Snowflake isn’t just a data warehouse. It’s the engine powering some of today’s most agile, data-driven organizations. But like any powerful system, how you start makes all the difference. Think of it like building a house: if the foundation’s shaky, every room above it inherits that instability. If it’s strong? You can scale, pivot, and innovate freely.
With the Snowflake Summit fast approaching (June 2–5, 2025), there’s never been a better time to reassess your architecture. Whether you’re setting up Snowflake for the first time or cleaning up a legacy configuration, we’ve outlined five foundational best practices to ensure your platform is secure, scalable, and ready for the future.
Before we get into the big moves, here are five simple steps you can take right now to tighten your setup:
These tactical wins may not take long to implement, but they can significantly reduce technical debt down the road.
Even more importantly, these actions lay the groundwork for a thoughtful, long-term Snowflake implementation. It’s not just about speed—it’s about durability, flexibility, and being prepared to scale.
One of the earliest (and most important) decisions you'll make is whether to run Snowflake in a single account or break it into multiple accounts by business unit, environment, or region.
Single account strategy is ideal for centralized operations:
But it comes with a caveat: poor governance in a single account can lead to chaos. Without naming conventions and strict RBAC, you’re one misstep away from spaghetti permissions and audit trail nightmares.
Multiple account strategy gives you physical isolation:
The downside? More overhead. More complexity. And no Zero Copy Cloning across accounts.
At Concord, recommend a hybrid approach: start with a single account, scale to multiple when your structure—and your governance—demand it. Building a flexible decision tree now prevents rework later.
Your Snowflake environment is only as secure as your access model. Luckily, Snowflake’s RBAC system makes granular, scalable permissions not just possible but painless.
We recommend a dual-role system:
Assign users to functional roles, then link those to access roles. You avoid permission sprawl, simplify onboarding, and enable growth across business units without sacrificing control.
This structure also facilitates smoother audits, consistency across teams, and makes it easier to onboard new departments as Snowflake usage expands.
On the data protection side, tag-based masking policies let you dynamically obscure sensitive fields. Instead of hardcoding rules, you apply tags like Personally Identifiable Information (PII) or Protected Health Information (PHI), and the system does the rest.
Worth noting tag-based masking requires Snowflake’s Enterprise Edition or higher. So, if you’re operating in a regulated space, it’s a useful feature to consider as part of your broader data protection strategy.
Together, RBAC and tagging:
We also recommend:
And don’t forget your "Privacy Admin" role which is the gatekeeper for unmasked access. Appointing these early builds trust internally and externally.
A well-configured Snowflake environment starts inside the warehouse but don’t forget your borders.
Network policies act like a bouncer at the door. You define who gets in by Internet Protocol (IP) Address or Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) endpoint and block everything else. They’re your first layer of defense.
PrivateLink is your velvet rope. With it, Snowflake traffic never touches the public internet. Everything stays within your cloud provider’s private backbone especially critical in regulated industries or global deployments.
Heads up: network rules granular policy controls for outbound access also require Business Critical Edition.
Here we recommend:
We also help clients:
Think of it as building a zero-trust perimeter around your data warehouse—one that still allows flexible collaboration, but on your terms.
A secure perimeter protects not just your data, but your brand—and it’s essential for System and Organization Controls Type 2 (SOC 2), Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), and more.
Here’s the truth: even the best systems encounter failure. But there’s a big difference between a hiccup and a catastrophe. And planning is the key to avoiding major disasters but preparing for minor incidents.
Snowflake makes Disaster Recovery (DR) simple if you use the Failover Groups replicate your environment (databases, roles, users, policies) across regions or clouds. In an outage, users can be redirected automatically to a secondary site using a client redirect URL.
How it works:
Remember: privileges like REPLICATE and FAILOVER aren’t replicated automatically. You’ll need to grant them in both source and target accounts.
Time Travel and Fail-Safe give you additional protection:
Concord DR playbooks include:
At Concord, we also guide clients in classifying data assets by criticality. Not all objects require cross-region redundancy—but your top 10% probably do. Prioritize, replicate, and test accordingly.
Because when disaster strikes, the best time to plan was yesterday.
Let’s face it: documentation isn’t sexy. But when your Snowflake environment grows—and it will—SOPs will save you hours of guesswork, inconsistency, and rework.
Document everything:
We help clients create living SOP frameworks—ones that evolve with Snowflake’s roadmap and your business priorities. The result? Faster onboarding, tighter governance, and fewer surprises.
Already using Azure DevOps, GitHub, or Terraform? Great! Build those pipelines into your SOPs. Snowflake’s ecosystem thrives when CI/CD and documentation work together. Also consider creating a runbook for each new project: a checklist that includes warehouse sizes, access roles, masking levels, and cost center codes.
One tip from the field: create a role for your "Data Governor" or "Platform Admin" to oversee SOP adherence and coordinate with security leads. This cross-functional role reduces friction and ensures long-term maintainability.
Your foundation is only the beginning. Once your platform is secure, governed, and documented, you can start focusing on what matters most: delivering value
In our next post, we’ll explore how to:
Until then, make sure your foundation is solid because smart architecture doesn’t just prevent problems, it unlocks possibilities.
We help teams design, build, and optimize Snowflake environments that scale. Whether you’re starting fresh or reinventing your architecture, we bring together strategy and execution to get it done.
Let’s talk. No pitch. No pressure. Just thoughtful guidance from a team that knows how to scale Snowflake without the growing pains.
Want to learn more? Meet us at the Snowflake Summit (June 2–5) or reach out directly.
Contact Concord to get started today!
Not sure on your next step? We'd love to hear about your business challenges. No pitch. No strings attached.
