Building a Well-Architected Snowflake Environment: Introducing Our Ippon Snowflake WAFR Custom Lens

Ippon's Take on Snowflake and AWS Well-Architected Framework

Every workload, no matter how big or small, be it a data pipeline or a web application, benefits from a strategy that is tailor-made for its unique challenges. Industry best practices that are often based on hard-won experience should be kept in mind for guidance while creating such a strategy. Through our journey with the Well-Architected Framework (WAFR), we have come to appreciate the benefits it brings to our clients. Recognizing that many of our customers use Snowflake and that there is no official WAFR lens for the assessment of a Snowflake environment, we set out to create our own Snowflake WAFR Custom Lens. It is designed to help our clients build and improve their environment to be not only efficient and secure but also primed for future growth. 

This custom lens is designed around five key pillars: cost optimization, operational excellence, security, reliability, and performance—each addressing critical aspects of the Snowflake deployment. Our experts with many years of Snowflake and WAFR experience have meticulously compiled the lens and are continuously updating it as the Snowflake data platform and AWS Cloud services evolve to ensure our clients get the most up-to-date recommendations.

Same as in the General Well-Architected Framework Lens, in our Custom Snowflake Lens, each question comes with a detailed reasoning of why it is vital to ask yourself this question, multiple-choice options, and links to helpful resources to gain more insights into the importance of each choice.

In the screenshot below, you can see what a sample question looks like in the AWS WAFR console:

At the end of the review, the client receives a report where high- and medium-risk issues in their Snowflake environment are clearly identified and highlighted, along with a prioritized improvement plan. The example below shows what the summary of identified issues looks like in the final report. Each risk is then explained in detail, and concrete next steps are laid out.

This approach transforms every challenge into an opportunity for growth—because every cloud truly has a silver lining. It is a matter of knowing your ‘clouds’ and having a plan, prioritization, and resources to resolve the potential risks before they become real issues.

Our Custom Lens prompts our clients to regularly review performance metrics, optimize query performance, and test reliability. With these proactive measures, our clients can rest assured that their data platform will perform reliably—even under the heaviest loads.

Cost Optimization

Our Custom WAFR Snowflake Lens guides you through cost optimization strategies by focusing on the efficient use of resources without sacrificing performance. We understand that time is money. By guiding you through selecting the configurations for your warehouses, setting up budget alerts at different levels, optimizing your data pipelines, and many other methods, our lens addresses cost optimization. This pillar ensures that you are not over-provisioning resources or mismanaging your budget.

Operational Excellence

With our lens, operational excellence is at the heart of your Snowflake environment. We provide a structured set of questions leading you to industry best practices so that your operations teams are well-equipped. The lens emphasizes robust data governance practices—ensuring data is accurate, accessible, and secure—so you can trust the insights that drive your business decisions. By recommending continuous monitoring and scheduled reviews, this risk assessment framework ensures that your operations remain lean and efficient, enabling quick adaptations to evolving business needs.

Security

With our Snowflake WAFR Custom Lens, you can rest assured that your environment follows best practices, from enforcing the principle of least privilege to implementing multi-factor authentication. By applying advanced data protection techniques—such as dynamic data masking and row-level security—you can be sure that your sensitive data is safeguarded against unauthorized access. This proactive approach to security means you are always a step ahead of potential threats. 

Below is a snippet with the top-level security pillar questions for your preview.

Reliability

Our Custom Lens places a strong emphasis on reliability. A reliable data platform is the foundation on which decisions are made. The Snowflake data platform offers reliability features out of the box. For those who need an extra level of reliability, our lens goes over disaster recovery strategies, including continuous data replication and automated failover processes. Clear incident management procedures and regular stress tests ensure that, in the event of an unexpected disruption, your systems bounce back quickly, minimizing downtime and protecting your business continuity. With features like Snowflake Time Travel and Fail-safe, along with additional multi-region replication strategies, you can have peace of mind that your data is protected against accidental loss or regional failures. 

Performance

Performance is the lifeblood of any modern data platform. Our lens covers best practices for optimizing query performance, including the use of materialized views, proper clustering, and the Snowflake Query Acceleration Service. By continuously monitoring and adjusting virtual warehouse sizes and leveraging autoscaling features, we ensure that your system can handle peak loads without unnecessary delays and without compromising cost efficiency so that it is always ready to perform at its best.

Final Thoughts

Our Custom Snowflake WAFR Lens is the culmination of years of experience with AWS's Well-Architected framework and a deep understanding of Snowflake’s unique challenges. In the world of cloud computing, the devil is in the details, and it pays to be proactive rather than reactive. Our Custom Snowflake WAFR Lens covers every angle—from cost optimization and operational excellence to security, reliability, and performance—ensuring that every aspect is meticulously assessed against current best practices. With this lens, you’re not just reviewing a Snowflake environment; you are making sure it is future-ready.

For more details on how our Snowflake WAFR Custom Lens can transform your data strategy, contact us or visit our website. Together, we will ensure that your Snowflake environment is secure, efficient, and built for the future!