Migrating Databases to Snowflake with the AWS Database Migration Service

One of the most optimized cloud-based platforms that offer a range of services such as Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), and Software as a Service (SaaS) is AWS (Amazon Web Service). Along with other services mainly unlimited database storage, content delivery services, and enhanced computing power, it also enables database migration through its Database Migration Service (DMS).

AWS DMS is very effective for migrating databases between two cloud providers, an on-server database to the cloud, or between relational databases, NoSQL databases, and data warehouses. For AWS DMS to function, at least one of the databases, the source or the target, should be operating in the cloud.

In today’s business environment, database migration with AWS DMS to Snowflake is a highly-preferred option. To understand this aspect, it is necessary to know more about the benefits of Snowflake.

Snowflake is a cloud-based data warehouse providing users with a high level of agility and elasticity. They can easily scale up or down in usage of storage or computing resources by paying only for the quantum taken up. Snowflake also enables working with data in its native format without having to process it. This platform has high computing powers and even when multiple intricate queries are being performed simultaneously there is no lag or drop in performance. Finally, because of all these benefits and that it is a fully-managed service, it makes sense to migrate existing databases through AWS DMS to Snowflake.

How to Migrate Databases with AWS DMS to Snowflake

AWS Cloud provides services that facilitate a continuous inflow of data for loading it into a database with AWS DMS Snowflake. This is how the migration process takes place.

· The first step comprises data being delivered to the Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3) using the Amazon Kinesis Firehose.

· In the next stage, notifications are sent through the Amazon Simple Notification Service (Amazon SNS)when this data is received by Snowflake Snowpipe.

· In the third and final step of database migration with AWS DMS to Snowflake, this data is loaded into a Snowflake database.

The reason why organizations prefer AWS DMS for moving data to Snowflake is that it is fully automated. This allows users to have continuous access to the generated data within seconds and avoid multiple manual COPY commands as well as get the benefit of support for semi-structured data on load. On the flip side, the problem here is that Snowflake Snowpipe does not connect directly to Kinesis Data Firehose.

Before attempting AWS DMS to Snowflake database migration, ensure that the Snowflake account has the required permissions to create storage integrations with data present concurrently in a table in Snowflake. Moreover, have an AWS account with the necessary permissions for creating AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) policies and roles.