COF-C03 Question 22
Single answerOrganization and account objectsA global company uses a Snowflake organization with several accounts for development, testing, and production across different cloud regions. The security architect wants a centralized way to identify every account in the organization when automating account inventory and governance checks. A developer suggests using only the account name because it is easier to read. Which identifier should be used to uniquely identify an account across the entire organization?
- A
The account locator, because it is globally unique across all Snowflake organizations
- B
The account name, because account names are unique across all organizations once created
- C
The organization name combined with the account name, because this pair uniquely identifies an account within Snowflake
- D
The region name combined with the account locator, because region-scoped identifiers are required for organization-wide uniqueness
Show answer and explanation
Correct answer: C
Explanation
For SnowPro Core, candidates should understand the distinction between organization objects and account objects. Within Snowflake, account names are unique within an organization, and the combination of organization name plus account name uniquely identifies an account. This is the key concept for organization-level administration and automation. Account locators are important in some operational contexts, such as connection URLs and replication/failover-related references, but they are not the primary answer to the question of organization-wide unique identification. This aligns with Snowflake documentation on organizations and accounts, which describes the organization as the top-level container and account names as unique within that organization.
- A. Incorrect.
Incorrect. The account locator is a Snowflake-generated identifier for an account, but it is not the recommended globally unique identifier across the entire organization context for governance and account identification. In practice, Snowflake identifies accounts in an organization using the organization name together with the account name. Candidates may choose this option because account locators are system-generated and commonly seen in URLs and connection contexts.
- B. Incorrect.
Incorrect. Account names are not unique across all Snowflake organizations. They are unique only within an organization. This makes account name alone insufficient for centralized automation spanning organization scope. This is a common misconception because account administrators often work only inside one organization and may not notice the broader uniqueness boundary.
- C. Correct.
Correct. In Snowflake, an account is uniquely identified by the combination of organization name and account name. This is the appropriate identifier to use when managing or referencing accounts across an organization, including governance, automation, and account-level administration scenarios.
- D. Incorrect.
Incorrect. While region can be relevant for account placement and connectivity, it is not the defining component for uniquely identifying an account at the organization level. Region plus account locator is not the standard organization-wide identifier Snowflake emphasizes for account identity. Someone might pick this because multi-region deployments often require region-aware operational processes.