It's a common joke that for any new platform that arises someone will port Doom to it. Well, now you can even run Doom on Snowflake, the data cloud.
Snowflake is well-known for being a cloud-based data platform, but less well-known as a video game platform. Yet, it's done, and you can see it here, and furthermore, you can do it yourself.
The magic here is Snowflake's capability to run modern container-based applications within its cloud, on its hardware, and inside your private environment.
Snowflake began life as an SQL-based relational database management system in the cloud, with role-based access control, secure sharing, fast and easy undo and cloning, and many wonderful features. However, last year during its annual Snowflake Summit, the company announced new capabilities to run container-based applications within your Snowflake tenancy. This transformed Snowflake from being "simply" a database to an entire data-powered application environment, with the company likening the move to the iPhone - it's the environment in which you run your apps, and those apps can live where your data is located. You can read more in our story about the future of Snowflake is GPU-powered containerised apps.
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So, when it comes to Doom, this is the secret as to how it's possible - namely, the new Snowflake Container Services (SCS) capability. SCS is a fully managed container solution within the Snowflake ecosystem. It enables seamless deployment, management, and scaling of containerised applications directly within Snowflake, eliminating the need to move data elsewhere for processing.
Daniel Palma explains how the idea to run Doom on Snowflake occurred to him while studying for Snowflake certification. He provides full steps on his blog, with appropriate Snowflake SQL commands and the requisite Docker commands.
And, to see it in action, you can watch a demonstration by data architect Mika Heino here:
Now, be warned, as academically interesting as this is, running Doom on Snowflake is certainly not the most economical way to play the game. But, as a way of learning how to use Snowflake Container Services it's an excellent and easily grasped tutorial that will help you demystify this brand-new Snowflake offering. Check it out, then let your imagination go wild as you start building your own data-powered apps.