Secure Data Sharing: Free Data Transfer That Saves on ETL

Secure Data Sharing: Free Data Transfer That Saves on ETL

Snowflake's data sharing eliminates the need for expensive data replication and ETL processes. Discover how to leverage it for cost savings.

The Problem

Traditional data sharing requires extracting, transferring, loading, storing duplicate data, and ongoing synchronization - all expensive operations.

How Secure Data Sharing Works

• Data stays in provider's account (single copy)
• Consumers query data live (always fresh)
• No data movement or duplication
• Consumer pays only for their own compute
• Zero ETL or transfer costs

Cost Savings

Traditional ETL:
- Daily extraction: 10 credits
- Data transfer: $500/month
- Loading: 15 credits/day
- Storage duplication: $2,000/month
Total: ~$3,500/month

Secure Data Sharing:
- Setup: One-time, minutes
- Data transfer: $0
- ETL: $0
- Storage: $0 (single copy)
Total: ~$0/month

Implementation

-- Provider creates share
CREATE SHARE customer_analytics_share;
GRANT USAGE ON DATABASE analytics TO SHARE customer_analytics_share;
GRANT SELECT ON analytics.public.customer_metrics
TO SHARE customer_analytics_share;

-- Add consumer account
ALTER SHARE customer_analytics_share ADD ACCOUNTS = xy12345;

Use Cases

• Sharing with external partners
• Cross-department data sharing
• Multi-region data access

Real-World Example

A SaaS company was providing data to 50 enterprise customers via nightly ETL: 500GB/night per customer = 25TB/night, ETL compute: 200 credits/night × 50 = 10,000 credits/night, storage duplication: 25TB, monthly cost: ~$45,000.

By switching to Secure Data Sharing: Zero data movement, zero ETL compute, single copy of data (500GB vs 25TB), data always current, monthly cost: ~$300 (monitoring only). Savings: $44,700/month (99% reduction).

Key Takeaways

• Secure Data Sharing eliminates ETL and data movement costs
• Data stays in provider's account (single copy)
• Consumers always have fresh data
• Can save 90%+ compared to traditional ETL
• Best for read-only sharing within the same cloud