Like clockwork, another release of the SnapLogic platform is here! The focus of the February 2023 release is security and connectivity. This release adds support for AWS Secrets Manager, AWS PrivateLink; offers signed Docker images for SnapLogic Groundplexes; enhances Snowflake, PostgreSQL, BigQuery, DyanmoDB, Azure SQL Snap Pack so you can automate more use cases and improve security; offers more security and better ease of use when managing APIs.
Before I continue, I do want to remind you that SnapLogic provides product updates every month. So in case you have not read the January Product Blog, here is the link. Now let’s dive deep in the February updates!
Platform Enhancements for Secure Connectivity
Platform enhancements showcase our investment in security features that can help you strengthen security of your SnapLogic deployments.
We are adding support for AWS Secrets Manager in addition to Hashicorp Vault which was released a few months back. This allows organizations that use AWS Secrets Manager to access secrets such as passwords, client secret, client ID, etc. from the SnapLogic platform. With this feature, your team will be able to use your secrets managers as a single management point for your account credentials.
Another exciting feature in this release is Secure Cloudplex Connectivity. This feature is now available in Private Beta in our UAT environment and initially, we are providing support for AWS PrivateLink. This feature allows you to connect your on-premises data stores and application endpoints directly to your Cloudplexes, which are completely managed by SnapLogic. This feature, unburdens the team from managing your own servers to run Groundplexes. If you are interested in trying out this feature, please contact your Customer Success Manager.
Third key platform feature that improves security is the fact that all SnapLogic Groundplex Node images are now digitally signed in the Docker Hub. This provides greater security especially for those of you who have a large number of nodes behind your firewall and need to fetch node images from the Docker Hub. Now you can verify the node image’s signed tag before using it on the Groundplex node and reduce your exposure to supply chain attacks.
Support for More Uses, Better Security and Productivity With Snap Pack Enhancements
On the Snaps front, we have enhanced a number of Snap Packs to provide support for more use cases, enhance security, and improve ease of use.
One of the key features that we released was support for Geospatial data in Snowflake and PostgreSQL. Geospatial data is useful for retailers and warehouse companies in site selection. It can also be used for geomarketing to homes and businesses within x mile radius of a retail outlet. Manufacturers and retailers can also use geolocation data for supply chain optimization while insurance companies can use this data to adjust insurance premiums based on a property’s location in reference to a hazard, a water body, or a hydrant. In the upcoming releases, we will expand support for Geospatial data to other data stores as well.
February release adds two new Snaps to the Google BigQuery Snap Pack. Table Create Snap helps you create tables in BigQuery. It performs operations with data using datasets and divides them into logical grouped structures with clusters and physical ones with partitions. It also allows you to have some of those partitions in a specific region so that you can comply with regulations such as GDPR. Additionally, Table Data List Snap fetches tables defined in BigQuery dataset using gRPC.
Following two updates will help you improve security when connecting to cloud services with SnapLogic.
- DynamoDB Snap Pack now provides support for IAM and cross-account IAM role so that you can connect to DynamoDB using the same roles and delegated access you use to access other AWS services.
- Azure SQL Snap Pack now provides support for Active Directory Service Principal Authentication, so that you can use Client ID and Client Secret from service principals to access this data.
To improve your productivity, we will bundle JDBC jar automatically with key data stores, starting with Snowflake Snap Pack. With this bundling, you no longer need to find, download or update the JDBC jar manually. It also ensures that whenever providers such as Snowflake push a critical update, your SnapLogic environment for Snowflake is automatically updated.
Our Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Sales Snap Pack enhancement offers improved ease of use for using it as a single source of truth for all customer data. There is now 1:1 relationship between options provided in the Update and Upsert Snaps. Additionally, the Snap automatically retries when it encounters a “too many requests” error.
To get a complete list of Snap updates, please visit our documentation here.
More Security and Better Ease of Use When Managing APIs
Building on the work we did in the previous releases, we have added one more policy to improve our SnapLogic API Management Gateway. New XML DTD Validator API policy provides the ability to enforce DTD schemas for your API calls. This policy ensures compliance and increases security by enforcing a specific schema definition.
SnapLogic API Gateway now provides you an ability to create an API from a YAML API specification. This gives users another way to create an API. And not just that, as you create API versions, you can maintain your specification in the same YAML format.
Last two enhancements improve API consumer experience. Automated subscriber email notifications notify API consumers whenever their API subscription keys change. Additionally, custom header and query parameters can now be changed without invalidating subscriptions to that API. This saves API developers from having to resubscribe to APis and improves their experience.
To get a complete list of APIM updates, please visit our documentation here.
The February 2023 release introduces a number of new security and productivity features and provides support for more use cases, so try them out in the product and let us know your feedback! If you missed the February 2023 product release webinar, you can watch it here on the product hub page. You can always learn more about these updates by visiting the SnapLogic Documentation.
If you are not yet part of the SnapLogic Community, join the conversation here. Engage with others and get your questions answered, and for upcoming product releases check out the ‘Product Updates’ section in the community to get your first glimpse into what is coming next.
