Streamlining ETL (Part 1) – Setting Up AWS Glue and Snowflake with Security Best Practices

Introduction

In today’s modern data landscape, organizations rely on fast, secure, and automated pipelines to process and analyze data. Two major players that help achieve this are AWS Glue, a serverless ETL (Extract, Transform, Load) service from Amazon, and Snowflake, a highly scalable and cloud-native data warehouse.

This is Part 1 of a 2-part series where we will walk through integrating AWS Glue with Snowflake. In this post, we will focus on the foundational setup and security practices that are often overlooked but critical for building production-grade pipelines.By the end of this blog, you will:

• Understand why AWS Glue and Snowflake work well together.
• Set up all prerequisites, including IAM roles and Snowflake configurations.
• Learn why AWS Secrets Manager is preferred for credential management.
• Avoid common security pitfalls in AWS.

Why AWS Glue + Snowflake?

Combining these two gives you an efficient and flexible cloud-based ETL pipeline:

• 1
  Seamless Integration - AWS Glue can extract, transform, and load data directly into Snowflake.
• 2
  Performance & Cost Optimization – Glue’s serverless architecture ensures efficient ETL, while Snowflake optimizes storage and query performance.
• 3
  Handles Diverse Data Sources – AWS Glue supports multiple formats (CSV, JSON, Parquet, etc.), and Snowflake can efficiently import these formats and later query them.
• 4
  Automation & Orchestration – AWS Glue provides job scheduling and monitoring for Snowflake ETL tasks.
• 5
  Security & Compliance – Both services offer strong security (IAM roles, encryption, compliance certifications).
• 6
  Pay-as-You-Go Model – Cost-effective since Glue only charges for usage, and Snowflake charges based on compute and storage.

Prerequisites Checklist

Before getting your hands dirty with pipeline development, let’s first establish a solid environment.

AWS Account

Ensure you have an AWS account with permissions to:

• Create Glue Jobs & Connections.
• Create and manage IAM roles and Secrets Manager.
• Access to S3 buckets (source data location).

Snowflake Account

You’ll need:

• A Snowflake account (Standard or Enterprise edition).
• Access to create databases, schemas, tables.
• A role with adequate privileges (e.g., ACCOUNTADMIN for setup).

Centralized Secret Management for Glue ETL Pipelines: AWS Secrets Manager in Action

When building modern ETL pipelines, securely managing credentials is critical. Whether it’s Snowflake database credentials or API keys, hardcoding secrets directly in code or configuration files exposes your pipeline to security risks and operational inefficiencies.

AWS offers multiple options for handling secrets, such as Parameter Store and environment variables, but for production-grade ETL workflows, AWS Secrets Manager stands out as the most secure and scalable solution.

In this section, we will:

• Explore common methods for secret storage and their trade-offs.
• Understand why Secrets Manager is preferred for AWS Glue pipelines.
• Walk through a hands-on guide to securely store and retrieve credentials using Secrets Manager with Glue.

Options for Storing Credentials in AWS

Hardcoding Credentials (Not Recommended)

• Embed credentials directly into your Glue scripts or connection configs.

Risks

• Code repositories might expose secrets.
• Difficult to rotate secrets.
• High chance of human error.

AWS Systems Manager Parameter Store

• A secure service to store configuration data and secrets (supports plaintext or encrypted values via KMS).
• Pros:
• Free tier available.
• Integrated with many AWS services.
• Cons:
• No native support for automatic rotation of secrets.
• Glue requires additional steps to fetch secrets from Parameter Store.

AWS Secrets Manager (Recommended)

• A fully managed service specifically designed for secure secret storage and management (e.g., DB credentials, API keys).

Supports:

• Automatic rotation (via Lambda).
• KMS encryption.
• Native integrations with AWS Glue, Lambda, RDS, etc.

Pros:

• Built-in lifecycle management of secrets.
• Glue natively supports fetching from Secrets Manager in the UI.
• Supports JSON key/value structure (e.g., { “username”: “abc”, “password”: “xyz” }).

Cons:

Why AWS Secrets Manager is the Best Option

AWS Glue Native Integration

AWS Glue directly integrates with Secrets Manager:

• While setting up your Glue connection (e.g., JDBC for Snowflake), you can directly select your stored secret via dropdown—no additional code required.

Automatic Secret Rotation

• Secrets Manager can rotate secrets automatically using AWS Lambda functions (e.g., update Snowflake password every 30 days).

Built-in Encryption

• Secrets Manager encrypts secrets at rest using AWS KMS by default.

Access Control

• Fine-grained IAM permissions (e.g., only allowing Glue to read specific secrets) help enforce least privilege.

Auditing & Logging

• Logs every access and change via CloudTrail, allowing easy auditing for compliance (PCI-DSS, SOC 2, etc.).

Step-by-Step: How to Set Up Secrets Manager for Snowflake Credentials

Step 1: Go to AWS Secrets Manager

• Navigate to Secrets Manager from AWS Console.
• Click Store a new secret.

Step 2: Select Secret Type

• Choose Other type of secret (for custom credentials like Snowflake).

Step 3: Enter Secret Data

For Acccount key run the given command on snowflake.

• Use role AccountAdmin;
• SELECT SYSTEM$ALLOWLIST();

The part of the link covered and the region altogether makes your account.

Step 4: Name and Tag Your Secret

Setting Up IAM Roles

Importance of IAM Roles

IAM (Identity and Access Management) roles in AWS define who can access what resources and under which conditions. For an ETL pipeline involving AWS Glue and Snowflake, correctly configuring IAM roles is crucial for security, access control, and functionality.

• Always follow the principle of least privilege—grant only the permissions absolutely needed.
• Avoid assigning broad permissions like full access to all AWS services or resources.
• Secure roles ensure that Glue jobs cannot unintentionally access other resources, helping protect your data and maintain compliance.

Required Permissions & Their Purpose

S3 Bucket Directory Access: Grants Glue permission to read source data files and optionally write logs or outputs to S3.

AWS Glue Service Role: Allows Glue to perform ETL operations like running jobs, accessing data catalog, etc.

Secrets Manager Read/Write Access: Enables Glue to securely read Snowflake credentials stored in Secrets Manager.

ROSAKMSProviderPolicy: Grants Glue access to use KMS customer-managed keys for decrypting secrets and data at rest.

How to Set Up IAM Role for Glue ETL Job

Step 1: Go to IAM Console

• 1
  Navigate to IAM > Roles.
• 2
  Click Create Role.

Step 2: Choose Trusted Entity

• 1
  Select AWS service.
• 2
  Under use case, select Glue.
• 3
  Click Next.

Step3: Add Permissions

Step 4: Add Permissions using inline policies for limited access of s3 and secrets manager

1. Navigate to IAM > Roles > Your-Role > Add permissions > Create Inline policy

2. Switch to JSON tab

3. Add this json into your policy and make sure to update the bucket and secrets details

{

  “Version”: “2012-10-17”,

  “Statement”: [

    {

      “Sid”: “S3LimitedAccess”,

      “Effect”: “Allow”,

      “Action”: [

        “s3:GetObject”,

        “s3:ListBucket”

      ],

      “Resource”: [

        “arn:aws:s3:::your-bucket-name”,

        “arn:aws:s3:::your-bucket-name/path-prefix/*”

      ]

    },

    {

      “Sid”: “SecretsManagerAccess”,

      “Effect”: “Allow”,

      “Action”: [

        “secretsmanager:GetSecretValue”,

        “secretsmanager:DescribeSecret”,

        “secretsmanager:ListSecrets”

      ],

      “Resource”: “arn:aws:secretsmanager:region:account-id:secret:your-secret-id-*”

    }

  ]

}

4. Click Next

5. Provide Name for policy and click create.

This policy will now be added into your IAM Role.

Conclusion

You’ve now completed all foundational steps to securely connect AWS Glue to Snowflake. Security and governance should never be an afterthought—laying this groundwork will save you headaches later.

What’s Next?

In Part 2, we’ll:

• Create the AWS Glue connection to Snowflake.
• Build a full ETL pipeline using AWS Glue Studio.
• Customize ETL logic using Glue-generated Python scripts.