.png)
For many organizations, critical business data never reaches the cloud. It sits in data centers, branch offices and edge locations, powering local operations but invisible to the analytics and AI initiatives that could put it to work. Transferring data securely and privately typically requires months of provisioning, complex network configurations and coordination across security, infrastructure and data teams. Today, Snowflake and Lumen Technologies are deepening their collaboration to bring a private connectivity path solution to regulated enterprises. The plan is to pair Lumen’s programmable network with Snowflake’s Data Connectivity Proxy (DCP), with the goal of simplifying how customers connect distributed data to Snowflake in order to power analytics and AI.
When the network becomes the blocker #
Organizations in regulated industries such as healthcare, telecom, financial services and government operate with stricter compliance requirements that govern where data resides, who can access it and how it is protected. These requirements don’t necessarily prohibit cloud use, but they can limit which cloud environments are permissible and require specific safeguards and approvals. For certain jurisdictions or categories of sensitive or classified data, restrictions may rule out any data transfer over the public internet.
The barrier is rarely a lack of intent to move the data. Data and platform teams know the data exists and understand its value. Where cloud use is permitted, the challenge is making that data available securely, without disrupting local operations or compromising those obligations.
Moving on-premises data into a cloud platform requires months of provisioning and coordination across data, security and network teams. Public internet connectivity often fails to meet the security requirements of regulated industries, while private connectivity solutions can demand complex configuration and lengthy setup. In practice, that means the teams building AI and analytics workloads depend on infrastructure decisions they don’t control, made by teams with different priorities and timelines. The result is a disconnect between the data an organization has and the data its AI can actually reach.
Closing the connectivity gap #
Through the partnership, Snowflake’s DCP will be available to run as a container image on Lumen infrastructure to establish a secure connection between a customer’s distributed data environment and their Snowflake account. The planned data path uses Lumen’s private network, and no data bytes are ever exposed to the internet. The workflow pairs DCP’s connectivity path with Snowflake Openflow for data integration and movement from supported sources into Snowflake.
DCP unlocks data stranded in private data centers which allows AI and analytics across industries. For example, health systems can replicate Electronic Health Record, imaging and lab data into Snowflake using Openflow to build readmission-risk models while enforcing row-level security. Banks can feed transaction and branch data into fraud detection. Telecom operators can combine edge network data with billing information to predict outages and churn. Once in Snowflake, Cortex AI agents can query this data alongside cloud sources.
“Agents are only as good as the data they can reach, and today, too much of that data is stranded in locations the cloud can’t easily access,” says Artin Avanes, Head of Core Data Platform, Snowflake. “We share customers with Lumen across regulated industries like financial services, telecom, healthcare and the public sector, where connectivity and security are paramount. Our alliance aims to close that gap by making private, secure connectivity as easy as possible, so customers can bring all of their distributed data estate into Snowflake for a more complete view of their business, while supporting their strict industry’s governance and security requirements.”
These capabilities bring connectivity and processing closer to where enterprise data is created. While private connectivity provisioning has historically required five to eight months of lead time, the Lumen-enabled path is designed to deliver preconfigured access upon customer setup, without the lengthy coordination between networking, security and data platform teams that enterprises have come to expect.
For Snowflake customers, the value goes beyond connectivity. Building an agentic enterprise requires giving AI agents access to the data they need, with the right controls in place. Bringing distributed data into Snowflake’s AI Data Cloud lets teams use it alongside their existing business data for analytics and AI, with centralized security and governance to control who can access sensitive data and how it is used. “Organizations are under pressure to turn AI investments into measurable business outcomes, but too much of the data needed to power AI remains fragmented across clouds, data centers and enterprise locations,” says Jim Fowler, Chief Technology and Product Officer at Lumen Technologies. “Together with Snowflake, we intend to simplify the connectivity needed to make distributed data more accessible for analytics and AI, while supporting customers’ governance and security needs to scale AI with confidence.”
“One of the most overlooked challenges in enterprise AI is the network. Organizations have spent years investing in cloud data platforms, yet much of their most valuable data stays locked on premises, not for lack of will but because the connectivity path cannot meet their security and compliance requirements,” says Sanjeev Mohan, Principal at SanjMo. “By making private, secure connectivity part of the data architecture rather than a monthslong provisioning project, Snowflake and Lumen are going after a bottleneck that has quietly stalled AI in regulated industries. If the intent delivers, the payoff is simple: More of an enterprise's real data becomes reachable by its AI, without trading away governance.”
Ready to put more of your business data to work? Contact your Snowflake account team to learn more about the Snowflake and Lumen offering and what it could mean for your analytics and AI initiatives.
Learn more #
- [Data Connectivity Proxy overview](https://docs.snowflake.com/en/user-guide/data-connectivity-proxy) : Architecture, when to use DCP, comparison with PrivateLink and stable egress IPs
- [Set up Data Connectivity Proxy](https://docs.snowflake.com/en/user-guide/data-connectivity-proxy-setup) : Step-by-step deployment guide
- [Security model](https://docs.snowflake.com/en/user-guide/data-connectivity-proxy-security) : mTLS, certificate management and access revocation
- [Monitor Data Connectivity Proxy](https://docs.snowflake.com/en/user-guide/data-connectivity-proxy-monitor) : DESCRIBE DATA CONNECTIVITY PROXY, event history, Prometheus metrics
- [Using Snowflake Openflow with Data Connectivity Proxy](https://docs.snowflake.com/en/user-guide/data-integration/openflow/setup-openflow-spcs-dcp)
Forward-looking statements
This article contains forward-looking statements, including about our future product offerings, and are not commitments to deliver any product offerings. Actual results and offerings may differ and are subject to known and unknown risks and uncertainties. See our latest 10-Q for more information.