# Faster Snowflake Queries through Clustering

DevFeed: [Faster Snowflake Queries through Clustering](<https://devfeed.tech/articles/faster-snowflake-queries-through-clustering-28626.md>)

Original publisher: [Read original article](<https://eng.localytics.com/faster-snowflake-queries-through-clustering/>)

Author: Michal Klos

Published: 2017-03-13T14:17:01Z

Content type: article

Language: en

Sources: [Localytics](<https://devfeed.tech/sources/localytics.md>)

Topics: [data-processing](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/data-processing.md>), [Databases](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/databases.md>), [Query (disambiguation)](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/query.md>), [Amazon Redshift](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/amazon-redshift.md>)

Tags: [clustering](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/clustering.md>), [data-processing](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/data-processing.md>), [database](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/database.md>), [databases](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/databases.md>), [join](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/join.md>), [mpp](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/mpp.md>), [mysql](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/mysql.md>), [partitioning](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/partitioning.md>), [performance](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/performance.md>), [redshift](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/redshift.md>), [s3](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/s3.md>), [scale](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/scale.md>), [snowflake](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/snowflake.md>), [time-series](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/time-series.md>)

## AI overview

This article explains how Snowflake clustering and re-clustering can improve query performance by helping the query engine prune unneeded data. It discusses choosing cluster keys, comparisons with MPP database techniques, and the caveat that naturally ordered time-series data may not need clustering.

## Source excerpt

At Localytics we have petabytes of data that needs to be served at low latencies and we use Snowflake in our mix of data processing technologies. Snowflake, like many other MPP databases, has a way of partitioning data to optimize read-time performance by allowing the query engine to prune