ADA-C01 Question 280
Single answerUse Snowsight dashboards to monitor activityA Snowflake administrator needs to give engineering managers a simple way to monitor whether ETL workloads are completing on time and whether warehouse usage is spiking during business hours. The managers should be able to review this information themselves in Snowsight without running SQL manually. Which approach best meets this requirement?
- A
Create a Snowsight dashboard that uses tiles based on queries against ACCOUNT_USAGE views such as QUERY_HISTORY, TASK_HISTORY, and WAREHOUSE_METERING_HISTORY, then share the dashboard with the managers.
- B
Create a classic console worksheet and pin it as the account home page, because Snowsight dashboards cannot display results from SQL queries over account usage views.
- C
Create resource monitors only, because Snowsight dashboards are intended for visualization of staged files and cannot be used to monitor warehouse or task activity.
- D
Export ACCOUNT_USAGE data to an external BI tool, because Snowsight dashboards can only show static charts and do not support operational monitoring scenarios.
Show answer and explanation
Correct answer: A
Explanation
The best answer is to use a Snowsight dashboard backed by SQL queries against Snowflake metadata and usage views. In real-world administration, this allows non-admin stakeholders to monitor ETL health and warehouse activity through a native Snowflake interface. ACCOUNT_USAGE views are commonly used for this purpose: TASK_HISTORY helps track scheduled task runs and failures, QUERY_HISTORY helps identify workload timing and execution characteristics, and WAREHOUSE_METERING_HISTORY helps visualize credit consumption trends. Snowsight dashboards are well suited for operational visibility because they let administrators turn these queries into reusable tiles and charts that stakeholders can review without writing SQL themselves. This aligns with Snowflake best practices of leveraging native metadata, Snowsight, and role-based access to provide observability without unnecessary external tooling.
- A. Correct.
Correct. Snowsight dashboards are designed to present query results as charts, tables, and KPI-style tiles that users can review without manually rerunning ad hoc SQL each time. For operational monitoring, an administrator can build queries on Snowflake metadata sources such as ACCOUNT_USAGE views, including QUERY_HISTORY for workload trends, TASK_HISTORY for ETL execution status, and WAREHOUSE_METERING_HISTORY for warehouse consumption patterns. This is a practical and supported way to build self-service monitoring dashboards in Snowsight.
- B. Incorrect.
Incorrect. This reflects a misconception that only the classic interface or worksheets can be used for monitoring. Snowsight dashboards can be built from SQL query results, including metadata and usage views, and are specifically intended to help users monitor activity visually. Pinning a worksheet as a home page does not provide the same dashboard experience or self-service visual monitoring capability.
- C. Incorrect.
Incorrect. Resource monitors are useful for controlling and alerting on credit consumption, but they do not replace dashboards for broader activity monitoring. They do not show ETL completion trends, query patterns, or rich visualizations of operational activity. The statement that Snowsight dashboards are only for staged files is false.
- D. Incorrect.
Incorrect. External BI tools are an option in some organizations, but they are not required for this use case. Snowsight dashboards support interactive visualizations over SQL query results and are suitable for internal operational monitoring scenarios. The claim that they only support static charts and cannot be used for monitoring is inaccurate.