ARA-C01 Exam Dumps - Snowflake SnowPro Advanced: Architect Questions and Answers

Using Snowpipe for continuous, automated data ingestion minimizes the need for manual intervention and ensures that data is available in Snowflake promptly after it is generated. Leveraging Snowflake’s data sharing capabilities allows for efficient and secure access to the vendor’s data without the need for complex API integrations. Materialized views provide pre-aggregated data for fast access, which is ideal for dashboards that require high performance1234.

References =

•Snowflake Documentation on Snowpipe4

•Snowflake Documentation on Secure Data Sharing2

•Best Practices for Data Ingestion with Snowflake1

The Snowflake SQL REST API is a REST API that you can use to access and update data in a Snowflake database. You can use this API to execute standard queries and most DDL and DML statements. This API can be used to develop custom applications and integrations that can read and write data to Snowflake without installing any additional software on the application server. Option A is not correct because SnowSQL is a command-line client that requires installation and configuration on the application server. Option B is not correct because the Snowpipe REST API is used to load data from cloud storage into Snowflake tables, not to read or write data to Snowflake. Option D is not correct because the Snowflake ODBC driver is a software component that enables applications to connect to Snowflake using the ODBC protocol, which also requires installation and configuration on the application server. References: The answer can be verified from Snowflake’s official documentation on the Snowflake SQL REST API available on their website. Here are some relevant links:

Snowflake SQL REST API | Snowflake Documentation

Introduction to the SQL API | Snowflake Documentation

Submitting a Request to Execute SQL Statements | Snowflake Documentation

 According to the Snowflake documentation, the best practices for choosing clustering keys are:

Choose columns that are frequently used in join predicates. This can improve the join performance by reducing the number of micro-partitions that need to be scanned and joined.

Choose columns that are most actively used in selective filters. This can improve the scan efficiency by skipping micro-partitions that do not match the filter predicates.

Avoid using low cardinality columns, such as gender or country, as clustering keys. This can result in poor clustering and high maintenance costs.

Avoid using TIMESTAMP columns with nanoseconds, as they tend to have very high cardinality and low correlation with other columns. This can also result in poor clustering and high maintenance costs.

Avoid using columns with duplicate values or NULLs, as they can cause skew in the clustering and reduce the benefits of pruning.

Cluster on multiple columns if the queries use multiple filters or join predicates. This can increase the chances of pruning more micro-partitions and improve the compression ratio.

Clustering is not always useful, especially for small or medium-sized tables, or tables that are not frequently queried or updated. Clustering can incur additional costs for initially clustering the data and maintaining the clustering over time.

Clustering Keys & Clustered Tables | Snowflake Documentation

[Considerations for Choosing Clustering for a Table | Snowflake Documentation]

 When a database is cloned, all of its objects, including tasks, are also cloned. However, cloned tasks are suspended by default and must be manually resumed by using the ALTER TASK command. This is to prevent the cloned tasks from running unexpectedly or interfering with the original tasks. Therefore, the reason why the tasks stop running after the cloning is because they are suspended by default (Option C). Options A, B, and D are not correct because tasks can be cloned, the objects that the tasks reference are also cloned and do not need to be fully qualified, and the Architect does not need to alter the tasks on the cloned database, only resume them. References: The answer can be verified from Snowflake’s official documentation on cloning and tasks available on their website. Here are some relevant links:

Cloning Objects | Snowflake Documentation

Tasks | Snowflake Documentation

ALTER TASK | Snowflake Documentation

This command will fail because while the user has USAGE permission ondb2andschema2through Role B, and can create a view inschema2, they do not have SELECT permission ondb1.schemal.table1with Role B. Since Role A, which has SELECT permission ondb1.schemal.table1, is not the currently active role when the viewv2is being created indb2.schema2, the user does not have the necessary permissions to read fromdb1.schemal.table1to create the view. Snowflake’s security model requires that the active role have all necessary permissions to execute the command.

In Snowflake, when a user activates a secondary role during a session, certain privileges associated with DDL (Data Definition Language) operations are restricted. TheCREATEstatement, which falls under DDL operations, cannot be executed using a secondary role. This limitation is designed to enforce role-based access control and ensure that schema modifications are managed carefully, typically reserved for primary roles that have explicit permissions to modify database structures.

In Snowflake, a storage integration is used to define and configure external cloud storage that Snowflake will interact with. This includes specifying security policies for access control. One of the main features of storage integrations is the ability to set restrictions on where data may be exported. This is done by binding the storage integration to specific cloud storage locations, thereby ensuring that Snowflake can only access those locations. It helps to maintain control over the data and complies with data governance and security policies by preventing unauthorized data exports to unspecified locations.

B. When dealing with PCI DSS compliance, having separate accounts can be beneficial because it enables strong isolation of environments that handle sensitive data from those that do not. By segregating the compliant from non-compliant resources, an organization can limit the scope of compliance, thus making it a cost-effective strategy.

D. Different Active Directory instances can be managed more effectively and securely when separated into different accounts. This approach allows for distinct identity and access management policies, which can enforce security requirements and minimize the risk of access policy errors between environments.

Snowflake supports cloning of various objects, such as databases, schemas, tables, stages, file formats, sequences, streams, tasks, and roles. Cloning creates a copy of an existing object in the system without copying the data or metadata. Cloning is also known as zero-copy cloning1.

Among the objects listed in the question, the following ones can be cloned in Snowflake:

Permanent table: A permanent table is a type of table that has a Fail-safe period and a Time Travel retention period of up to 90 days. A permanent table can be cloned using the CREATE TABLE … CLONE command2. Therefore, option A is correct.

Transient table: A transient table is a type of table that does not have a Fail-safe period and can have a Time Travel retention period of either 0 or 1 day. A transient table can also be cloned using the CREATE TABLE … CLONE command2. Therefore, option B is correct.

External table: An external table is a type of table that references data files stored in an external location, such as Amazon S3, Google Cloud Storage, or Microsoft Azure Blob Storage. An external table can be cloned using the CREATE EXTERNAL TABLE … CLONE command3. Therefore, option D is correct.

The following objects listed in the question cannot be cloned in Snowflake:

Temporary table: A temporary table is a type of table that is automatically dropped when the session ends or the current user logs out. Temporary tables do not support cloning4. Therefore, option C is incorrect.

Internal stage: An internal stage is a type of stage that is managed by Snowflake and stores files in Snowflake’s internal cloud storage. Internal stages do not support cloning5. Therefore, option E is incorrect.

 Cloning Considerations : CREATE TABLE … CLONE : CREATE EXTERNAL TABLE … CLONE : Temporary Tables : Internal Stages

 The most efficient solution is to ask the partner to create a share and add the company’s account (Option A). This way, the company can access the live data from the partner without any data movement or manual intervention. Snowflake’s secure data sharing feature allows data providers to share selected objects in a database with other Snowflake accounts. The shared data is read-only and does not incur any storage or compute costs for the data consumers. The data consumers can query the shared data directly or create local copies of the shared objects in their own databases. Option B is not efficient because it involves using the data lake export feature, which is intended for exporting data from Snowflake to an external data lake, not for importing data from another Snowflake account. The data lake export feature also requires the data provider to create an external stage on cloud storage and use the COPY INTO command to export the data into parquet files. The data consumer then needs to create an external table or a file format to load the data from the cloud storage into Snowflake. This process can be complex and costly, especially if the data changes frequently. Option C is not efficient because it does not solve the problem of manual data ingestion and adaptation. Keeping the current structure of daily JSON extracts on an FTP server and requesting the partner to stop changing files, instead only appending new files, does not improve the efficiency or reliability of the data ingestion process. The company still needs to upload the data to Snowflake manually and deal with any schema changes or data quality issues. Option D is not efficient because it requires the partner to set up a Snowflake reader account and use that account to get the data for ingestion. A reader account is a special type of account that can only consume data from the provider account that created it. It is intended for data consumers who are not Snowflake customers and do not have a licensing agreement with Snowflake. A reader account is not suitable for data ingestion from another Snowflake account, as it does not allow uploading, modifying, or unloading data. The company would need to use external tools or interfaces to access the data from the reader account and load it into their own account, which can be slow and expensive. References: The answer can be verified from Snowflake’s official documentation on secure data sharing, data lake export, and reader accounts available on their website. Here are some relevant links:

Introduction to Secure Data Sharing | Snowflake Documentation

Data Lake Export Public Preview Is Now Available on Snowflake | Snowflake Blog

Managing Reader Accounts | Snowflake Documentation