ADA-C01 Question 503
Select 2Domain 6.0: Disaster Recovery, Backup, and Data Replication (9%)A company runs a business-critical Snowflake application in AWS us-east-1 and maintains a secondary account in AWS us-west-2 for disaster recovery. The primary account contains a database with several schemas, tables, and secure views. The DR requirement is to keep the secondary account nearly current and, during a regional outage, allow reporting workloads to resume quickly with minimal data loss. The administrator is configuring database replication and failover groups. Which TWO actions are required to meet this requirement?
- A
Add the database to a failover group and periodically refresh the failover group in the secondary account so replicated objects stay current.
- B
Enable replication for the database and include the database in a replication or failover configuration between the primary and secondary accounts.
- C
Create a database clone in the secondary account; cross-region clones automatically stay synchronized with the source database.
- D
Promote the secondary database to read/write before the first replication refresh so that applications can pre-stage writes in the DR region.
- E
Configure application clients to use the secondary account only after the replicated database or failover group has been failed over or promoted during an outage.
Show answer and explanation
Correct answers: B, E
Explanation
Snowflake disaster recovery across regions/accounts is based on replication and failover, not on continuously synchronized clones. For databases, administrators configure replication from a primary database to a secondary database in another account/region and periodically refresh the secondary to control recovery point objectives. For broader account-level DR, failover groups can replicate supported objects such as databases and certain account objects needed for operational continuity. Secondary replicated databases are read-only until they are promoted or failed over, so applications must be redirected to the DR account after failover during an outage. This aligns with Snowflake best practices for business continuity: define replication scope, schedule refreshes to meet RPO, and document failover procedures including client redirection and role/object validation. See Snowflake documentation on database replication, replication groups/failover groups, and failover/promotion behavior for secondary databases.
- A. Incorrect.
Incorrect. A failover group is refreshed from the primary side after objects are added and replication is configured; the statement is misleading because the required foundational step is enabling replication for supported objects and configuring the replication/failover relationship between accounts. Also, failover groups are used to replicate a broader set of account objects, while databases themselves are replicated as primary/secondary databases. Simply saying to 'add the database to a failover group and refresh in the secondary account' is not the correct required action as stated.
- B. Correct.
Correct. To use Snowflake cross-region disaster recovery, the database must be configured for replication to a secondary account. Depending on what needs protection, administrators use database replication and/or failover groups for supported account objects. This is the core requirement for keeping the secondary nearly current with periodic refreshes from the primary.
- C. Incorrect.
Incorrect. A clone is a point-in-time copy and does not provide ongoing synchronization across regions or accounts. Cloning is useful for fast copies inside Snowflake, but it is not a disaster recovery mechanism for keeping a secondary region continuously updated.
- D. Incorrect.
Incorrect. A replicated secondary database is read-only until a failover or promotion occurs. You cannot pre-stage writes to the secondary before failover. This option reflects a common misconception that secondary replicas can be used as active-active writable databases.
- E. Correct.
Correct. During normal operation, replicated secondary databases remain read-only. In a regional outage, workloads can resume in the DR account only after administrators perform the appropriate failover/promotion process and redirect clients there. Updating client connectivity is a necessary operational step to actually use the DR environment.