In a significant move within the cloud data landscape, Snowflake CEO Sridhar Ramaswamy has revealed plans for the acquisition of Crunchy Data, a provider of enterprise-grade Postgres solutions. This acquisition aims to enhance Snowflake’s offerings by integrating a fully managed and hosted Postgres implementation across various cloud platforms, including AWS, Azure, and GCP, while also providing self-managed options.
Enhancing the AI Data Cloud
Snowflake, which has evolved from being known as the “data cloud” to the “AI data cloud,” is set to leverage Crunchy Data’s capabilities to introduce Snowflake Postgres. This new addition will empower developers with a robust, AI-ready PostgreSQL database, ensuring that they can harness the full potential of Postgres while maintaining stringent governance, security, and operational standards essential for mission-critical AI applications.
Postgres, a widely recognized database engine, has been foundational for numerous products, including AWS RedShift. Crunchy Data’s platform is designed to deliver out-of-the-box scaling and performance metrics, facilitating the entire lifecycle of enterprise database workloads. Snowflake’s acquisition reflects an understanding of the growing demand for secure and enterprise-grade Postgres solutions across various industries.
As articulated by Snowflake, this acquisition is poised to bring Crunchy Data’s proven enterprise readiness, particularly in FedRAMP compliant environments, directly into the Snowflake ecosystem. The transition will likely see Crunchy Data rebranded as Snowflake Postgres, providing customers with a traditional relational database alongside Snowflake’s comprehensive data and AI platform.
Vivek Raghunathan, Snowflake’s SVP of engineering, emphasized the strategic significance of this acquisition, stating, “Our vision is to deliver the world’s most trusted and comprehensive data and AI platform to our customers.” He noted that the acquisition positions Snowflake to tackle a substantial 0 billion market opportunity, addressing a critical need for integrating Postgres into the Snowflake AI Data Cloud.
Paul Laurence, co-founder of Crunchy Data, expressed enthusiasm about the collaboration, highlighting their commitment to security and compliance, which has established them as a trusted partner for organizations in regulated sectors. He remarked, “We’re excited to join forces with Snowflake to provide their customers who already rely on Postgres the ability to run mission-critical regulated workloads with increased confidence and security.”
Upon closing the acquisition, Snowflake has pledged to invest in the future of the Postgres community, ensuring that the core strengths of Postgres are preserved. Ramaswamy reiterated this commitment during the Snowflake Summit, stating, “We are doubling down and investing in Postgres’ future by preserving what makes it great.”
Snowflake Postgres is set to complement the company’s ongoing efforts to support transactional data, a journey that began with Unistore, which integrates transactional and analytical data within a single database. This new offering will provide organizations with an enterprise-ready solution for transactional applications requiring PostgreSQL compatibility.
As the acquisition progresses, Snowflake Postgres will soon be available in private preview, pending the necessary regulatory approvals and customary closing conditions.
