Snowflake SnowPro Certification Study Guide – Qs
& As
What are the 3 Cloud Providers available for Snowflake ✔️Ans - 1) AWS - a
provider since inception
2) Azure Cloud Platforms - generally available as of Sept. 2018
3) Google Cloud Platform - trialed late 2019
Snowflake is currently the only DW built for the cloud (T/F) ✔️Ans - True
How does Snowflake describe their architecture?
A) Multi-Cluster, Shared Data
B) Single-Cluster, Shared Data ✔️Ans - A) Multi-Cluster, Shared Data
What are the 3 components of Snowflake's architecture (both the name and
descriptor) ✔️Ans - 1) Storage - Databases
2) Compute - Virtual Warehouses
3) Cloud Services - Front End
What are the Cloud Object Storage options? ✔️Ans - 1) AWS S3
2) Azure Blobs
3) GCP
How are storage costs calculated? ✔️Ans - A daily average of all compressed
data storage, including data stored according to Time Travel retention policy
and failsafe procedures
Which Microsoft and Amazon systems does Compute leverage? ✔️Ans - 1)
AWS EC2
2) Azure Compute
Compute can't scale out as queries are running (T/F) ✔️Ans - False
Which services does Cloud Services provide? ✔️Ans - 1) Security
Management
2) Infrastructure Management
3) Metadata Management
4) Query Optimization
,Are Snowflake's Storage (DB) and Compute (WH) layers
A) Separate and Independent
B) Together and Dependent ✔️Ans - A) Separate and Independent
In addition to multiple Virtual Warehouses, Multi-Cluster means individual
Virtual Warehouses can... ✔️Ans - Scale up or down automatically
Multi-Cluster turn off clusters when activity slows down (T/F) ✔️Ans - True
Snowflake uses ANSI-SQL (T/F) ✔️Ans - True
What is Snowflake's semi-structured data type called? ✔️Ans - VARIANT
What are the three types of caching in Snowflake? ✔️Ans - 1) Warehouse
2) Metadata
3) Results
All cache data are cleared if the underlying data changes (T/F) ✔️Ans - True
What does Warehouse Caching do? When is the data invalidated? Where does
it live? ✔️Ans - Stores data that's been loaded into Virtual Warehouses
during querying. The data is invalidated if it's suspended. Lives in Compute.
What does Metadata Caching do? Where does it live? ✔️Ans - It stores
various info about tables. It lives in the Cloud Services layer.
What does Results Caching do? Where does it live? ✔️Ans - It stores results
of queries that have been executed within the past 24 hours (assuming
underlying data hasn't changed). It lives in the Cloud Services Layer.
A customer needs to have a preexisting account with AWS or Azure in order to
have a Snowflake account (T/F) ✔️Ans - False
What are Availability Zones? ✔️Ans - Data centers in certain regions
How many availability zones is your data replicated in? ✔️Ans - 3 data
zones in a region
, What does it mean by "automatic" micro-partitions ✔️Ans - A partition
scheme doesn't need to be defined up front. Snowflake determines and
creates it.
Data partitioning is automatically completed in the natural ingestion order
(T/F) ✔️Ans - True
New Partitions are based on physical properties (T/F) ✔️Ans - True
How does Snowflake optimize storage of semi-structured data? ✔️Ans -
Repeated elements within the strings
How far back does the Time Travel protection go? ✔️Ans - 90 days
Zero-Copy Cloning operates on more than just the metadata (T/F) ✔️Ans -
False - It's a metadata-only operation
There's a difference in storage cost allocation between structured and semi-
structured data (T/F) ✔️Ans - False - There's no difference
A user can't be assigned multiple roles (T/F) ✔️Ans - False - A user can be
assigned multiple roles
If a user creates an object, what permissions do others have? ✔️Ans - All
users with the role that created the object will have access to it, as well as the
users and roles that the role that created the object role up to.
Which encryption method is used? ✔️Ans - AES 256 Strong Encryption
What are the three "higher editions" (stronger security) of Snowflake?
✔️Ans - 1) Enterprise
2) Enterprise for Sensitive Data
3) Virtual Private Snowflake
What security protections does Snowflake provide ✔️Ans - - Single Sign On
through federated authentication
- Periodic Rekeying of encrypted data
- HIPPA Compliance
- PCI DSS Compliance
& As
What are the 3 Cloud Providers available for Snowflake ✔️Ans - 1) AWS - a
provider since inception
2) Azure Cloud Platforms - generally available as of Sept. 2018
3) Google Cloud Platform - trialed late 2019
Snowflake is currently the only DW built for the cloud (T/F) ✔️Ans - True
How does Snowflake describe their architecture?
A) Multi-Cluster, Shared Data
B) Single-Cluster, Shared Data ✔️Ans - A) Multi-Cluster, Shared Data
What are the 3 components of Snowflake's architecture (both the name and
descriptor) ✔️Ans - 1) Storage - Databases
2) Compute - Virtual Warehouses
3) Cloud Services - Front End
What are the Cloud Object Storage options? ✔️Ans - 1) AWS S3
2) Azure Blobs
3) GCP
How are storage costs calculated? ✔️Ans - A daily average of all compressed
data storage, including data stored according to Time Travel retention policy
and failsafe procedures
Which Microsoft and Amazon systems does Compute leverage? ✔️Ans - 1)
AWS EC2
2) Azure Compute
Compute can't scale out as queries are running (T/F) ✔️Ans - False
Which services does Cloud Services provide? ✔️Ans - 1) Security
Management
2) Infrastructure Management
3) Metadata Management
4) Query Optimization
,Are Snowflake's Storage (DB) and Compute (WH) layers
A) Separate and Independent
B) Together and Dependent ✔️Ans - A) Separate and Independent
In addition to multiple Virtual Warehouses, Multi-Cluster means individual
Virtual Warehouses can... ✔️Ans - Scale up or down automatically
Multi-Cluster turn off clusters when activity slows down (T/F) ✔️Ans - True
Snowflake uses ANSI-SQL (T/F) ✔️Ans - True
What is Snowflake's semi-structured data type called? ✔️Ans - VARIANT
What are the three types of caching in Snowflake? ✔️Ans - 1) Warehouse
2) Metadata
3) Results
All cache data are cleared if the underlying data changes (T/F) ✔️Ans - True
What does Warehouse Caching do? When is the data invalidated? Where does
it live? ✔️Ans - Stores data that's been loaded into Virtual Warehouses
during querying. The data is invalidated if it's suspended. Lives in Compute.
What does Metadata Caching do? Where does it live? ✔️Ans - It stores
various info about tables. It lives in the Cloud Services layer.
What does Results Caching do? Where does it live? ✔️Ans - It stores results
of queries that have been executed within the past 24 hours (assuming
underlying data hasn't changed). It lives in the Cloud Services Layer.
A customer needs to have a preexisting account with AWS or Azure in order to
have a Snowflake account (T/F) ✔️Ans - False
What are Availability Zones? ✔️Ans - Data centers in certain regions
How many availability zones is your data replicated in? ✔️Ans - 3 data
zones in a region
, What does it mean by "automatic" micro-partitions ✔️Ans - A partition
scheme doesn't need to be defined up front. Snowflake determines and
creates it.
Data partitioning is automatically completed in the natural ingestion order
(T/F) ✔️Ans - True
New Partitions are based on physical properties (T/F) ✔️Ans - True
How does Snowflake optimize storage of semi-structured data? ✔️Ans -
Repeated elements within the strings
How far back does the Time Travel protection go? ✔️Ans - 90 days
Zero-Copy Cloning operates on more than just the metadata (T/F) ✔️Ans -
False - It's a metadata-only operation
There's a difference in storage cost allocation between structured and semi-
structured data (T/F) ✔️Ans - False - There's no difference
A user can't be assigned multiple roles (T/F) ✔️Ans - False - A user can be
assigned multiple roles
If a user creates an object, what permissions do others have? ✔️Ans - All
users with the role that created the object will have access to it, as well as the
users and roles that the role that created the object role up to.
Which encryption method is used? ✔️Ans - AES 256 Strong Encryption
What are the three "higher editions" (stronger security) of Snowflake?
✔️Ans - 1) Enterprise
2) Enterprise for Sensitive Data
3) Virtual Private Snowflake
What security protections does Snowflake provide ✔️Ans - - Single Sign On
through federated authentication
- Periodic Rekeying of encrypted data
- HIPPA Compliance
- PCI DSS Compliance
