Snowflake Fundamentals
Snowflake is a cloud data platform for storing, querying, sharing, and governing data. It separates stored data from the compute clusters that process work, so teams can run different workloads without sharing the same compute resources.
itData engineering and analytics | OpenSkills.info
Course pathWalk it in order
Look it upDip in anytime
Go furtherLeaves this page
Intro
Snowflake Fundamentals
Snowflake is a managed cloud data platform. You use it to load data, organize it into database objects, run queries, govern access, and share selected data with other accounts.
Its central design choice is separation of storage and compute. Data persists in Snowflake-managed cloud storage. A virtual warehouse supplies compute for a query or data manipulation operation. Warehouses are independent clusters, so an analyst workload can use a different warehouse from an ingestion workload.
That separation changes an operational question. Instead of asking which server hosts a database, you decide which warehouse should run a workload, how long it should run, who may use it, and what cost controls apply.
The three layers
Snowflake has database storage, compute, and cloud services.
Continue the course
This section is part of the paid course.
See pricing to subscribe, or log in if you already have access.
Where this skill leads
Relevant careers
See how this topic contributes to broader role-level skill maps.
Sources
- https://docs.snowflake.com/en/user-guide/intro-key-concepts
Supports
- Snowflake as a managed cloud data platform
- Storage, compute, and cloud-services architecture
- Snowflake table storage and micro-partitions
- Independent virtual warehouses
- Loading and transformation feature overview
- Secure Data Sharing overview
- https://docs.snowflake.com/en/user-guide/warehouses
Supports
- Virtual warehouses as compute clusters
- Query, loading, and data manipulation operations requiring a warehouse
- Warehouse credit consumption while running
- https://docs.snowflake.com/en/user-guide/warehouses-overview
Supports
- Warehouse sizing, resizing, and multi-cluster capacity
- Per-second billing with a 60-second minimum after warehouse start
- https://docs.snowflake.com/en/guides-overview-db
Supports
- Databases as containers for schemas
- Schemas as containers for objects including tables and views
- https://docs.snowflake.com/en/user-guide/data-load-overview
Supports
- Bulk loading, Snowpipe, Snowpipe Streaming, stages, and loading documentation paths
- https://docs.snowflake.com/en/user-guide/security-access-control-overview
Supports
- Role-based access control, privileges, roles, users, and role hierarchies
- Active-role authorization for SQL actions
- Ownership and securable-object hierarchy
- https://docs.snowflake.com/en/user-guide/data-sharing-intro
Supports
- Provider and consumer sharing model
- Read-only databases created from shares
- No-copy behavior for shared data and consumer compute charges
- https://docs.snowflake.com/en/user-guide/cost-understanding-overall
Supports
- Compute, storage, and data-transfer cost categories
- Virtual warehouse, serverless, and cloud-services compute
- Storage and egress cost concepts
- https://docs.snowflake.com/en/user-guide/cost-controlling
Supports
- Budgets and resource monitors
- Warehouse suspension at resource-monitor thresholds
- https://docs.snowflake.com/en/developer-guide/snowflake-cli/index
Supports
- Snowflake CLI as an open-source developer and SQL operations tool
- https://github.com/Hiflylabs/awesome-dbt
Supports
- dbt and SQLFluff as ecosystem resources selected from a curated awesome list
- https://docs.getdbt.com/
Supports
- dbt project documentation
- https://sqlfluff.com/
Supports
- SQLFluff project documentation