What’s New at Snow Software: April 2023
Risk Monitor now available to Snow Atlas customers
Snow Atlas customers can now identify critical software vulnerabilities.
- Identification of critical software vulnerabilities
- Discovery of applications that may expose personal data (PII, GDPR)
- Proactive evaluation of new software for critical risks before deployment
Check out the demo video below to find out more about how you can identify and remediate software vulnerabilities in your IT environment with Snow Risk Monitor.
Beta programs: Cloud cost visibility and containers
Good news for any Snow customers interested in getting a sneak peek of—and value from—our upcoming product features. We currently have two beta programs focused on getting visibility to assets in the cloud.
| Beta program | What will I get? |
| Container visibility | · Visibility of standard containers for Oracle, RedHat, and Microsoft, running on Kubernetes · Insight into the applications running in these containers, if a commercial license is required and container details (node CPU and vCore) to determine license requirements |
| Cloud visibility | · Visibility into Azure and AWS cloud consumption · Understanding of which cloud services are being consumed, by whom, and how these patterns change over time · IaaS and PaaS details (e.g. VM licenses, SQL types, RDS, etc.) · Create and save custom views |
Current Snow Atlas customers will automatically see these new features. On-premises customers interested in beta testing can fill out this form or reach out to their Snow Account Manager or partner.
Snow Atlas uptime visibility
Providing customers, partners and users with visibility into their IT landscapes is at the heart of Snow’s mission. A new feature in Snow Atlas, Snow’s technology intelligence platform, shines a light on ourselves.
Snow Atlas customers and partners now have access to the status of all major Snow Atlas regions, providing full transparency into Snow Atlas uptime. This new capability will enable greater efficiency and peace of mind.
Expanded control over Snow Atlas access
Snow Atlas customers are gaining more control and visibility to users accessing the platform to improve overall security.
Customer administrators can now set a time limit for how long a partner and Snow Support users have access to the Snow Atlas partner console.
Partners and customers will enjoy increased visibility to all authorized end users and the ability to audit or investigate users provisioned over time, lowering their risk profile.
Friendly Lenovo models out of the box
Years ago, for their machine naming, IBM decided to use both a model number and a more user-friendly model name. Lenovo took over not only that data model but also the pesky habit of storing these pieces of data in different parts of the Windows registry. We are happy to report that Snow now brings together this information and, by default, displays the user-friendly model name instead of the model number. Customers that previously created customizations to display the model name can retire them and get back to an out-of-the box configuration. See a few examples of model name vs. wmic # and get the full release notes.
Recognition of Java applications
We’ve leveled up our inventory scanning capabilities for Java applications distributed as JAR files. Now, our agent for Windows scans the metadata information to populate vendor and version information. This enables a number of benefits including more complete software recognition and helps Snow Risk Monitor to provide more complete reporting regarding software threats from JAR files. Get the full release notes and more details here.
Cloud financial management
To effectively manage cloud costs, Snow Cloud Cost offers full visibility into public cloud consumption, real-time monitoring, accurate forecasting and tailored savings recommendations. Recent improvements enhance business mappings to improve cost allocation and provide a better understanding of cloud consumption.
Users can now easily map multi-cloud and Kubernetes spend. Business mapping allows users to accurately tag multi-cloud and Kubernetes spend data, assign shared costs equitably, and report cloud spend to drive FinOps collaboration. Recent updates have made mappings easier than ever to build and manage.
This includes allowing users to better understand cost allocations prior to viewing within the Cost and Usage Explorer. In addition, detailed rules and operators have been expanded to support values such as purchase option and line type. These updates offer users the ability to create the precise granularity they need.
You can also now gain better understanding of cloud consumption. Snow Cloud Cost’s Cost and Usage Explorer allows stakeholders to generate reports to analyze and manage cloud consumption.
Our latest update provides improved accuracy of amortized costs with AWS savings plans. Also, better usability for troubleshooting, warnings and errors enables stakeholders to make smarter cloud-investment decisions.
Improved user workflow for faster connector setup in Snow SaaS Management
SaaS Management on Snow Atlas users can now enjoy faster time to value with several workflow enhancements around API connector setup, including:
- The available connectors are now separated into two sections to show which connectors have been enabled for quick and easy reference.
- The connector discover page side panel now includes a description of specific data pulled by each connector, so users can quickly understand connector utility.
- The connector table now includes the ability to take actions such as run, test connection, edit, enable, disable and delete connector directly from the table.
- A new help button has been added to the connector discovery page to streamline actions to take in case the desired connector(s) are missing from the available connector list.
What’s next?
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Not a customer yet? Schedule a demo of Snow to see the power of Technology Intelligence.