Snowflake ADA-C01 SnowPro Advanced: Administrator Certification Exam Exam Practice Test

According to the Snowflake documentation1, the ORGADMIN role is a special system role that is responsible for managing operations at the organization level, such as creating and viewing accounts, enabling database replication, and setting global account parameters. The ACCOUNTADMIN role is a system role that is responsible for managing operations at the account level, such as creating and managing users, roles, warehouses, databases, and shares. Therefore, the commands that can be performed by the ORGADMIN role but not the ACCOUNTADMIN role are:

•SHOW ORGANIZATION ACCOUNTS: This command lists all the accounts in the organization and their properties, such as region, edition, and status2. The ACCOUNTADMIN role can only show the current account and its properties using the SHOW ACCOUNTS command3.

•SELECT SYSTEM$GLOBAL_ACCOUNT_SET_PARAMETER: This function sets a global account parameter for an account in the organization, such as enabling account database replication4. The ACCOUNTADMIN role can only set local account parameters using the ALTER ACCOUNT command.

Option A is incorrect because the SHOW REGIONS command can be executed by any role, not just the ORGADMIN role. Option B is incorrect because the SHOW USERS command can be executed by the ACCOUNTADMIN role, as well as any role that has been granted the MONITOR privilege on the account. Option D is incorrect because the GRANT ROLE ORGADMIN TO USER command can be executed by the ACCOUNTADMIN role, as well as any role that has been granted the ORGADMIN role1.

The EXPLAIN command returns the logical execution plan for a query, which shows the upper bound estimates for the number of partitions and bytes that might be scanned by the query1. However, these estimates do not account for the runtime optimizations that Snowflake performs to improve the query performance and reduce the resource consumption2. One of these optimizations is join pruning, which eliminates unnecessary partitions from the join inputs based on the join predicates2. This can result in fewer partitions and bytes scanned than the estimates from the EXPLAIN output3. Therefore, the actual partitions scanned value in the Query Profile can be lower than the partitionsAssigned value in the EXPLAIN output4.

When future grants are defined on the same object type for a database and a schema in the same database, the schema-level grants take precedence over the database level grants, and the database level grants are ignored4. This behavior applies to privileges on future objects granted to one role or different roles4. Future grants allow defining an initial set of privileges to grant on new (i.e. future) objects of a certain type in a database or a schema3. As soon as the new objects are created inside the database or schema, the predefined set of privileges are assigned to the object automatically without any manual intervention3.

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, the MINS_TO_BYPASS_MFA property specifies the number of minutes to temporarily disable MFA for a user so that they can log in without the temporary token generated by the Duo Mobile application. After the time passes, MFA is enforced and the user cannot log in without the token. Therefore, to disable MFA for 24 hours, the value of this property should be set to 1440 minutes (24 x 60). Option B is incorrect because the DISABLE_MFA property is a boolean value that permanently disables MFA for a user, not a numeric value that specifies the duration. Option C is incorrect because there is no such property as TEMPORARY_MFA_BYPASS in Snowflake. Option D is incorrect because there is no such property as HOURS_TO_BYPASS_MFA in Snowflake.

Network policies are used to restrict access to the Snowflake service and internal stages based on user IP address1. To create network policies, a role must have the global permission of CREATE NETWORK POLICY2. By default, the system-defined roles of SECURITYADMIN and ACCOUNTADMIN have this permission3. However, any other role can be granted this permission by an administrator4. Therefore, the answer is B, C, and E. The other options are incorrect because SYSADMIN and ORGADMIN do not have the CREATE NETWORK POLICY permission by default3, and network policies are not tied to specific databases5.

According to the Snowflake documentation1, when a role is dropped, ownership of all objects owned by the dropped role is transferred to the role that is directly above the dropped role in the role hierarchy. This is to ensure that there is always a single owner for each object in the system.

1: Drop Role | Snowflake Documentation

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 Snowflake documentation1, stages without credentials are a way to create external stages that use storage integrations to access data files in cloud storage without providing any credentials to Snowflake. Storage integrations are objects that define a trust relationship between Snowflake and a cloud provider, allowing Snowflake to authenticate and authorize access to the cloud storage. To limit data exfiltration after a storage integration and associated stages are created, the following account-level parameters can be set:

•REQUIRE_STORAGE_INTEGRATION_FOR_STAGE_CREATION: This parameter enforces that all external stages must be created using a storage integration. This prevents users from creating external stages with inline credentials or URLs that point to unauthorized locations.

•REQUIRE_STORAGE_INTEGRATION_FOR_STAGE_OPERATION: This parameter enforces that all operations on external stages, such as PUT, GET, COPY, and LIST, must use a storage integration. This prevents users from performing operations on external stages with inline credentials or URLs that point to unauthorized locations.

•PREVENT_UNLOAD_TO_INLINE_URL: This parameter prevents users from unloading data from Snowflake tables to inline URLs that do not use a storage integration. This prevents users from exporting data to unauthorized locations.

Therefore, the correct answer is option D, which sets all these parameters to true. Option A is incorrect because it sets PREVENT_UNLOAD_TO_INLINE_URL to false, which allows users to unload data to inline URLs that do not use a storage integration. Option B is incorrect because it sets both REQUIRE_STORAGE_INTEGRATION_FOR_STAGE_CREATION and REQUIRE_STORAGE_INTEGRATION_FOR_STAGE_OPERATION to false, which allows users to create and operate on external stages without using a storage integration. Option C is incorrect because it sets all the parameters to false, which does not enforce any restrictions on data exfiltration.

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 Replication considerations documentation, the Time Travel retention period for a secondary database can be different from the primary database. The retention period can be set at the database, schema, or table level using the DATA_RETENTION_TIME_IN_DAYS parameter. Therefore, to extend the Time Travel retention policy to 60 days on the secondary database only, the best option is to set the data retention policy on the secondary database to 60 days using the ALTER DATABASE command. The other options are incorrect because:

•B. Setting the data retention policy on the schemas in the secondary database to 60 days will not affect the database-level retention period, which will remain at 30 days. The most specific setting overrides the more general ones, so the schema-level setting will apply to the tables in the schema, but not to the database itself.

•C. Setting the data retention policy on the primary database to 30 days and the schemas to 60 days will not affect the secondary database, which will have its own retention period. The replication process does not copy the retention period settings from the primary to the secondary database, so they can be configured independently.

•D. Setting the data retention policy on the primary database to 60 days will not affect the secondary database, which will have its own retention period. The replication process does not copy the retention period settings from the primary to the secondary database, so they can be configured independently.

The MINS_TO_BYPASS_MFA property allows the account administrator to temporarily disable MFA for a user who has lost their phone or changed their phone number1. The user can log in without MFA for the specified number of minutes, and then re-enroll in MFA using their new phone1. This does not revoke their MFA enrollment, unlike the DISABLE_MFA property, which cancels their enrollment and requires them to re-enroll from scratch1. The other options are not valid ways to bypass MFA, as SnowSQL does support MFA authentication2, and there is no such URL parameter as /?mode=mfa_bypass&code= for Snowflake3

According to the Snowflake documentation1, the COPY GRANTS option can be used to copy all privileges, except OWNERSHIP, from the existing table to the new transient table. This option also preserves any future grants defined for the object type in the schema. Option A is incorrect because it does not copy any grants from the original table. Option C is incorrect because it does not copy the data from the original table, only the structure and grants. Option E is incorrect because transient tables are not session-based and do not have a Fail-safe period, but they do have a Time Travel retention period2.

1: CREATE TABLE | Snowflake Documentation 2: Working with Temporary and Transient Tables | Snowflake Documentation

According to the Snowflake documentation1, the authentication process for SCIM provisioning uses an OAuth Bearer token and this token is valid for six months. Customers must keep track of their authentication token and can generate a new token on demand. If the token expires, the SCIM provisioning process will fail. Therefore, the token must be regenerated before it expires. The other options are not required for SCIM provisioning.

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 A is a possible solution to address the issues happening once a month, as it allows the administrator to use a task to increase the cluster size for the time period that the more complex queries are running and another task to reduce the size of the cluster once the complex queries complete. This way, the warehouse can have more resources available to handle the complex queries without reaching the maximum limit of 10 clusters, and then return to the normal cluster size to save costs. Option B is another possible solution to address the issues happening once a month, as it allows the administrator to have the group running the complex monthly queries use a separate appropriately-sized warehouse to support their workload. This way, the warehouse can isolate the complex queries from the standard workload and avoid queue time and resource contention. Option C is not a recommended solution to address the issues happening once a month, as it would increase the costs and complexity of managing the multi-cluster warehouse, and may not solve the underlying problem of inefficient queries. Option D is a good practice to improve the performance of the queries, but it is not a direct solution to address the issues happening once a month, as it requires analyzing and optimizing the complex queries using clustering keys or materialized views, which may not be feasible or effective in all cases. Option E is not a recommended solution to address the issues happening once a month, as it would increase the costs and waste resources by starting more clusters than needed for the standard workload.

According to the Using Persisted Query Results documentation, the RESULT_SCAN function allows you to query the result set of a previous command as if it were a table. The LAST_QUERY_ID function returns the query ID of the most recent statement executed in the current session. Therefore, the combination of these two functions can be used to access the output of the SHOW WAREHOUSES command, which returns the configurations of all the virtual warehouses in the account. However, to persist the warehouse data in JSON format in the table VWH_META, the OBJECT_CONSTRUCT function is needed to convert the output of the SHOW WAREHOUSES command into a VARIANT column. The OBJECT_CONSTRUCT function takes a list of key-value pairs and returns a single JSON object. Therefore, the correct commands to execute are:

1.SHOW WAREHOUSES;

2.INSERT INTO VWH_META SELECT CURRENT_TIMESTAMP (), OBJECT_CONSTRUCT (*) FROM TABLE (RESULT_SCAN (LAST_QUERY_ID ()));

The other options are incorrect because:

•A. This option does not use the OBJECT_CONSTRUCT function, so it will not persist the warehouse data in JSON format. Also, it is missing the * symbol in the SELECT clause, so it will not select any columns from the result set of the SHOW WAREHOUSES command.

•B. This option does not use the OBJECT_CONSTRUCT function, so it will not persist the warehouse data in JSON format. It will also try to insert multiple columns into a single VARIANT column, which will cause a type mismatch error.

•D. This option does not use the OBJECT_CONSTRUCT function, so it will not persist the warehouse data in JSON format. It will also try to use the RESULT_SCAN function on a subquery, which is not supported. The RESULT_SCAN function can only be used on a query ID or a table name.

To configure a Snowflake account to use AWS PrivateLink, the Administrator needs to create CNAME records in the DNS that point to the private endpoints provided by Snowflake. This allows the clients to connect to Snowflake using the same URL as before, but with private connectivity. According to the Snowflake documentation, “After you have created the VPC endpoints, Snowflake provides you with a list of private endpoints for your account. You must create CNAME records in your DNS that point to these private endpoints. The CNAME records must use the same hostnames as the original Snowflake URLs for your account.” The other options are either incorrect or not sufficient to configure AWS PrivateLink. Option B is not necessary, as the Administrator can enable AWS PrivateLink using the SYSTEM$AUTHORIZE_PRIVATELINK function1. Option C is not recommended, as it may prevent some data traffic from reaching Snowflake, such as large result sets stored on AWS S32. Option D is not related to AWS PrivateLink, but to Snowflake Connectivity Diagnostic (SnowCD), which is a tool for diagnosing network issues between clients and Snowflake3.

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.

The SIMULATED_DATA_SHARING_CONSUMER session parameter allows a data provider to test the integrity of secure views based on the account that is accessing that view2. By setting this parameter to the name of the consumer account, the data provider can query the secure view and see the results that a user in the consumer account will see2. This helps to ensure that sensitive data in a shared database is not exposed to unauthorized users1. The other options are not valid session parameters in Snowflake3