by Shanmugapriya J, on Jun 3, 2023 4:19:27 PM
1.What is Snowflake and how does it differ from traditional data warehousing?
Ans: Snowflake is a cloud-based data warehousing platform that offers scalability, elasticity, and separation of compute and storage. Unlike traditional data warehousing, Snowflake doesn't require upfront infrastructure provisioning and allows for on-demand scaling.
2.How does Snowflake handle concurrency ?
Ans: Snowflake handles concurrency through its unique architecture that separates compute and storage. It allows multiple users to access and query the same data simultaneously without performance degradation.
3.What are the different components of Snowflake architecture?
Ans: Snowflake architecture consists of three main components: compute, storage, and services. The compute layer performs query processing, the storage layer holds the data, and the services layer manages metadata and query optimization.
4.How does Snowflake handle data security?
Ans: Snowflake ensures data security through various measures, including end-to-end encryption, role-based access control (RBAC), secure data sharing, and continuous monitoring and auditing.
5.Explain Snowflake's automatic scaling feature?
Ans: Snowflake's automatic scaling adjusts the compute resources based on the workload. It automatically scales up or down to handle query concurrency and data processing requirements.
6.How does Snowflake handle data loading?
Ans: Snowflake offers multiple data loading options, including bulk loading, continuous loading, and real-time data ingestion. It supports various file formats and provides tools like Snow pipe for efficient and automated data loading.
7.What is Snowflake's Time Travel feature?
Ans: Time Travel in Snowflake allows users to access historical versions of their data. It enables querying data as it appeared at a specific point in time, facilitating data auditing and recovery.
8.How does Snowflake support semi-structured data?
Ans: Snowflake natively supports semi-structured data formats like JSON, Avro, Parquet, and XML. It can directly query and analyze these formats without requiring data transformation.
9.What is Snowflake's approach to query optimization?
Ans: Snowflake's query optimizer uses advanced techniques to optimize query execution, including dynamic pruning, columnar storage, and adaptive query execution.
10.How does Snowflake handle data replication and high availability?
Ans: Snowflake replicates data across multiple availability zones within a region to ensure high availability and disaster recovery. It automatically handles failover and data replication.
11.How can you monitor and optimize Snowflake performance?
Ans: Snowflake provides various monitoring tools and performance views to monitor query performance, resource utilization, and data storage. Users can optimize performance through query tuning and utilizing appropriate clustering and partitioning strategies.
12.Explain Snowflake's data sharing feature?
Ans: Snowflake's data sharing allows organizations to securely share data between different Snowflake accounts. It enables seamless collaboration and data exchange between organizations.
13.How can you secure data sharing in Snowflake?
Ans: Snowflake provides secure data sharing through controlled access using secure views and secure data exchange. Organizations can define access policies and share specific subsets of data.
14.What is Snowflake's approach to data governance and compliance?
Ans: Snowflake offers features like data masking, data classification, and role-based access control to support data governance and compliance requirements. It provides built-in integration with external authentication providers.
15.How does Snowflake handle data backup and recovery?
Ans: Snowflake automatically handles data backup and recovery. It maintains multiple copies of data across different storage layers and performs continuous data protection.
16.What are the different editions of Snowflake?
Ans: Snowflake offers three editions: Standard Edition, Enterprise Edition, and Business Critical Edition. Each edition provides different features and capabilities to cater to various business requirements.
17.What are the best practices for optimizing Snowflake performance?
Ans: Best practices for Snowflake performance optimization include proper data modeling, using appropriate clustering and partitioning, utilizing query optimization techniques, and monitoring resource utilization.
18.How does Snowflake handle data privacy and compliance with regulations like GDPR?
Ans: Snowflake provides features like data masking, data encryption, and fine-grained access controls to ensure data privacy and compliance with regulations like GDPR.
19.What are Snowflake's integration capabilities with other tools and platforms?
Ans: Snowflake integrates with various analytics and data integration tools, including business intelligence (BI) tools, ETL/ELT platforms, and programming languages like Python and R.
20.Explain the difference between Snowflake's virtual warehouses and compute resources?
Ans: Virtual warehouses in Snowflake are compute resources that process queries. They can scale up or down independently, while compute resources refer to the overall processing power and capacity allocated to Snowflake.
21.How does Snowflake handle data replication and failover in a multi-region setup?
Ans: Snowflake uses cross-region replication to replicate data across multiple regions. In case of failover, it automatically switches to a standby replica in the failover region.
22.How does Snowflake handle schema evolution and schema changes?
Ans: Snowflake allows schema changes without affecting existing queries and data. It supports seamless schema evolution through its metadata layer.
23.Can you restore a deleted table in Snowflake?
Ans: Yes, Snowflake's Time Travel feature allows you to restore a deleted table by querying its historical data within a certain retention period.
24.How does Snowflake handle data sharing between different cloud providers?
Ans: Snowflake's data sharing feature allows secure data sharing between different Snowflake accounts, regardless of the cloud provider. It utilizes secure views and data exchange mechanisms.
25.How can you monitor and manage costs in Snowflake?
Ans: Snowflake provides features like cost and usage analysis, resource monitoring, and utilization tracking to help manage costs effectively. Users can monitor and control resource consumption to optimize costs.
