Combining Atlan, Snowflake, and Sigma to Democratize Entry to Properly-governed Knowledge
At a Look
- North, a number one funds answer supplier processing over $100 billion in annual transactions, aimed to enhance information discovery and governance atop their Snowflake- and Sigma-powered trendy information stack
- Adopting Atlan as their lively metadata platform, North has since achieved end-to-end visibility of 225,000 information belongings, securing delicate information, and rising adoption of self-service analytics
- In lower than a yr, their staff is projecting $1.4mm in annual effectivity good points and a 200% progress in Sigma adoption whereas realizing a 700% improve in tagged Snowflake belongings which has contributed to mitigating hundreds of thousands of {dollars} in threat
For over 30 years, North has established itself as a number one funds answer 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 means of fee gateways, cellular 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 unlimited information property comprising 225,000 belongings, totaling 41 terabytes on Snowflake, the duty of managing and governing North’s information 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 staff’s journey, constructing and governing a contemporary information stack that helps each inner information shoppers and their flagship merchandise.
What do 20 subsidiaries and types, and 100,000+ retailers, imply for our staff? It means we now have loads of information. We use that information 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 heart for all the things from transaction monitoring and reporting to stock administration and fraud safety. To ship vital, transaction-level reporting to their clients, 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 clients,” 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 information. Easy duties like pulling uncooked information or producing reviews may take days and even weeks, hindered by ETL bottlenecks and information silos scattered throughout a number of servers and databases, or Excel recordsdata circulated throughout the group.
As soon as a file goes out, that information is already stale. To not point out that after that file leaves you, customers can then modify it and make their very own supply of reality. So, you’re scuffling with a number of sources of the reality.”
Daniel Dowdy, Vice President, Knowledge Analytics & Governance
The dearth of a single supply of reality sophisticated efforts to drive belief in North’s information, and with out clear lineage and governance, controlling that information as soon as it left their fingers proved tough.
After Snowflake + Sigma, Correct, Actual-time Knowledge
In 2019, North adopted Snowflake as their enterprise information lake, considerably enhancing their information science, analytics, and reporting capabilities. By shifting from outdated batch processing to real-time CDC options, their staff traded cumbersome ETL workflows and embraced the effectivity of recent ELT processes.
“We went from a ‘Knowledge Desert,’ the place retrieving info took days, to an oasis the place information was accessible in actual time, and we may question it in seconds,” mentioned Daniel.
Whereas Snowflake represented a major leap ahead within the availability and reliability of information, Daniel’s staff had been nonetheless answerable for fielding easy requests for information entry. To scale back this workload, and to make information much more accessible to a rising variety of shoppers, their staff launched Sigma, a enterprise intelligence device that empowers customers to independently entry, analyze, and visualize information, providing essential info in a self-service method.
With its acquainted, Excel-like interface, enterprise customers rapidly embraced Sigma, leading to a skyrocketing adoption charge, with annual consumer progress now exceeding 200%.
Starting with 10 customers in 2019, we now have over 350 customers in Sigma, with an annual progress charge of greater than 200% year-over-year. Now, Sigma is our self-service analytics platform, and it’s taken loads of burden off our information staff.”
Daniel Dowdy, Vice President, Knowledge Analytics & Governance
North has since engineered a contemporary information stack, establishing strong pipelines that seamlessly ingest and replicate information from various sources like Oracle, MySQL, Salesforce, and S3. This wealth of information is then channeled into highly effective instruments akin to Qlik, Snowpipe, and Kafka, all converging inside Snowflake.
As the amount and number of information grew, so did the demand for entry, shifting the problem from mere information accessibility to the extra complicated points of information governance and discovery.
“What turned the issue was discover the info, and govern it nicely,” Daniel shared. “Atlan turned the central level addressing all of those issues.”
Unlocking Snowflake and Sigma with Atlan
Connecting to over 225,000 information belongings inside Snowflake and Sigma took simply hours with Atlan, driving unprecedented visibility on a big scale.
“After partnering with Atlan, it took most likely a few hours earlier than we had been built-in with Snowflake and Sigma, connecting to over 225,000 belongings. We’re so proud of the outcomes,” Daniel shared.
This near-instant connection reworked information discovery at North, as soon as a chaotic expertise of leaping by means of a number of silos, instantly making it easy to navigate and perceive their information property.
Atlan began getting us this fast worth by means of information discovery. The way in which I maintain fascinated about it was the early days of the web. You had entry to this huge quantity of knowledge, however it was actually onerous to search out. Then, search engines like google and yahoo made it straightforward to run a search and discover related content material. For us, Atlan turned Google for Knowledge.”
Daniel Dowdy, Vice President, Knowledge Analytics & Governance
Shifting past easy information discovery, Daniel’s staff launched information glossaries, definitions, and complete phrases, enabling deeper dives into information, and using lineage to know upstream and downstream dependencies with ease.
With this invaluable context unlocked, their subsequent step was to ship it on to enterprise customers, who primarily devour information 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 reworked information consumption inside Sigma. With context about their information belongings—dashboard descriptions, information definitions, tags, lineage, notifications, and upstream high quality alerts—now accessible instantly in Sigma, customers now not needed to soar between instruments to perform their duties.
Obtainable 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 exhibits this info, we might simply add it, then customers had been robotically up and operating, enhancing their effectivity, and instantly seeing the profit.”
Difficulty Decision for Engineers and Customers, Alike
With context about their information belongings made accessible in Sigma, Daniel and his staff started work to enhance the method of troubleshooting and speaking points associated to those belongings. Upon receiving a ticket, North’s engineering staff as soon as spent important time looking out by means of Sigma to establish the belongings referenced within the request. With no direct hyperlink between tickets and these belongings, decision would usually be delayed, and work can be duplicated.
“It was actually inefficient,” Daniel shared. “Generally even the identical engineers can be engaged on the identical undertaking, they usually didn’t even comprehend 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 information shoppers may elevate points instantly of their device of selection, with a hyperlink to particular belongings included robotically, permitting Knowledge Engineers to know when and the place points occurred.
For information shoppers in Sigma, this integration provided a complete historical past of all Jira tickets and Slack conversations regarding particular information belongings, and for engineers, a way of stopping duplicate tickets or a number of engineers engaged on the identical concern, and time financial savings by higher understanding related, previous points.
Eliminating duplicate work, or eliminating your engineers engaged on the identical undertaking with out figuring out about it? These effectivity good points are big, and the financial savings add up actually rapidly.”
Daniel Dowdy, Vice President, Knowledge Analytics & Governance
Introducing Snowflake Dynamic Knowledge Masking
As a funds answer supplier, North handles huge quantities of delicate monetary information. Whereas enhancements in information discovery and enrichment are essential, Daniel’s staff realized the worth of those enhancements can be restricted to a small variety of trusted customers with out strong information governance and documentation securing these belongings.
To safe delicate information and implement stringent entry insurance policies, North’s information staff selected to make the most of Dynamic Knowledge Masking with Snowflake, providing complete column-level masking for delicate information, and policy-based management for customers.
As a way to make the most of Dynamic Knowledge Masking, Daniel and his staff started the method of figuring out particular information belongings that these insurance policies would apply to. Given the dimensions and complexity of their information panorama, they acknowledged {that a} granular, asset-by-asset method can be not solely time-consuming, however probably error-prone. Looking for a solution to establish and safe these belongings programmatically, Daniel turned to Atlan.
“How do you discover and tag hundreds of belongings? You don’t Google it, you Atlan it. It’s actually easy,” Daniel defined.
Governing Hundreds of Belongings, on the Click on of a Button
Moderately than painstakingly finding these belongings, then tagging them one-by-one, their staff utilized Atlan Playbooks, rules-based bulk automations that would establish hundreds 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 always up to date to point out me what number of belongings meet that standards. Hours of handbook analysis and testing, earlier than Atlan, was transformed into a pair seconds.”
Daniel Dowdy, Vice President, Knowledge Analytics & Governance
Shortly figuring out hundreds of belongings to better-secure, Daniel’s staff used Playbooks to construct workflows that may robotically apply the appropriate tag to the appropriate 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 muse for Dynamic Knowledge Masking at North, robotically making use of masking insurance policies based mostly on how and from whom information was queried.
By combining Atlan Playbooks, Two-way Tag Sync, and Automated Lineage with Snowflake Dynamic Knowledge Masking, North efficiently ruled hundreds of information belongings in document 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 handbook. However with Atlan, you cannot solely hint information lineage and manage the complexity, however you may see reputation and utilization metrics that assist prioritize the place efforts are wanted essentially the most, or the place the largest impression could possibly be made.”
Daniel Dowdy, Vice President, Knowledge Analytics & Governance
Via this programmatic method, Daniel’s staff affected a 700% improve in tagged belongings, considerably enhancing their safety and compliance, and paving the way in which for a major improve within the variety of their colleagues trusted to make use of information.
“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 flexibility to find information quicker, apply tags, and reverse sync that information again into Snowflake, we added greater than 2,000 governance belongings in underneath a yr. That’s simply the tip of the iceberg.”
Tens of millions in Worth, in Months
In lower than one yr of being geared up with Atlan, Daniel and his staff reworked the way in which North makes use of and governs its information, unlocking the potential for hundreds of thousands in worth by means of effectivity good points, value reductions, and enhanced threat mitigation.
By thoughtfully converging essential context about Snowflake and Sigma right into a user-friendly data base in Atlan, North’s technical and enterprise customers are projecting financial savings of $1.4 million per yr in effort by means of accelerated information discovery and decreased effort understanding lineage.
“That’s $1.4 million of duplicate work, handbook and tedious analysis. That’s time we will now spend on altering issues, versus attempting to navigate information 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 staff estimate an annual value 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 further work,” Daniel remarked.
Past value financial savings and effectivity good points, and existential to an organization that processes delicate monetary information, lies important threat mitigation. By rising their tagged belongings by 700%, rapidly and in bulk, North’s governance and safety improved nearly in a single day, to the tune of hundreds of thousands of {dollars} in decreased threat.
We’ve been in a position to cut back our threat and publicity by hundreds of thousands and hundreds of thousands of {dollars}.”
Daniel Dowdy, Vice President, Knowledge Analytics & Governance
A 200% Enhance in Self-service Analytics, with Room to Develop
Whereas these enhancements are spectacular, whether or not in information discovery, with context about their information belongings supporting a 200% year-over-year improve in self-service analytics adoption, or in Knowledge Governance, driving hundreds of thousands in threat mitigation, it’s the mixture of those packages that’s set to rework the way in which North makes use of information.
By affecting a leap ahead in the way in which that North manages entry management and ensures safety throughout a large information property, the way in which Daniel’s staff defines a trusted consumer of information is evolving and increasing considerably.
“Knowledge Governance gave us the arrogance to soundly and securely share extra information in Sigma,” Daniel defined.Now assured that essentially the most delicate information is safe, appropriately tagged, and ruled by the appropriate entry coverage, North can confidently provide information 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 mix of improved governance insurance policies, tags, and dynamic information masking, we had been in a position to make use of information with confidence. Because of the enhanced consumer expertise, mixed with the elevated information availability, we count on to proceed or exceed our self-service atmosphere progress charges.”
Daniel Dowdy, Vice President, Knowledge Analytics & Governance
Mere years after adopting Snowflake as the muse of their Fashionable Knowledge Stack, and fewer than a yr after adopting Atlan, North’s information property has reworked from, as Daniel described, a “Knowledge Desert” into an “Oasis.”
“Because the information by no means leaves our umbrella, there’s no extra flat recordsdata which might be shared,” Daniel defined. “There’s no extra a number of variations of the reality, and our information has a degree of confidence, leading to quicker and extra knowledgeable choices.”
Regardless of the unimaginable accomplishments of North’s information staff, constructing self-service analytics and Knowledge Governance capabilities from scratch in document time, Daniel believes there’s nonetheless a lot extra to perform.
Within the months and years to return, their information staff is raring to make use of Atlan AI to simplify complicated queries into pure language, and speed up the enrichment of their information belongings. And by supporting a rising variety of Knowledge Stewards to independently share and doc data, a extra knowledgeable and empowered neighborhood of enterprise customers is rising.
Reflecting on their journey with Atlan, Daniel emphasised that past the appropriate know-how, staff, and technique lies a vital ingredient: The proper partnership.
One of the vital issues about Atlan has been the individuals. They’re information people who have labored within the business, perceive what you’re going by means of, and perceive what you’re speaking about from the second you begin the dialog.”
Daniel Dowdy, Vice President, Knowledge Analytics & Governance
Picture by Jonas Leupe on Unsplash
