Topic 1 - Snowflake Overview and Architecture Flashcards
(19 cards)
What is a Virtual Warehouse in Snowflake?
A collection of compute resources used for running queries and loading/unloading data in Snowflake.
What is the Compute Layer in Snowflake’s architecture?
The layer responsible for processing data using virtual warehouses.
What is the Storage Layer in Snowflake’s architecture?
The layer responsible for storing data in a hybrid-columnar format using micro-partitions.
What is the Cloud Services Layer in Snowflake’s architecture?
The top layer responsible for managing various services such as query optimization, security, metadata management, and infrastructure management.
What is a Micro-Partition?
A small, immutable unit of storage in Snowflake’s storage layer, typically holding 10MB to 16MB of compressed data from a table.
What is Micro-Partition Elimination (Pruning)?
The process of using metadata about micro-partitions to avoid scanning partitions that are not relevant to a query, improving performance.
What is Snowsight?
The web-based interface for interacting with Snowflake, offering features for querying, data exploration, visualization, and dashboarding.
What is a Role in Snowflake?
An entity to which privileges are granted, determining what actions users assigned to that role can perform and what objects they can access.
What is a Database in Snowflake?
A logical container within a Snowflake account used to organize data.
What is a Schema in Snowflake?
A logical grouping of objects (tables, views, functions, etc.) within a Snowflake database.
What is Context in Snowflake?
The set of database, schema, role, and warehouse currently active for a user session, determining the default environment for operations.
What is the Data Cloud in Snowflake?
Snowflake’s vision of a global network where organizations can easily discover, share, and consume data and data services.
What is a Standard Virtual Warehouse?
A type of virtual warehouse that always consists of a single cluster, scaled up in size for more compute power.
What is a Multi-Cluster Warehouse (MCW)?
A type of virtual warehouse that can have one or more clusters and automatically scales to handle high concurrency workloads.
What are Snowflake Credits?
The unit of measure used to bill for compute usage on virtual warehouses and some serverless features.
What is Hybrid-Columnar Storage?
A storage format where data is organized into columns within contiguous blocks (micro-partitions), allowing for efficient querying and compression.
What is Metadata Management in Snowflake?
The function that stores and manages data about the data, including information about micro-partitions used for optimisation and features like Time Travel and Cloning.
What is Serverless Features Compute?
Compute resources allocated and managed by Snowflake for specific features, billed based on usage.
What is Data Sharing in Snowflake?
The capability to securely share data and data services with other Snowflake accounts or external users not yet on Snowflake.
