May Product Update: Snowflake Data Quality Alerts and Groups

Databand’s May product update is now available!

In this update, we focused on enhancing integration with Snowflake and adding new role-based access controls with Databand Groups.

1. Snowflake Data Quality Alerts: enhanced “data-at-rest” monitoring with out-of-the-box data quality alerts on Snowflake tables.
2. Databand Groups: groups make it easier for users to focus on the most relevant alerts and navigate between different platform assets.

Check out the product videos and support documentation to get started today!

Watch the video below or keep reading to see how get started using Databand and Snowflake together.

Before you start using Databand’s Snowflake observability, you need to connect your Snowflake environment with Databand. Select the integration tab on the left panel and click the Add Integration button.

After choosing Snowflake, follow the support documentation to establish a connection.

Once the integration is set up, you will now see Snowflake as an option in the integration table.

You can now see all the tables pulling in from Snowflake within the main Datasets screen.

In the Datasets screen, you can see all the table information from the Snowflake monitor, such as:

• Name
• Total Records
• Path
• Last Modified
• Last operation

When clicking on a table, you can see the overview of table which includes daily rows written/read, daily operations, and issues related to the table.

The history tab includes all the individual Snowflake transactions. This view will depend on how Snowflake relates to pipelines within Databand.

For example, if you are only importing tables from Snowflake that do not have associated pipelines in Databand, you will see a condensed view based on the Snowflake origin.

If you have data pipelines integrated with Databand that interact with Snowflake, you’ll have access to a more comprehensive view. This view provides additional details about the pipeline source and the specific transactions taking place in the queries.

Setting up a data quality alert is easy in Databand. Select the alerts tab and then choose to the Add Alert button.

In this example, we’re showing two different types of metrics for your Snowflake data quality alerts:

1. Not null metric: this alert checks for NULL values in your columns.
2. Unique metric: this alert checks for any duplicates in your columns.

To set up an alert, first choose the Snowflake table you want to apply it.

From there, select the specific columns you want to run quality checks on, whether it be one or multiple. Lastly, select the metric type, severity, name, and description to finalize the alert.

Now that your Snowflake alerts are set, you can view all the triggered alerts in one location. Here you can see some recent Snowflake alerts related to the not null metric we created.

Now you can dive into the alert and see the trigger trend of the number of nulls found on your Snowflake columns over time. The latest alert had a trigger value of 54 nulls found in my Snowflake table named SERVICE_311_DEMO.PU‎BLIC.BOROUGH_REPORT‎.

Below the alert trend, you can see the impact analysis of any downstream assets affected by this alert. The example shows that a dbt pipeline was impacted.

Thanks to this feature, it is now possible to quickly analyze and address any business impacts related to the triggered alert. With access to a comprehensive view of pipelines and tables, complete observability is now achievable.

Databand Groups offers teams role-based access controls (RBAC) for their specific needs, such as projects, sources, and pipelines. This ensures that teams can concentrate on the data assets that matter to them rather than being overwhelmed by everything stored in Databand.

To create a new group, select the setting tab and select group management. From here you can see every member of each group and their assigned assets (e.g., projects, sources, pipelines).

Select click the Add New Group button to start adding members. Next, you’ll be prompted to select the members and assets to assign to the group.

If you selected Project A, then you will only see the sources and pipelines associated with Project A for the other asset types. This helps narrow the large amounts of assets to choose from when assigning new assets.

Once you assign the assets and save, you’ll now be able to quickly switch back and forth between groups by selecting your name tab in the bottom left corner.

Now when you go to any tab in Databand, you will only see the assigned assets. In this example, we’re showing you the only assigned pipeline for project A.

Ready to get started with Databand? Request a demo today to see how we can help you deliver better Snowflake observability.