Snowflake-to-Azure Migration Package¶

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