# Getting started

Snow Owl® is a highly scalable, open source terminology server and collaborative authoring platform. It allows you to store, search and author high volumes of terminology artifacts quickly and efficiently.

Here are a few use-cases that Snow Owl could be used for:

* You work in the healthcare industry and are interested in using a terminology server for browsing, accessing and distributing components of various terminologies and classifications to third-party consumers. In this case, you can use Snow Owl to load the necessary terminologies and access them via FHIR and proprietary APIs.
* You are responsible for maintaining and publishing new versions of a particular terminology. In this case, you can use Snow Owl to collaboratively access and author the terminology content and at the end of your release schedule publish it with confidence and zero errors.
* You have an Electronic Health Record system and would like to capture, maintain and query clinical information in a structured and standardized manner. Your Snow Owl terminology server can integrate with your EHR server via standard APIs to provide the necessary access for both terminology binding and data processing and analytics.

In this tutorial, you will be guided through the process of getting Snow Owl up and running, taking a peek inside it, and performing basic operations like importing SNOMED CT RF2 content, searching, and modifying your data. At the end of this tutorial, you should have a good idea of what Snow Owl is, how it works, and hopefully be inspired to see how you can use it for your needs.


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# Agent Instructions: Querying This Documentation

If you need additional information that is not directly available in this page, you can query the documentation dynamically by asking a question.

Perform an HTTP GET request on the current page URL with the `ask` query parameter:

```
GET https://docs.b2ihealthcare.com/snow-owl/7.x/index.md?ask=<question>
```

The question should be specific, self-contained, and written in natural language.
The response will contain a direct answer to the question and relevant excerpts and sources from the documentation.

Use this mechanism when the answer is not explicitly present in the current page, you need clarification or additional context, or you want to retrieve related documentation sections.