A Practical Look at Snowflake Openflow

How a unified, secure, and visual approach to data integration can simplify pipelines for teams of any size

Openflow is Snowflake’s answer to simplifying the fragmented world of data ingestion and integration. Built on Apache NiFi and deployed in your own VPC, it offers a managed yet flexible approach to moving data from virtually any source to Snowflake – structured, unstructured, batch, or streaming.

This post isn’t a product pitch. It’s a practical breakdown of what Openflow brings to the table, who it’s best suited for, and how it changes the conversation for data teams considering their integration strategy – whether pivoting from legacy ETL tools or starting greenfield.

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Why Openflow Caught Our Attention

1. Cost Model: OPEX Friendly and License-Light

There’s no added Snowflake license fee to use Openflow. You pay for:

• Your own infrastructure (EC2, storage, networking) if using BYOC (Bring Your Own Cloud) deployment.
• Ingestion services like Snowpipe or Snowpipe Streaming, depending on your connectors.
• Telemetry/logging that writes to Snowflake tables (standard Snowflake usage).

This makes it especially attractive for small or lean teams. It aligns with cloud-native operational expense models and eliminates the typical vendor licensing complexities.

[Source: Understanding Openflow Costs – Snowflake Docs]

2. Visual, No-Code Interface That Works

Openflow leverages NiFi’s intuitive, browser-based UI. Data engineers can drag and drop processors, connect components visually, and configure connectors without writing code. That means:

• Junior engineers or analysts can build pipelines.
• Small teams don’t need a DevOps pipeline squad to get going.
• Templates and curated connectors reduce decision-making and setup time.

[Source: Openflow Connectors Overview]

3. A Data Manager’s Dream: Centralized Control, Secure by Design

Openflow doesn’t just ingest data—it governs it. With:

• Role-based access control via Snowflake roles (AUTHN + RBAC).
• NiFi’s data provenance and flow inspection tools.
• Secrets management via AWS Secrets Manager or HashiCorp Vault.
• TLS encryption across control and data planes.
• PrivateLink and Tri-Secret Secure compatibility.

Openflow bridges the gap between flexibility and governance. You get visual development with enterprise-grade observability and control.

[Source: Openflow Security Model – Snowflake Docs]

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What It Actually Looks Like in Practice

Architecture at a Glance

• Deployment: Set up in your VPC where data flows are executed within individual runtimes.
• Runtime: NiFi engines that host and execute your data pipelines. You can leverage existing connectors offered by Openflow or build new pipelines from scratch using Openflow processors and controller services.
• Control Plane: Managed by Snowflake, exposes UI + APIs that allow users to interact with Openflow to manage or monitor Openflow service.

Each deployment can host multiple runtimes, making it easy to separate environments (Dev, QA, Prod) or project-specific flows.

[Source: Openflow Architecture – Snowflake Docs]

User Roles & Workflow

Openflow fits neatly into the modern layered data model (Bronze, Silver, Gold). Connectors often populate Bronze; Snowflake-native SQL takes it from there.

[Source: Openflow Workflow & Personas]

Removing Complexity, Not Flexibility

One Platform for All Data

Openflow supports:

• Structured & unstructured data (JSON, Parquet, images, PDFs, etc.)
• Batch & streaming ingestion
• Real-time use cases (e.g., Kafka, Kinesis)
• Multimodal AI-ready data (e.g., SharePoint to Snowflake Cortex)

This reduces the tool sprawl problem. No need for separate tools for CDC, batch ingestion, or streaming ETL. It’s all in one interface.

[Source: Openflow Use Cases – Snowflake Docs]

You Don’t Have to Choose a Cloud or ETL Tool

Because Openflow is:

• Built on Apache NiFi (open, extensible)
• Cloud-agnostic in design (runs in your VPC, integrates anywhere)
• Compatible with Iceberg and lakehouse patterns

You’re not betting on a niche tool or vendor-specific connector strategy. You’re building on open foundations that Snowflake is committed to maintaining.

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Engineering Maturity: What We Liked Most

Version Control & CI/CD Ready

Flows can be versioned (via NiFi Registry) and stored in Git.

• Promote flows from Dev → QA → Prod.
• Parameterize for environment-specific configs.
• Use GitHub or GitLab Actions for CI/CD.

[Source: Datavolo GitHub Integration for NiFi Flows]

Debug and Trace Like a Pro

• Inspect live FlowFiles.
• View transformation history (provenance).
• Reprocess failed data selectively.
• Use Snowsight to view traces, logs, and metrics.

It’s a better debugging experience than black-box ETL jobs. You can see and control everything.

[Source: Provenance + DebugFlow]

Telemetry, and Alerts

• Logs are written to Snowflake (via event tables).
• Build dashboards in Snowsight (volume, latency, errors).
• Use Snowflake Alerts for failure notifications.

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Setup Considerations

Yes, it takes practically no time to stand up a deployment. Yes, you need to run a CloudFormation stack. Yes, some IAM and Snowflake role setup is required, but it’s a one-time investment. The payoff though, one unified ingestion layer that you can govern in-house is well worth it.

[Source: Setting Up Openflow – Snowflake Docs]

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Final Thoughts

Openflow is not a “click and forget” tool, which we definitely believe is a good thing. It strikes a balance between:

• Speed to start (prebuilt connectors, no-code canvas)
• Control at scale (RBAC, observability, CI/CD)
• Extensibility and openness (NiFi ecosystem)

It’s well-suited for:

• Organizations modernizing legacy ETL or CDC tools.
• Greenfield data platforms that want unified ingestion.
• Teams that value governance but hate overhead.

For us, Openflow offers a practical, future-friendly approach to building data pipelines that align with Snowflake’s ecosystem and today’s enterprise requirements.

Openflow is available in preview for AWS users in Snowflake commercial regions.

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References

1. About Snowflake Openflow – Snowflake Documentation
2. Openflow Costs and Licensing – Snowflake Documentation
3. Setting up Openflow – Snowflake Documentation
4. Managing Openflow – Snowflake Documentation
5. Security Features in Openflow
6. Connectors Overview and Supported Sources
7. Creating a dataflow in Openflow – Snowflake Documentation
8. Datavolo CI/CD Support
9. Provenance and Debugging with Apache NiFi
10. Debugflow