ADA-C01 Questions and Answers

A user with the ORGADMIN role can perform the following tasks1:

•Create one or more accounts in the organization.

•View a list of all regions enabled for the organization.

•View usage information for all accounts in the organization.

Option C is incorrect because creating secure views on application tables is not a function of the ORGADMIN role, but rather a function of the roles that have access to the tables and schemas within the accounts. Option E is incorrect because performing zero-copy cloning on account data is not a function of the ORGADMIN role, but rather a function of the roles that have the CLONE privilege on the objects within the accounts. Option F is incorrect because creating a reader account to share data with another organization is not a function of the ORGADMIN role, but rather a function of the roles that have the CREATE SHARE privilege on the objects within the accounts.

According to the [GRANT MODIFY] documentation, the MODIFY privilege on a data exchange allows a role to perform administrative tasks on the data exchange, such as inviting members, approving profiles, and reviewing listings. This privilege can be granted by the ACCOUNTADMIN role or a role that already has the MODIFY privilege on the data exchange. Therefore, to delegate the administration of a company’s data exchange to users who do not have access to the ACCOUNTADMIN role, the best option is to grant the MODIFY privilege on the data exchange to a role that the users can assume. The other options are incorrect because:

•A. There is no such privilege as IMPORTED PRIVILEGES in Snowflake. The correct privilege name is IMPORT SHARE, which allows a role to create a database from a share. This privilege is not related to the administration of a data exchange, but to the consumption of shared data.

•C. There is no such privilege as OWNERSHIP in Snowflake. The correct privilege name is OWNED BY, which indicates the role that owns an object and has full control over it. However, this privilege cannot be granted or revoked, but only transferred by the current owner to another role using the GRANT OWNERSHIP command. Therefore, this option is not feasible for delegating the administration of a data exchange.

•D. The USAGE privilege on a data exchange allows a role to access the data exchange and view the available data listings. This privilege does not allow a role to perform administrative tasks on the data exchange, such as inviting members, approving profiles, and reviewing listings. Therefore, this option is not sufficient for delegating the administration of a data exchange.

According to the Snowflake documentation1, a multi-cluster warehouse is a virtual warehouse that consists of multiple clusters of compute resources that can scale up or down automatically to handle the concurrency and performance needs of the queries submitted to the warehouse. A multi-cluster warehouse has a minimum and maximum number of clusters that can be specified by the administrator. Option B is the most efficient way to support the group of users, as it allows the administrator to create a multi-cluster warehouse with MIN_CLUSTERS set to 2, which means that the warehouse will always have two clusters running to handle the standard workload. The warehouse can also auto-scale up to the maximum number of clusters (which can be set according to the peak workload) when there is a spike in demand, and then scale down when the demand decreases. The warehouse can also auto-resume and auto-suspend, which means that the warehouse will automatically start when a query is submitted and automatically stop after a period of inactivity. The administrator can also give USAGE privileges to the ANALYST role, which means that the users can use the warehouse to execute queries and load data, but not modify or operate the warehouse. Option A is not efficient, as it requires the users to manually start and stop the warehouse, and increase the number of clusters as needed, which can be time-consuming and error-prone. Option C is not efficient, as it creates a standard X-Large warehouse, which is equivalent to four small clusters, which may be more than needed for the standard workload, and may not be enough for the peak workload. Option D is not efficient, as it creates four virtual warehouses of different sizes, which can be confusing and cumbersome for the users to select the appropriate warehouse based on how many queries are being run, and may also result in wasted resources and costs.

According to the Multi-cluster Warehouses documentation, auto-suspend is a feature that allows a warehouse to automatically suspend itself after a specified period of inactivity. For a multi-cluster warehouse, auto-suspend applies to the entire warehouse, not to individual clusters. Therefore, auto-suspend occurs when the minimum number of clusters is running and there is no activity for the specified period of time. The other options are incorrect because:

•A. Auto-suspend does not occur when there has been no activity on any cluster for the specified period of time. This would imply that each cluster has its own auto-suspend timer, which is not the case. The warehouse has a single auto-suspend timer that is reset by any activity on any cluster.

•B. Auto-suspend does not occur after a specified period of time when an additional cluster has started on the maximum number of clusters specified for a warehouse. This would imply that the auto-suspend timer is affected by the number of clusters running, which is not the case. The auto-suspend timer is only affected by the activity on the warehouse, regardless of the number of clusters running.

•D. Auto-suspend does apply for multi-cluster warehouses, as explained above. It is a feature that can be enabled or disabled for any warehouse, regardless of the number of clusters.

A SCIM security integration allows the automated management of user identities and groups (i.e. roles) by creating an interface between Snowflake and a third-party Identity Provider (IdP)1. Snowflake supports SCIM integration with Okta, Azure, and custom SCIM clients2. SCIM integration does not support managing other Snowflake objects, such as stages, warehouses, or shares3. Therefore, the answer is B. Users and D. Roles.

According to the Snowflake documentation1, secure views are only exposed to authorized users who have been granted the role that owns the view. Therefore, applying RBAC directly onto the partner’s shared secure views (option A) is not possible, as the administrator does not own those views. Individually granting imported privileges onto the schema in the share (option B) is also not feasible, as the privileges granted on the schema do not apply to existing secure views, only to future ones2. Cloning the data and inserting it into a company-owned share (option C) is not recommended, as it would create unnecessary duplication of data and increase storage costs. The best option is to create views over the incoming shared database and apply the desired RBAC onto these views (option D). This way, the administrator can control the access to the data based on the roles in their account, without modifying the original data or views from the partner.

According to the Snowflake documentation1, network policies are a feature that allows restricting access to your account based on user IP address. A network policy can be applied to an account, a user, or a security integration, and can specify a list of allowed IP addresses and a list of blocked IP addresses. If there are network policies applied to more than one of these, the most specific network policy overrides more general network policies. In this case, the user1 has a network policy (bar_policy) applied to them, which overrides the account-level network policy (foo_policy). The bar_policy allows access only from the IP range 3.3.3.0/24, and blocks access from the IP address 3.3.3.10. Therefore, the user1 will not be able to log in to Snowflake from IP address 3.3.3.10, as it is found in the BLOCKED_IP_LIST of bar_policy. Option A is incorrect because the ALLOWED_IP_LIST of bar_policy does not override the BLOCKED_IP_LIST of bar_policy. Option C is incorrect because the ALLOWED_IP_LIST of foo_policy does not apply to user1, as it is overridden by the user-level network policy. Option D is incorrect because the ALLOWED_IP_LIST of foo_policy does not matter, as it is overridden by the user-level network policy.

According to the Snowflake documentation1, creating a user with a default role does not automatically grant that role to the user. The user must be explicitly granted the role by the role owner or a higher-level role. Therefore, the USERADMIN role, which created the DEVELOPER_ROLE, needs to explicitly grant the DEVELOPER_ROLE to the new user PTORRES using the GRANT ROLE command. Otherwise, the user PTORRES will not be able to use the DEVELOPER_ROLE and will see the default role of PUBLIC in the web UI. Option A is incorrect because the DEVELOPER_ROLE does not need to be granted to SYSADMIN before user PTORRES can use the role. Option B is incorrect because the new role can take effect immediately after it is created and granted to the user, and does not depend on the USERADMIN role logging out. Option D is incorrect because the new role will not be affected by the identity provider synchronization, as it is created and managed in Snowflake.

Snowflake charges for database replication based on two categories: data transfer and compute resources1. Data transfer costs depend on the amount of data that is transferred from the primary database to the secondary database across regions and/or cloud service providers2. Compute resource costs depend on the use of Snowflake-provided compute resources to copy data between accounts across regions1. Both data transfer and compute resource costs are proportional to the frequency and amount of changes to the primary database as a result of data loading or DML operations3. Therefore, the answer is A and B. The other options are not directly related to the replication billing, as the frequency of secondary database refreshes does not affect the amount of data transferred or copied4, and the number and size of warehouses defined in the primary account do not affect the replication process5.

According to the Snowflake documentation1, database replication across accounts within the same organization requires the following steps:

•Link the accounts in the organization using the ORGADMIN role.

•Enable account database replication for both the source and target accounts using the SYSTEM$GLOBAL_ACCOUNT_SET_PARAMETER function.

•Promote a local database to serve as the primary database and enable replication to the target accounts using the ALTER DATABASE … ENABLE REPLICATION TO ACCOUNTS command.

•Create a secondary database in the target account using the CREATE DATABASE … FROM SHARE command.

•Refresh the secondary database periodically using the ALTER DATABASE … REFRESH command.

Option A is incorrect because it does not include the step of creating a secondary database in the target account. Option C is incorrect because replicating databases across accounts within the same organization is not enabled by default, but requires enabling account database replication for both the source and target accounts. Option D is incorrect because it is possible to replicate a database from an Enterprise edition Snowflake account to a Standard edition Snowflake account, as long as the IGNORE EDITION CHECK option is used in the ALTER DATABASE … ENABLE REPLICATION TO ACCOUNTS command2. Option B is correct because it includes all the necessary configuration steps in ACCOUNT1, except for creating a secondary database in ACCOUNT2, which can be done after the replication is enabled.

According to the CREATE ACCOUNT documentation, the account name must be specified when the account is created, and it must be unique within an organization, regardless of which Snowflake Region the account is in. The other options are incorrect because:

•The account does not require at least one ORGADMIN role within one of the organization’s accounts. The account can be created by an organization administrator (i.e. a user with the ORGADMIN role) through the web interface or using SQL, but the new account does not inherit the ORGADMIN role from the existing account. The new account will have its own set of users, roles, databases, and warehouses.

•The account name is not immutable and can be changed. The account name can be modified by contacting Snowflake Support and requesting a name change. However, changing the account name may affect some features that depend on the account name, such as SSO or SCIM.

•The account name does not need to be unique among all Snowflake customers. The account name only needs to be unique within the organization, as the account URL also includes the region and cloud platform information. For example, two accounts with the same name can exist in different regions or cloud platforms, such as myaccount.us-east-1.snowflakecomputing.com and myaccount.eu-west-1.aws.snowflakecomputing.com.

According to the Snowflake documentation1, organizations are a feature that allows linking the accounts owned by a business entity, simplifying account management and billing, replication and failover, data sharing, and other account administration tasks. Some of the benefits of using organizations are:

•Administrators can monitor and understand usage across all accounts in the organization using the ORGANIZATION_USAGE schema, which provides historical usage data for all accounts in the organization via views in a shared database named SNOWFLAKE2. This can help to optimize costs and performance across the organization.

•Administrators have the ability to create accounts in any available cloud provider or region using the CREATE ACCOUNT command, which allows specifying the cloud platform and region for the new account3. This can help to meet the business needs and compliance requirements of the organization.

Option A is incorrect because administrators cannot change Snowflake account editions on-demand based on need, but rather have to contact Snowflake Support to request an edition change4. Option C is incorrect because administrators cannot simplify data movement across all accounts within the organization, but rather have to enable account database replication for both the source and target accounts, and use the ALTER DATABASE … ENABLE REPLICATION TO ACCOUNTS command to promote a local database to serve as the primary database and enable replication to the target accounts5. Option D is incorrect because user administration is not simplified across all accounts within the organization, but rather requires creating and managing users, roles, and privileges for each account separately, unless using a federated authentication method such as SSO or SCIM.

According to the Snowflake Warehouse Cost Optimization blog post, one of the strategies to reduce the cost of running a warehouse is to use a multi-cluster warehouse with auto-scaling enabled. This allows the warehouse to automatically adjust the number of clusters based on the concurrency demand and the queue size. A multi-cluster warehouse can also be configured with a minimum and maximum number of clusters, as well as a scaling policy to control the scaling behavior. This way, the warehouse can handle the parallel load queries efficiently without wasting resources or credits. The blog post also suggests using a smaller warehouse size, such as SMALL or XSMALL, for loading data, as it can perform better than a larger warehouse size for small INSERTs. Therefore, the best option to reduce the costs while minimizing the overall load times for migrating data warehouse history is to keep the warehouse as a SMALL or XSMALL and configure it as a multi-cluster warehouse to handle the parallel load queries. The other options are incorrect because:

•A. Deploying another 2XL warehouse to handle a portion of the load queries will not reduce the costs, but increase them. It will also introduce complexity and potential inconsistency in managing the data loading process across multiple warehouses.

•B. Changing the 2XL warehouse to 4XL will not reduce the costs, but increase them. It will also provide more compute resources than needed for small INSERTs, which are not CPU-intensive but I/O-intensive.

•D. Converting the INSERTs to several tables will not reduce the costs, but increase them. It will also create unnecessary data duplication and fragmentation, which will affect the query performance and data quality.

According to the Accessing a Data Exchange documentation, a consumer account can request and get data from the Data Exchange using either the ACCOUNTADMIN role or a role with the IMPORT SHARE and CREATE DATABASE privileges. The ACCOUNTADMIN role is the top-level role that has all privileges on all objects in the account, including the ability to request and get data from the Data Exchange. A role with the IMPORT SHARE and CREATE DATABASE privileges can also request and get data from the Data Exchange, as these are the minimum privileges required to create a database from a share. The other options are incorrect because:

•A. The SYSADMIN role does not have the privilege to request and get data from the Data Exchange, unless it is also granted the IMPORT SHARE and CREATE DATABASE privileges. The SYSADMIN role is a pre-defined role that has all privileges on all objects in the account, except for the privileges reserved for the ACCOUNTADMIN role, such as managing users, roles, and shares.

•B. The SECURITYADMIN role does not have the privilege to request and get data from the Data Exchange, unless it is also granted the IMPORT SHARE and CREATE DATABASE privileges. The SECURITYADMIN role is a pre-defined role that has the privilege to manage security objects in the account, such as network policies, encryption keys, and security integrations, but not data objects, such as databases, schemas, and tables.

•E. The IMPORT PRIVILEGES and SHARED DATABASE are not valid privileges in Snowflake. The correct privilege names are IMPORT SHARE and CREATE DATABASE, as explained above.

Snowflake’s query optimizer can automatically rewrite queries against the base table or regular views to use the materialized view instead, if the query matches the definition of the materialized view1. However, this is not always guaranteed, as the optimizer might decide against using the materialized view based on various factors, such as the freshness of the data, the size of the result set, the complexity of the query, and the availability of the materialized view2. Therefore, the answer is no, because the optimizer might decide against it.