When initial development for the Alpha Data Platform began, State Street quickly realized that tuning and managing on-premises databases for optimal performance would have been time-consuming and complex — especially when multiplied across all of State Street Alpha’s users. Sharing raw data sets with clients would have involved replicating and moving data via custom extract, transform, load (ETL) pipelines.
Growing demand for cloud-first solutions was another important factor for developing the platform. “Our data architecture needed to align with the client’s need for business agility and enable new approaches that solve traditional bottlenecks,” State Street’s Alpha Data Platform Product Owner, Jeff Shortis, says.
To provide this modern data backbone for Alpha, State Street turned to Snowflake on Azure. With Snowflake’s secure data sharing capabilities and seamless third-party data integrations, State Street built an industry-leading product. The platform allows for near real-time visibility across the investment enterprise. Portfolio managers can see intraday investable cash, pledged collateral, securities on loan, and risk exposures across geographies, asset classes and counterparties.
