in seconds,” stated Daniel.
Whereas Snowflake represented a major leap ahead within the availability and reliability of knowledge, Daniel’s group had been nonetheless liable for fielding easy requests for knowledge entry. To cut back this workload, and to make knowledge much more accessible to a rising variety of customers, their group launched Sigma, a enterprise intelligence instrument that empowers customers to independently entry, analyze, and visualize knowledge, providing essential info in a self-service method.
With its acquainted, Excel-like interface, enterprise customers shortly embraced Sigma, leading to a skyrocketing adoption fee, with annual person progress now exceeding 200%.
Starting with 10 customers in 2019, we now have over 350 customers in Sigma, with an annual progress fee of greater than 200% year-over-year. Now, Sigma is our self-service analytics platform, and it’s taken a variety of burden off our knowledge group.”
Daniel Dowdy, Vice President, Knowledge Analytics & Governance
North has since engineered a contemporary knowledge stack, establishing sturdy pipelines that seamlessly ingest and replicate knowledge from numerous sources like Oracle, MySQL, Salesforce, and S3. This wealth of knowledge is then channeled into highly effective instruments akin to Qlik, Snowpipe, and Kafka, all converging inside Snowflake.
As the quantity and number of knowledge grew, so did the demand for entry, shifting the problem from mere knowledge accessibility to the extra complicated points of knowledge governance and discovery.
“What turned the issue was the right way to discover the information, and the right way to govern it properly,” Daniel shared. “Atlan turned the central level addressing all of those issues.”
Unlocking Snowflake and Sigma with Atlan
Connecting to over 225,000 knowledge belongings inside Snowflake and Sigma took simply hours with Atlan, driving unprecedented visibility on a big scale.
“After partnering with Atlan, it took in all probability a few hours earlier than we had been built-in with Snowflake and Sigma, connecting to over 225,000 belongings. We’re so pleased with the outcomes,” Daniel shared.
This near-instant connection remodeled knowledge discovery at North, as soon as a chaotic expertise of leaping by way of a number of silos, all of a sudden making it easy to navigate and perceive their knowledge property.
Atlan began getting us this fast worth by way of knowledge discovery. The way in which I hold fascinated about it was the early days of the web. You had entry to this huge quantity of knowledge, nevertheless it was actually arduous to search out. Then, serps made it simple to run a search and discover related content material. For us, Atlan turned Google for Knowledge.”
Daniel Dowdy, Vice President, Knowledge Analytics & Governance
Transferring past easy knowledge discovery, Daniel’s group launched knowledge glossaries, definitions, and complete phrases, enabling deeper dives into knowledge, and using lineage to know upstream and downstream dependencies with ease.
With this precious context unlocked, their subsequent step was to ship it on to enterprise customers, who primarily devour knowledge inside the Sigma, with out switching to different instruments.
“That’s the place Atlan’s Chrome Extension turned a game-changer,” Daniel shared.
Atlan’s Chrome Extension remodeled knowledge consumption inside Sigma. With context about their knowledge belongings—dashboard descriptions, knowledge definitions, tags, lineage, notifications, and upstream high quality alerts—now out there immediately in Sigma, customers now not needed to bounce between instruments to perform their duties.
Accessible in a sidebar, Atlan’s Chrome Extension made this info immediately accessible, with out coaching or change administration.
“The initiative required no coaching,” Daniel defined. “As a result of it’s a sidebar and intuitively reveals this info, we might simply add it, then customers had been robotically up and operating, bettering their effectivity, and instantly seeing the profit.”
Difficulty Decision for Engineers and Shoppers, Alike
With context about their knowledge belongings made out there in Sigma, Daniel and his group started work to enhance the method of troubleshooting and speaking points associated to those belongings. Upon receiving a ticket, North’s engineering group as soon as spent important time looking out by way of Sigma to determine the belongings referenced within the request. With out a direct hyperlink between tickets and these belongings, decision would typically be delayed, and work could be duplicated.
“It was actually inefficient,” Daniel shared. “Generally even the identical engineers could be engaged on the identical mission, they usually didn’t even understand it as a result of a number of tickets had been submitted by a number of individuals.”
By integrating the Atlan Chrome Extension with Jira and Slack, North’s knowledge customers may elevate points immediately of their instrument of alternative, with a hyperlink to particular belongings included robotically, permitting Knowledge Engineers to know when and the place points occurred.
For knowledge customers in Sigma, this integration supplied a complete historical past of all Jira tickets and Slack conversations referring to particular knowledge belongings, and for engineers, a way of stopping duplicate tickets or a number of engineers engaged on the identical subject, and time financial savings by higher understanding related, previous points.
Eliminating duplicate work, or eliminating your engineers engaged on the identical mission with out figuring out about it? These effectivity positive aspects are big, and the financial savings add up actually shortly.”
Daniel Dowdy, Vice President, Knowledge Analytics & Governance
Introducing Snowflake Dynamic Knowledge Masking
As a funds resolution supplier, North handles huge quantities of delicate monetary knowledge. Whereas enhancements in knowledge discovery and enrichment are essential, Daniel’s group realized the worth of those enhancements could be restricted to a small variety of trusted customers with out sturdy knowledge governance and documentation securing these belongings.
To safe delicate knowledge and implement stringent entry insurance policies, North’s knowledge group selected to make the most of Dynamic Knowledge Masking with Snowflake, providing complete column-level masking for delicate knowledge, and policy-based management for customers.
To be able to make the most of Dynamic Knowledge Masking, Daniel and his group started the method of figuring out particular knowledge belongings that these insurance policies would apply to. Given the size and complexity of their knowledge panorama, they acknowledged {that a} granular, asset-by-asset method could be not solely time-consuming, however probably error-prone. Trying to find a method to determine and safe these belongings programmatically, Daniel turned to Atlan.
“How do you discover and tag 1000’s of belongings? You don’t Google it, you Atlan it. It’s actually easy,” Daniel defined.
Governing 1000’s of Belongings, on the Click on of a Button
Fairly than painstakingly finding these belongings, then tagging them one-by-one, their group utilized Atlan Playbooks, rules-based bulk automations that might determine 1000’s of belongings based mostly on chosen standards, then robotically apply actions, akin to including chosen tags and insurance policies.
By the point I added a filter, Atlan scanned our 225,000 belongings and nearly instantly discovered 45 matches. As I modified the filters so as to add new ones, it consistently up to date to indicate me what number of belongings meet that standards. Hours of guide analysis and testing, earlier than Atlan, was transformed into a pair seconds.”
Daniel Dowdy, Vice President, Knowledge Analytics & Governance
Rapidly figuring out 1000’s of belongings to better-secure, Daniel’s group used Playbooks to construct workflows that will robotically apply the suitable tag to the suitable asset, then propagate that tag upstream, on the click on of a button. Then, with Atlan’s Two-way Tag Sync, these tags would function the inspiration for Dynamic Knowledge Masking at North, robotically making use of masking insurance policies based mostly on how and from whom knowledge was queried.
By combining Atlan Playbooks, Two-way Tag Sync, and Automated Lineage with Snowflake Dynamic Knowledge Masking, North efficiently ruled 1000’s of knowledge belongings in report time with a programmatic method, avoiding the painstaking work of figuring out, tagging, and recording insurance policies one-by-one throughout a 225,000-asset panorama.
With out Atlan tracing upstream and downstream, serving to us perceive potential publicity and implement insurance policies, this course of would have been sophisticated and really guide. However with Atlan, you cannot solely hint knowledge lineage and set up the complexity, however you’ll be able to see recognition and utilization metrics that assist prioritize the place efforts are wanted probably the most, or the place the most important impression could possibly be made.”
Daniel Dowdy, Vice President, Knowledge Analytics & Governance
Via this programmatic method, Daniel’s group affected a 700% enhance in tagged belongings, considerably bettering their safety and compliance, and paving the way in which for a major enhance within the variety of their colleagues trusted to make use of knowledge.
“We’ve used Atlan to spice up the pace and accuracy of our asset tagging by greater than 700% since implementation,” Daniel shared. “With the power to find knowledge sooner, apply tags, and reverse sync that knowledge again into Snowflake, we added greater than 2,000 governance belongings in underneath a 12 months. That’s simply the tip of the iceberg.”
Thousands and thousands in Worth, in Months
In lower than one 12 months of being geared up with Atlan, Daniel and his group remodeled the way in which North makes use of and governs its knowledge, unlocking the potential for tens of millions in worth by way of effectivity positive aspects, price reductions, and enhanced threat mitigation.
By thoughtfully converging essential context about Snowflake and Sigma right into a user-friendly information base in Atlan, North’s technical and enterprise customers are projecting financial savings of $1.4 million per 12 months in effort by way of accelerated knowledge discovery and lowered effort understanding lineage.
“That’s $1.4 million of duplicate work, guide and tedious analysis. That’s time we are able to now spend on altering issues, versus attempting to navigate knowledge prefer it’s the web in 1997,” Daniel shared.
And with built-in insights in Atlan, close to–immediately figuring out pointless spend of their Snowflake atmosphere, Daniel and his group estimate an annual price financial savings of greater than $20,000 by deprecating greater than 10,000 idle belongings and inefficient queries.
“That financial savings was principally handed to us on a silver platter with no additional work,” Daniel remarked.
Past price financial savings and effectivity positive aspects, and existential to an organization that processes delicate monetary knowledge, lies important threat mitigation. By rising their tagged belongings by 700%, shortly and in bulk, North’s governance and safety improved nearly in a single day, to the tune of tens of millions of {dollars} in lowered threat.
We’ve been in a position to scale back our threat and publicity by tens of millions and tens of millions of {dollars}.”
Daniel Dowdy, Vice President, Knowledge Analytics & Governance
A 200% Improve in Self-service Analytics, with Room to Develop
Whereas these enhancements are spectacular, whether or not in knowledge discovery, with context about their knowledge belongings supporting a 200% year-over-year enhance in self-service analytics adoption, or in Knowledge Governance, driving tens of millions in threat mitigation, it’s the mixture of those packages that’s set to remodel the way in which North makes use of knowledge.
By affecting a leap ahead in the way in which that North manages entry management and ensures safety throughout an enormous knowledge property, the way in which Daniel’s group defines a trusted person of knowledge is evolving and increasing considerably.
“Knowledge Governance gave us the arrogance to soundly and securely share extra knowledge in Sigma,” Daniel defined.Now assured that probably the most delicate knowledge is safe, appropriately tagged, and ruled by the suitable entry coverage, North can confidently supply knowledge and self-service analytics capabilities to extra enterprise customers than ever earlier than, enhancing the already important worth they’ve yielded from combining Atlan, Snowflake, and Sigma.
We had been in a state of near-paralysis attempting to manually decide who ought to see what. Using a mixture of improved governance insurance policies, tags, and dynamic knowledge masking, we had been in a position to make use of knowledge with confidence. As a result of enhanced person expertise, mixed with the elevated knowledge availability, we anticipate to proceed or exceed our self-service atmosphere progress charges.”
Daniel Dowdy, Vice President, Knowledge Analytics & Governance
Mere years after adopting Snowflake as the inspiration of their Fashionable Knowledge Stack, and fewer than a 12 months after adopting Atlan, North’s knowledge property has remodeled from, as Daniel described, a “Knowledge Desert” into an “Oasis.”
“For the reason that knowledge by no means leaves our umbrella, there’s no extra flat recordsdata which can be shared,” Daniel defined. “There’s no extra a number of variations of the reality, and our knowledge has a stage of confidence, leading to sooner and extra knowledgeable choices.”
Regardless of the unbelievable accomplishments of North’s knowledge group, constructing self-service analytics and Knowledge Governance capabilities from scratch in report time, Daniel believes there’s nonetheless a lot extra to perform.
Within the months and years to come back, their knowledge group is keen to make use of Atlan AI to simplify complicated queries into pure language, and speed up the enrichment of their knowledge belongings. And by supporting a rising variety of Knowledge Stewards to independently share and doc information, a extra knowledgeable and empowered neighborhood of enterprise customers is rising.
Reflecting on their journey with Atlan, Daniel emphasised that past the suitable expertise, group, and technique lies a vital component: The fitting partnership.
One of the essential issues about Atlan has been the individuals. They’re knowledge those that have labored within the trade, perceive what you’re going by way of, and perceive what you’re speaking about from the second you begin the dialog.”
Daniel Dowdy, Vice President, Knowledge Analytics & Governance
Photograph by Jonas Leupe on Unsplash