About collaboration in VPS environments¶
Virtual Private Snowflake (VPS) offers the highest level of security by completely isolating your data and resources. VPS was specifically created for organizations requiring the highest levels of security, such as financial institutions and enterprises handling sensitive data. With such focus on security and isolation, VPS deployments handle information collaboration differently from other Snowflake deployments. Despite the restraints required by this isolation, VPS customers can still share data with other Snowflake users, allowing both cooperation and data security.
How collaboration works with VPS¶
Collaborative data, offered by a data provider and accessed by a data consumer, can be made available for collaboration even if one or both parties use VPS. Snowflake Support is always involved in this process to ensure that all security protocols are strictly followed. The VPS environment provides strong and flexible options for securely sharing data, maintaining the highest levels of security and compliance across all data-sharing activities.
About VPS private listings¶
Private listings are shared from one provider to one consumer only. Either the provider or the consumer, or both, use VPS. Private listings are not publicly searchable. Instead, discovery of the listing can be restricted to specific users or organizations chosen by the data provider. The VPS consumer also restricts which providers (and listings) are visible to them. After all the processes described in this guide are complete and reviewed by Snowflake Support, the end result is that the VPS user can query the data through a private listing.
If you’re a data consumer in search of listings, see Finding consumers for private listings.
If you’re a data provider, find more information on locating consumers who might be interested in your listing in Finding consumers for private listings.
Data Collaboration: Access without Duplication¶
Snowflake uses a process called cross-cloud auto-fulfillment to make the data locally available without requiring any inbound data transfer into the consumer’s Snowflake account. Powered by Snowgrid™, Snowflake’s cross-cloud technology, auto-fulfillment connects data across different regions and cloud providers. Snowgrid creates the seamless global network that keeps data securely within the provider’s environment while allowing authorized users to access it from anywhere, without duplication or movement.
For private listings, Snowgrid isolates the data, making it available exclusively to specific consumers through a dedicated connection. This process ensures that the data remains secure and isolated while still providing immediate, controlled access.
These private listings only become available after the provider and consumer have officially arranged to share the data, a process described in this guide. The provider’s catalog of VPS-eligible listings then becomes discoverable to the VPS consumer. However, these listings are not accessible unless there is at least one active consumer.
Just as VPS environments are isolated and have globally unique identifiers, each private listing is also isolated and has a globally unique identifier (called a Universal Listing Locator or ULL). The ULL is often casually referred to as a listing name, but for private listings the listing name is unique to the collaboration between one provider and one consumer.
Provision of data products¶
VPS users can publish data to a listing if and only if this action is explicitly allowed and correctly configured.
Note
Snowflake Support is always involved in this process to ensure that all security protocols are strictly followed.
Private listings created by or shared with VPS users do not appear in the Snowflake Marketplace UI. Instead, they are only visible within a dedicated, secure user interface, accessible exclusively by other participating users. If those users are also in a VPS environment, they must also have authorized this interaction.
These measures ensure that data remains isolated and secure within VPS environments and that no data leaves or enters the VPS without strict procedures to ensure compliance and security.
Consumption of data products¶
VPS users can see and consume listings that are shared by a controlled list of vetted data providers. The providers and their data products must be specifically enabled for the consumers VPS, regardless of whether the provider is in a VPS or not. To find privately shared data products, VPS users use a separate, isolated user interface called Private Sharing.
This separate interface is designed to uphold the strict isolation requirements of VPS environments, ensuring that all data interactions comply with VPS compliance and security standards. View and install listings that are shared with you by visiting https://app.snowflake.com/pm/pm_aws_us_west_2/#/data/shared. Or, if you are already signed in, select Data Products » Private Sharing.
VPS environments have tightly controlled interactions with any external connection, utilizing a dedicated isolated user interface (UI) that ensures the strict security and isolation of the VPS environment. While VPS users can publish and consume data in “listings”, these actions require specific configurations; and only listings that are explicitly enabled (allowed) for VPS access are publishable or accessible from within this secure environment.
Limitations¶
Limitations on collaborating with Virtual Private Snowflake (VPS)¶
The following limitations apply to collaboration support for Virtual Private Snowflake (VPS):
Listings that use manual fulfillment are not supported.
Listings that use Snowflake connectors are not supported.