July 7, 2023

Sigma at Snowflake Summit 2023 Recap

BI Partner of the Year, Snowpark for Business Users, Embeddable Data Apps, and More!

‍

After a full week in Vegas, it’s healthy to take a minute and reflect. Try and assess the damage done from blackjack, take a deep breath, and start working on that expense report. If you made it out to Snowflake Summit this year, you may not have caught all of Sigma’s sessions from customer testimonials, to hands-on labs, to a brief history of the Medici’s and double ledger accounting. Or if you’re still stuck waiting on the tarmac for your flight to take off, this blog can act as both vicarious experience and summary.

The Sigma Booth

Entering Base camp West, if you stopped by the Sigma booth you could be treated to a demo of Sigma AI or Sigma on Snowpark. Our associate solution architect, Fran Britschgi, may have walked you through forecasting, classification, clustering, or prediction made simple for business users via our spreadsheet-like interface. The booth was heavily trafficked all three days, so if you did not get a chance for a personalized demo, you can still request one and find out why we were named Snowflake’s BI Partner of the Year 2023.

Sigma’s booth could not be missed.

Sigma, Snowflake, and Blackstone

If you signed up before the session became fully booked, you may have attended the breakout “How Blackstone Unified Data and Business Teams in a Single Data Platform”.

Blackstone is the world’s largest alternative asset manager. The session focused on how Blackstone uses advanced analytics to power portfolio analysis, root cause analysis, and scenario modeling to break down data silos. Jai Subrahmanyam, SVP and head of data governance and IT at Blackstone, described the vital role of Snowflake in scaling Blackstone’s data operations, as well as how Sigma can help them unify data and business teams. The whole goal is to make better decisions faster.

Jai explains alongside Sigma’s Chief Revenue Officer, Brian Murphy, how Blackstone makes data from their portfolio companies available wholesale.

A Brief History of Analytic Innovation

If you were cutting through the expo floor, you may have seen up on the pavilion theater stage, where Sigma’s director of product management, Stipo Josipovic, teamed up with our Technical Alliance Manager, Shawn Namdar, to present Sigma and the future of analytics. They began with a quick history lesson of the Medicis and the invention of the double-sided ledger. Their big point is that the modern data stack belongs to a rich tradition of innovation. Sigma will also be running a webinar July 11th that serves to recap the session as well: Snowpark, Input Tables, & Sigma AI: The Future of Analytics.

Shawn makes the case for Sigma being the Medici of the modern data stack.

Securely-Embedded Data Apps

If you were feeling truly ambitious about getting your Summit ticket’s worth, you would have also probably attended the two-hour hands-on-lab on building embedded data apps with Sigma and Snowflake. This session was run twice by Keith Smith, Senior Partner Sales Engineer at Snowflake, along with Kelsey Hammock, Partner Engineer at Sigma. Not only did the lab walk through how to set up row-level security in Snowflake, it also stepped through building an entire Sigma workbook and embedding via i-frame to test said row-level security. Don’t despair however if you missed it, the quick start lab can still be found right here.

Kelsey walks through—in under two hours—what used to take the better part of a month pre-cloud.

Sigma’s Summer Plans

Now if your flight has still not taken off yet and you have an opportunity to rebook…

Sigma, Snowflake and Hakkoda are taking Snowpark on the road. We will be in Boston, Denver, and Dallas during the month of August where you will have the opportunity to hear from leading data science experts and network over bringing machine learning to business teams. You can also catch us throughout Snowflake’s Data Cloud World Tour.