Looking for a way to build intelligent, data-driven applications? Combining the Mendix and Snowflake platforms lets you bring together rapid low-code application development with data warehousing and insight capabilities.
Mendix will soon offer a range of modules, enablement materials, and a showcase application to help you seamlessly integrate the two platforms.
The diagram below illustrates how the different components work together to create a framework in which data-driven enterprise applications can benefit from the best of both platforms.
The Mendix-Snowflake integration capabilities consist of the following components:
- Database connectors
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- Snowflake JDBC Connector (External Database Connector with dedicated Snowflake support)
- Snowflake REST SQL Connector
Database connectors
If you want to use Snowflake as a single source of truth, but access, update, or analyze your data from within your Mendix application, then the database connectors are the way to go. Both the External Database Connector and the Snowflake REST SQL Connector support reading and writing data to Snowflake. They also give access to Cortex AI features such as machine learning algorithms for anomaly detection and timeseries forecasting and generative AI with large language models like Snowflake Arctic.
The connectors support different Mendix versions and offer or require different levels of customization when it comes to role-based access control and response mapping. We recommend the External Database Connector for all applications built in Mendix Studio Pro 10.10 and above. It provides a premium developer experience where Snowflake connections and queries can be tested directly during configuration in Studio Pro.
JDBD Database Connector
The Snowflake JDBC Database Connector allows you to test Snowflake connections and queries and map them to response entities during design time. Below is an example of what this looks like when selecting a response structure for a SELECT query in Studio Pro.
REST SQL Connector
You can execute all single queries supported by the Snowflake REST SQL API using a microflow action within the Snowflake REST SQL Connector. A second included action allows you to specify an entity so you can import the API response as a list of Mendix objects.
The connector also provides a way for the end user to set up key-pair authentication for a service account. You can also modify it to support role-based access control for user accounts so you can safely start with building Mendix on top of Snowflake. (You can find out more about Snowflake elaborate access management here.) With role-based access control, users can transfer the security standards implemented in Snowflake to the Mendix application without having to manually set them up again.
Mendix Data Loader
If your focus is on loading structured data from your Mendix app into Snowflake to ingest operational data, then the Mendix Data Loader is your tool of choice. It was developed using Snowflake’s Native App Framework. You can download the data loader from the Snowflake marketplace and then deploy it within your Snowflake account.
Once configured with information about the Mendix application endpoint, authentication credentials, and target Snowflake structures, published entities can be retrieved from the Mendix application via OData REST and transferred to Snowflake in a structured manner.
Showcase Application
If you would like to learn more about the components, you can find sample implementations in the Snowflake Showcase Application. The showcase app presents each component like a learning path to provide a step-by-step guide to working with the different components.