Snowflake Interview Questions

In this post we will look at Snowflake Interview questions. Examples are provided with explanation.

What is Snowflake?

Snowflake is a cloud-based Data Warehouse solution provided as a Saas (Software-as-a-Service) with full support for ANSI SQL. It also has a unique architecture that enables users to just create tables and start querying data with very less administration or DBA activities needed.

Explain Snowflake architecture.

• Data storage - In Snowflake, the stored data is reorganised into its internal optimised, columnar, and optimised format.
• Query processing - Virtual warehouses process the queries in Snowflake.
• Cloud services - This layer coordinates and handles all activities across the Snowflake. It provides the best results for Authentication, Metadata management, Infrastructure management, Access control, and Query parsing.

What are the features of Snowflake?

• Database storage.
• Compute layer.
• Cloud services.
• Performance and speed.
• Storage and support for structured and semistructured data.
• Concurrency and accessibility.
• Seamless data sharing.
• Availability and security.

What type of database is Snowflake?

Snowflake is built entirely on a SQL database. It is a columnar-stored relational database that works well with Excel, Tableau, and many other tools. Snowflake contains its query tool, supports multi-statement transactions, role-based security, etc., which are expected in a SQL database.

What are the different ways to access the Snowflake Cloud Datawarehouse ?

• Web User Interface
• ODBC Drivers
• JDBC Drivers
• SnowSQL Command line Client
• Python Libraries

What is Snowflake Caching ?

A cache is a temporary storage area.
When you return to a page you've recently looked at, the browser can get those files from the cache rather than the original server, saving you time and saving the network the burden of additional traffic.

What are the different types of caching in Snowflake ?

What is Time Travel in Snowflake ?

Snowflake Time Travel enables accessing historical data at any point within a defined period. It serves as a powerful tool for performing the following tasks: Duplicating and backing up data from key points in the past.

How is data stored in Snowflake?

Snowflake organizes the data into multiple micro partitions that are internally optimized and compressed. It uses a columnar format to store. Data is stored in the cloud storage and works as a shared-disk model thereby providing simplicity in data management.

Explain Snowflake editions.

• Standard edition - Its introductory level offering provides unlimited access to Snowflake standard features.
• Enterprise edition - Along with Standard edition features and services, offers additional features required for the large scale enterprises.
• Business-critical edition - It offers high-level data protection for sensitive data to organisation needs.
• Virtual Private Snowflake (VPS) - Provides high-level security for organisations dealing with financial activities.

See Also
Spring Batch Interview Questions
Apache Camel Interview Questions
JBoss Fuse Interview Questions
Drools Interview Questions
Java 8 Interview Questions