If you’re a data engineer, you’re likely always juggling with a wide range of data types and formats from weblogs, Internet of Things devices, social media, and other places. Your data needs to be of high quality before you can use it for analytics or reporting; that is, it needs to be correct, comprehensive, consistent, and applicable. Therein lies the usefulness of data Profiling.

Information gained by analyzing your data is called a “data profile,” and this analysis is known as “data profiling.” As a result, you may analyze your data’s structure, content, and quality to determine where there are flaws and address them.

For example, data profiling will help you answer questions like:

• What kind of data do you have in each column?
• How many rows and columns do you have in your dataset?
• How many missing values or duplicates do you have in your dataset?
• What are the values and ranges of each column?
• Are there any weird or extreme values in your dataset?
• How does your data relate to other datasets or business rules?

And yeah!, data profiling can be a real pain sometimes, especially when you’ve got tons of data that’s always changing or streaming. That’s why you might want to use Datameer to do live visual data profiling for your Snowflake data pipeline.

Datameer is a cloud-native data integration and transformation platform that lets you connect, profile, cleanse, transform, and visualize data from Snowflake.

 Datameer has a user-friendly interface that lets you do data profiling using drag-and-drop and interactive charts and graphs. Datameer also supports live visual data profiling, which means that I can see the results of my data profiling right away as the data changes or streams.

Setting up Your Environment

Before diving into the details of using Datameer for visualizations, it’s important to prepare your environment. This includes installing any required software or configuring access credentials as well as setting up OAuth connectivity from within both platforms.

Configuring Access Credentials

To access Snowflake data within Datameer, you will need to enter connection details including username and password. It is best practice not to store passwords in plain text so I recommend utilizing an encrypted password vault like HashiCorp Vault.

Setting Up OAuth Connectivity Between Snowflake & Datameer

If you do not use OAuth, you need to sign in to your Snowflake account from Datameer by entering your username and password every time you want to access Snowflake data sources or publish tables to Snowflake.

This can be cumbersome and less secure than using OAuth. Therefore, it is advisable to set up OAuth connectivity between Datameer and Snowflake if you want to use Datameer effectively with Snowflake.

OAuth2 provides secure authorization flows for third-party applications that want to access organizational resources hosted by Snowlake platform . To set this up between Snowflake & Datameer:

1. Configure Oauth Client in Snowlake account.
2. Copy client ID/Secret generated by Snowlake Oauth configuration screen.
3. Create a new application within Datameer which leverages pre-built connectors available out-of-the-box to build custom workflows/pipelines tailored specifically towards your needs.

Creating a Connection Between Datameer & Snowflake

To get started with performing live visual data profiling in Snowflake pipeline using Datameer we need to establish connection between two platforms . To do this:

1. Sign in to your Snowflake account from Datameer by clicking on the Snowflake icon on the top right of any page in Datameer and entering your username and password.

2. View the available Snowflake schemas by clicking on the Snowflake icon again and selecting “Snowflake Settings”.

3. Refresh the schemas if needed by clicking on “Refresh Schemas”.

4. Select the schema you want to work with and click on “Show Details”.

5. Finally, choose the data sources you want to import from Snowflake and click on “Import Data Sources”.

How Does Datameer Enable Live Visual Data Profiling?

Visualizing raw datasets can be challenging without proper tools at our disposal.

Datameer empowers us by providing robust suite of visualization features which make it easier for analysts/developers/experts alike who want deeper insights into their Snowlake data pipelines.

 This tool comes with automatic schema detection, distribution analysis, column statistics and many other features which help to make sense of raw data in a more efficient way.

Why Use Live Visual Data Profiling for Snowflake Data Pipeline?

Now that we understand the importance of visualizing data, it is crucial to ask ourselves why should we use live visual profiling. Here are some reasons:

• Quicker identification of anomalies or outliers in real-time analysis.
• Reduced time-to-insight.
• Better resource optimization.

How To Perform Live Visual Data Profiling In Snowflake Data Pipeline Using Datameer

So how exactly can you perform live visual data profiling using Datameer within your snowflake pipeline? Follow these steps:

1. Importing/Connecting: Start by importing/connecting all necessary files/data sources into your workspace on Datameer (including any dimensions, metrics etc).
2. Open the imported data sources in Datameer’s Workbench and use the Data Profiling feature to explore the data quality, distribution, and statistics of each column.
3. Use the Data Quality feature to define rules and thresholds for validating the data and identifying errors or outliers.
4. Use the Data Cleansing feature to apply transformations and functions to correct or improve the data quality, such as replacing null values, trimming spaces, formatting dates, etc.
5. Optionally, publish the profiled and cleansed data back to Snowflake as tables or views by clicking on “Deploy to Snowflake”.

By following these simple steps, you’ll be able to quickly and easily perform live visual data profiling within your Snowflake environment using Datameer!

Conclusion

In conclusion, real-time visualizations within the Snowflake data pipeline can enhance visibility into operational performance and decision making for enterprises. It may seem impossible at first, but with Datameer, it’s easier than ever.

Datameer is indispensable for any business that wants to stay ahead of the curve because of its capacity to swiftly and efficiently access, process, analyze, and visualize massive amounts of complicated data in real time.

Feel free to try out Datameer today!

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