Snowflake SnowPro Certification Prep – Qs & As
How many times can a share be consumed by a single account? ✔️Ans -
Once. "A share can only be consumed once per account."
What is Federated Authentication? ✔️Ans - Federated Authentication
enables users to connect using SSO via an external SAML 2.0 compliment
identity provider (IdP).
What is the defn of PaaS? ✔️Ans - Platform as a Service. You manage only
the applications and data. Everything else is managed by the vendor.
What are the three layers of Snowflake, bottom to top? ✔️Ans - Database
Storage; Query processing - Virtual Warehouses; Cloud Services
What does the Cloud Services Layer include? ✔️Ans - Infrastructure
Manager
Optimizer
Metadata Manager
Security
Authentication and Access Control
Database Layer - What are the 3 characteristics of how data is stored ✔️Ans
- 1. Optimized 2. Compressed 3. Columnar
Processing Layer - What is a virtual warehouse? ✔️Ans - An MPP compute
cluster composed of multiple compute nodes allocation by Snowflake from a
cloud provider.
What impact to virtual warehouses (VW) have on each other? ✔️Ans - Each
VW is an independent cluster that does not share compute resources with
other VW.
What are the 5 ways of connecting to Snowflake? ✔️Ans - 1. Web-based
interface from which all aspects of managing Snowflake can be accessed.
2. SnowSQL - a command line interface (CLI) that can be used to manage all
aspects of Snowflake.
3. ODBC and JDBC drivers
,4. Native connectors (e.g. Python)
5. Third-party connectors that can be used to connect ETL or BI tools
What are the three supported cloud platforms? ✔️Ans - 1. Amazon Web
Services (AWS)
2. Google Cloud Platform (GCP)
3. Microsoft Azure (Azure)
What are the 4 editions of Snowflake? ✔️Ans - 1. Standard
2. Enterprise
3. Business Critical
4. Virtual Private Snowflake (VPS)
What does Enterprise Edition get you? ✔️Ans - 1. Standard +
2. Multi-cluster warehouse
3. Up to 90 days of Time Travel
4. Annual rekey of all encrypted data
5. Materialized Views
What 9 things does Business Critical Edition get you? ✔️Ans - 1. Enterprise
+
2. HIPPA support
3. PCI compliance
4. Data encryption everywhere
5. Tri-Secret Secure using customer-managed keys
7. AWS and Azure Private Link support
8. Enhanced security policy
9. Database failover and fallback between accounts for business continuity
What does Virtual Private Snowflake (VPS) Edition get you? ✔️Ans - 1.
Business Critical +
2. Customer-dedicated virtual servers wherever the encryption key is in
memory
3. Customer-dedicated metadata store
What are the 2 storage payment options? ✔️Ans - 1. On-demand storage -
pay for usage month to month
2. Capacity storage - pay upfront for usage for some period of time
, Is pricing done by cloud platform or region? ✔️Ans - Pricing is done by
region, thus there is no pricing advantage to one cloud over another. As the
relationship to the chosen cloud vendor is between Snowflake and the vendor,
there is no volume purchasing advantage to picking the cloud provider you
have the most experience with.
Who determines the region names and how the regions are defined? ✔️Ans
- The cloud providers
How often does Snowflake release new versions? ✔️Ans - New Snowflake
versions are released weekly.
What are the two types of weekly Snowflake releases? ✔️Ans - 1. New
release: may include new features, behavior changes, enhancements, updates
and fixes. Includes documentation updates
2. Patch release: includes fixes only
How are releases staged for new releases? ✔️Ans - Releases are staged as
follows:
1. Day 1: stage 1 (early access) for designated enterprise accounts
2. Day 1 or 2: stage 2 (regular access) for all Standard Edition accounts
3. Day 2: stage 3 (final) for all Enterprise Edition and VPS accounts
Who is the Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) vendor? ✔️Ans - Duo is the
vendor.
What is necessary to setup MFA? ✔️Ans - Install the Duo app on a smart
phone and change SF user profile. All other arrangements with Duo are taken
care of by Snowflake.
What are the supported Identity Providers for Federated Authentication?
✔️Ans - Native :
1. Okta - hosted service
2. Microsoft Active Directory Federation Services (ADFS) - on-premise
software installed on Windows Server
Non-native:
1. Google G Suite
2. Microsoft Azure Active Directory
3. One login
How many times can a share be consumed by a single account? ✔️Ans -
Once. "A share can only be consumed once per account."
What is Federated Authentication? ✔️Ans - Federated Authentication
enables users to connect using SSO via an external SAML 2.0 compliment
identity provider (IdP).
What is the defn of PaaS? ✔️Ans - Platform as a Service. You manage only
the applications and data. Everything else is managed by the vendor.
What are the three layers of Snowflake, bottom to top? ✔️Ans - Database
Storage; Query processing - Virtual Warehouses; Cloud Services
What does the Cloud Services Layer include? ✔️Ans - Infrastructure
Manager
Optimizer
Metadata Manager
Security
Authentication and Access Control
Database Layer - What are the 3 characteristics of how data is stored ✔️Ans
- 1. Optimized 2. Compressed 3. Columnar
Processing Layer - What is a virtual warehouse? ✔️Ans - An MPP compute
cluster composed of multiple compute nodes allocation by Snowflake from a
cloud provider.
What impact to virtual warehouses (VW) have on each other? ✔️Ans - Each
VW is an independent cluster that does not share compute resources with
other VW.
What are the 5 ways of connecting to Snowflake? ✔️Ans - 1. Web-based
interface from which all aspects of managing Snowflake can be accessed.
2. SnowSQL - a command line interface (CLI) that can be used to manage all
aspects of Snowflake.
3. ODBC and JDBC drivers
,4. Native connectors (e.g. Python)
5. Third-party connectors that can be used to connect ETL or BI tools
What are the three supported cloud platforms? ✔️Ans - 1. Amazon Web
Services (AWS)
2. Google Cloud Platform (GCP)
3. Microsoft Azure (Azure)
What are the 4 editions of Snowflake? ✔️Ans - 1. Standard
2. Enterprise
3. Business Critical
4. Virtual Private Snowflake (VPS)
What does Enterprise Edition get you? ✔️Ans - 1. Standard +
2. Multi-cluster warehouse
3. Up to 90 days of Time Travel
4. Annual rekey of all encrypted data
5. Materialized Views
What 9 things does Business Critical Edition get you? ✔️Ans - 1. Enterprise
+
2. HIPPA support
3. PCI compliance
4. Data encryption everywhere
5. Tri-Secret Secure using customer-managed keys
7. AWS and Azure Private Link support
8. Enhanced security policy
9. Database failover and fallback between accounts for business continuity
What does Virtual Private Snowflake (VPS) Edition get you? ✔️Ans - 1.
Business Critical +
2. Customer-dedicated virtual servers wherever the encryption key is in
memory
3. Customer-dedicated metadata store
What are the 2 storage payment options? ✔️Ans - 1. On-demand storage -
pay for usage month to month
2. Capacity storage - pay upfront for usage for some period of time
, Is pricing done by cloud platform or region? ✔️Ans - Pricing is done by
region, thus there is no pricing advantage to one cloud over another. As the
relationship to the chosen cloud vendor is between Snowflake and the vendor,
there is no volume purchasing advantage to picking the cloud provider you
have the most experience with.
Who determines the region names and how the regions are defined? ✔️Ans
- The cloud providers
How often does Snowflake release new versions? ✔️Ans - New Snowflake
versions are released weekly.
What are the two types of weekly Snowflake releases? ✔️Ans - 1. New
release: may include new features, behavior changes, enhancements, updates
and fixes. Includes documentation updates
2. Patch release: includes fixes only
How are releases staged for new releases? ✔️Ans - Releases are staged as
follows:
1. Day 1: stage 1 (early access) for designated enterprise accounts
2. Day 1 or 2: stage 2 (regular access) for all Standard Edition accounts
3. Day 2: stage 3 (final) for all Enterprise Edition and VPS accounts
Who is the Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) vendor? ✔️Ans - Duo is the
vendor.
What is necessary to setup MFA? ✔️Ans - Install the Duo app on a smart
phone and change SF user profile. All other arrangements with Duo are taken
care of by Snowflake.
What are the supported Identity Providers for Federated Authentication?
✔️Ans - Native :
1. Okta - hosted service
2. Microsoft Active Directory Federation Services (ADFS) - on-premise
software installed on Windows Server
Non-native:
1. Google G Suite
2. Microsoft Azure Active Directory
3. One login
