Snowflake SnowPro Core Practice Test - Questions Answers, Page 50

Snowflake's unique architecture is described as a multi-cluster, shared data architecture that leverages massively parallel processing (MPP). This architecture separates compute and storage resources, enabling Snowflake to scale them independently. It does not use a single cluster or rely solely on symmetric multiprocessing (SMP); rather, it uses a combination of shared-nothing architecture for compute clusters (virtual warehouses) and a centralized storage layer for data, optimizing for both performance and scalability.

Snowflake Documentation: Snowflake Architecture Overview

The Query Profile in Snowflake provides a graphical representation and statistics for each component of the query's execution plan. This includes details such as the execution time, the number of rows processed, and the amount of data scanned for each operation within the query. The Query Profile is a crucial tool for understanding and optimizing the performance of queries, as it helps identify potential bottlenecks and inefficiencies.

Snowflake Documentation: Understanding the Query Profile

By default, the standard retention period for Time Travel in Snowflake is 1 day across all Snowflake accounts. Time Travel enables users to access historical data within this retention window, allowing for point-in-time data analysis and recovery. This feature is a significant aspect of Snowflake's data management capabilities, offering flexibility in handling data changes and accidental deletions.

Snowflake Documentation: Using Time Travel

By default, the ACCOUNTADMIN role in Snowflake has the ability to create a share from a shared database. This role has the highest level of access within a Snowflake account, including the management of all aspects of the account, such as users, roles, warehouses, and databases, as well as the creation and management of shares for secure data sharing with other Snowflake accounts.

Snowflake Documentation: Roles

A Snowflake user would decide to use a materialized view instead of a regular view primarily when the base tables do not change frequently. Materialized views store the result of the view query and update it as the underlying data changes, making them ideal for situations where the data is relatively static and query performance is critical. By precomputing and storing the query results, materialized views can significantly reduce query execution times for complex aggregations, joins, and calculations.

Snowflake Documentation: Materialized Views

The command to list all the file formats for which a user has access privileges in Snowflake is SHOW FILE FORMATS. This command provides a list of all file formats defined in the user's current session or specified database/schema, along with details such as the name, type, and creation time of each file format. It is a valuable tool for users to understand and manage the file formats available for data loading and unloading operations.

Snowflake Documentation: SHOW FILE FORMATS

The Query Profile in Snowflake can identify common query problems, including:

B . Inefficient pruning: This refers to the inability of a query to effectively limit the amount of data being scanned, potentially leading to suboptimal performance.

D . Queries too large to fit in memory: This indicates that a query requires more memory than is available in the virtual warehouse, which can lead to spilling to disk and degraded performance.

The Query Profile helps diagnose these issues by providing detailed execution statistics and visualizations, aiding in query optimization and troubleshooting.

Snowflake Documentation: Query Profile

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By default, the ACCOUNTADMIN role in Snowflake has access to the SYSTEM$GLOBAL_ACCOUNT_SET_PARAMETER function. This function is used to set global account parameters, impacting the entire Snowflake account's configuration and behavior. The ACCOUNTADMIN role is the highest-level administrative role in Snowflake, granting the necessary privileges to manage account settings and security features, including the use of global account parameters.

Snowflake Documentation: SYSTEM$GLOBAL_ACCOUNT_SET_PARAMETER

Snowflake bills virtual warehouse usage in one-minute increments, rounding up to the nearest minute for any partial minute of compute time used. If a virtual warehouse runs for 61 seconds and then, after being shut down, restarts and runs for an additional 30 seconds, the total time billed would be 120 seconds or 2 minutes. The first 61 seconds are rounded up to 2 minutes, and the subsequent 30 seconds are within a new minute, which is also rounded up to the nearest minute.

Snowflake Documentation: Virtual Warehouses Billing