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Migration centers — AWS, GCP, Snowflake, Databricks, Teradata, Cloudera, Informatica, Palantir, SAS, Oracle to Azure

Snowflake-to-Azure Migration Package

Comparative positioning note

This document is written from the perspective of Microsoft Azure, Cloud Scale Analytics, and CSA Loom. Any description of third-party or competing products, services, pricing, or capabilities is derived from publicly available documentation and sources believed accurate at the time of writing, and is provided for general comparison only. We do not claim expertise in, or authority over, any non-Microsoft product or service; the respective vendor's official documentation is the authoritative source for their offerings, which may change over time. Nothing here is intended to disparage any vendor — where a competing product has genuine advantages, we aim to note them honestly. Verify all third-party details against the vendor's current official documentation before making decisions.

Status: Authored 2026-04-30 Audience: Federal CIO / CDO / Chief Data Architect and implementation teams running Snowflake tenants (commercial or Snowflake Government) Scope: Full capability-by-capability migration from Snowflake to the csa-inabox reference platform on Microsoft Azure

Quick-start decision matrix

Before diving into the detailed guides, use this matrix to identify which documents matter most for your migration profile.

Your situation Start here Then read
Executive briefing needed Why Azure over Snowflake TCO Analysis
FedRAMP High or IL4/IL5 mandate Federal Migration Guide Security Migration
Cost justification required TCO Analysis Benchmarks
dbt-on-Snowflake shop Tutorial: dbt Migration Warehouse Migration
Heavy Cortex / AI usage Cortex Migration Tutorial: Cortex to Azure AI
Data Sharing is critical Data Sharing Migration Tutorial: Delta Sharing
Snowpark Python/Java workloads Snowpark Migration Feature Mapping
Streams / Tasks / CDC pipelines Streams & Tasks Migration Best Practices
Need the full feature map Feature Mapping (50+ features) Benchmarks

Document index

Strategic

Document Lines Description
Why Azure over Snowflake ~400 Executive white paper: compliance, openness, AI, pricing
TCO Analysis ~400 Credit pricing vs Fabric CU, 5-year projections, 3 scenarios
Benchmarks ~350 Query performance, scaling, streaming latency, AI throughput

Migration guides

Document Lines Description
Feature Mapping (Complete) ~450 50+ Snowflake features mapped to Azure equivalents
Warehouse Migration ~400 Multi-cluster warehouses to Databricks SQL / Fabric capacity
Data Sharing Migration ~350 Secure Data Sharing to Delta Sharing + OneLake shortcuts
Snowpark Migration ~350 Snowpark Python/Java/Scala to Fabric notebooks / Databricks
Cortex Migration ~400 Cortex LLM, Search, Analyst, Guard to Azure AI services
Streams & Tasks Migration ~350 Streams, Tasks, Dynamic Tables to ADF, Databricks, dbt
Security Migration ~350 Network policies, masking, RBAC, hierarchy mapping
Federal Migration Guide ~400 FedRAMP gap analysis, IL coverage, procurement, ATO path

Hands-on tutorials

Document Lines Description
Tutorial: dbt Snowflake to Fabric ~400 Step-by-step dbt adapter swap, SQL dialect, testing
Tutorial: Cortex to Azure AI ~350 Replace Cortex functions with Azure OpenAI, build RAG
Tutorial: Data Sharing to Delta ~350 Replace Secure Data Sharing with Delta Sharing + OneLake

Operational

Document Lines Description
Best Practices ~350 Warehouse-by-warehouse migration, parallel-run, pitfalls

Migration timeline (Gantt)

This chart reflects a typical mid-sized federal Snowflake tenant (50-200 dbt models, 5-30 warehouses, 10-50 TB hot data). Adjust durations to your scale.

gantt
    title Snowflake-to-Azure Migration (24-32 weeks)
    dateFormat  YYYY-MM-DD
    axisFormat  %b %d

    section Phase 0 - Discovery
    Inventory & assessment          :p0a, 2026-05-04, 2w
    Pilot domain selection          :p0b, after p0a, 0d

    section Phase 1 - Landing Zones
    Deploy DMLZ + first DLZ         :p1a, 2026-05-18, 2w
    Unity Catalog + Purview setup   :p1b, after p1a, 2w

    section Phase 2 - Bridge
    OneLake shortcuts to Snowflake  :p2a, 2026-06-01, 3w
    Lakehouse Federation connectors :p2b, 2026-06-08, 3w

    section Phase 3 - Pilot Domain
    dbt adapter swap + SQL port     :p3a, 2026-06-22, 2w
    Tasks/Streams migration         :p3b, after p3a, 2w
    Reconciliation & validation     :p3c, after p3b, 2w

    section Phase 4 - Streaming + AI
    Snowpipe to Autoloader/EH       :p4a, 2026-07-20, 4w
    Cortex to Azure OpenAI/AI Search:p4b, 2026-07-27, 4w

    section Phase 5 - Remaining Domains
    Domain wave 1                   :p5a, 2026-08-17, 3w
    Domain wave 2                   :p5b, after p5a, 3w
    Domain wave 3                   :p5c, after p5b, 2w

    section Phase 6 - Data Sharing Cutover
    Delta Sharing setup             :p6a, 2026-09-14, 2w
    Partner cutover                 :p6b, after p6a, 4w

    section Phase 7 - Decommission
    Snowflake read-only             :p7a, 2026-11-02, 2w
    Final cutover                   :p7b, after p7a, 1w
    Account decommission            :p7c, after p7b, 1w
  • Master playbook: docs/migrations/snowflake.md -- the original 488-line migration playbook
  • Migration index: docs/migrations/README.md
  • Companion playbooks: Palantir Foundry | AWS to Azure | GCP to Azure
  • Decision trees: docs/decisions/fabric-vs-databricks-vs-synapse.md, docs/decisions/batch-vs-streaming.md
  • ADRs: docs/adr/0001-adf-dbt-over-airflow.md through docs/adr/0010-fabric-strategic-target.md
  • Compliance: docs/compliance/nist-800-53-rev5.md, docs/compliance/cmmc-2.0-l2.md, docs/compliance/hipaa-security-rule.md

Last updated: 2026-04-30 Maintainers: CSA-in-a-Box core team