ADA-C01 Question 511
Single answerReplicate account-level objectsA global company uses Snowflake Business Critical Edition with accounts in AWS us-east-1 and AWS eu-west-1. The primary account in us-east-1 hosts several account-level objects used by all application teams, including custom network policies, password policies, and resource monitors. As part of a disaster recovery design, the Snowflake administrator must ensure these account-level objects are available in the secondary account with minimal manual effort and can be activated there during a regional outage. Which action should the administrator take?
- A
Create a failover group in the primary account, add the required account-level objects to the failover group, and replicate the failover group to the secondary account.
- B
Create a replication group in the primary account, add the required account-level objects to the replication group, and refresh it in the secondary account when needed.
- C
Share the SNOWFLAKE database from the primary account to the secondary account and grant imported privileges so the secondary account can use the same account-level objects.
- D
Use database replication for all databases that reference those policies; the dependent account-level objects will automatically be included in the database failover.
Show answer and explanation
Correct answer: A
Explanation
For cross-account disaster recovery of supported account-level objects, Snowflake uses failover groups. Failover groups can contain supported account objects and databases and are intended for replication and failover between accounts in supported regions/clouds. Database replication alone is insufficient because account-level objects are not automatically included with replicated databases. Similarly, shares do not transfer account configuration objects. In practice, administrators define a failover group in the primary account, include the relevant account-level objects, replicate it to the target account, and promote the secondary during a failover event. This aligns with Snowflake documentation on replication and failover groups, especially the distinction between database replication and account object replication.
- A. Correct.
Correct. Account-level objects such as network policies, password policies, and resource monitors are replicated using failover groups, not database replication. A failover group is the Snowflake mechanism designed to replicate and fail over supported account objects and selected databases/shares across accounts for business continuity and disaster recovery. After replication, the secondary copy can be promoted during an outage.
- B. Incorrect.
Incorrect. Replication groups are used for database-level replication scenarios, not for replicating supported account-level objects for failover. A common misconception is that any replication feature can handle account objects, but Snowflake uses failover groups specifically for account objects and account failover scenarios.
- C. Incorrect.
Incorrect. Secure data sharing and imported privileges apply to shared database objects, not to account-level objects like network policies, password policies, or resource monitors. These objects are configured at the account scope and cannot be propagated through a database share.
- D. Incorrect.
Incorrect. Database replication does not automatically include account-level objects referenced by workloads in those databases. Policies and monitors at the account level must be replicated separately through supported account-level replication mechanisms. Assuming dependency-based inclusion is a common error.