ADA-C01 Question 515
Single answerPerform account replicationA global company uses Business Critical Snowflake accounts in AWS us-east-1 (primary) and AWS eu-west-1 (secondary) for disaster recovery. You need to set up account-level replication so the secondary account can be promoted during a regional outage. Security administrators also want users, roles, and grants to be available after failover, not just database objects. Which action should you take to meet these requirements?
- A
Enable replication for each required database in the primary account and include USERS, ROLES, and WAREHOUSES in the database replication configuration.
- B
Create a failover group in the primary account, add the databases and account objects to the group, and enable replication to the target account in eu-west-1.
- C
Create a replication group in the secondary account, add shared databases and network policies to it, and refresh it from the primary account on demand.
- D
Use database replication for all production databases, then recreate users and roles manually in the secondary account before promoting it.
Show answer and explanation
Correct answer: B
Explanation
For account replication in Snowflake, failover groups are the correct feature when you need more than database contents replicated. Database replication is suitable for replicating databases only, but it does not cover the broader set of supported account objects needed for a realistic disaster recovery cutover, such as users, roles, and grants. In practice, administrators create a failover group in the primary account, add the relevant databases and supported account objects, and enable replication to an allowed target account in another region. The secondary account then receives replicated metadata and can be promoted during a failover event. This aligns with Snowflake guidance on replication and failover groups for business continuity and disaster recovery. Candidates should distinguish clearly between database replication and account-level replication via failover groups, since that is a common exam and real-world design decision.
- A. Incorrect.
Incorrect. Database replication is limited to database-level objects and does not provide account-level failover of objects such as users, roles, and grants. WAREHOUSES are not configured as part of database replication. This option reflects a common misconception that database replication alone can provide full account readiness for disaster recovery.
- B. Correct.
Correct. Failover groups are used for account replication and business continuity scenarios where both databases and supported account objects must be replicated between accounts. This is the appropriate mechanism when the requirement includes users, roles, and grants being available after failover. After configuring the failover group in the primary account and authorizing replication/failover to the target account, replication can be refreshed and the secondary can be promoted if needed.
- C. Incorrect.
Incorrect. Replication/failover groups are created in the source (primary) account, not the target secondary account. Also, shared databases are not added in the way described here, and the statement mixes unsupported and incorrect setup steps. This distractor targets confusion about where replication objects are defined and which object types are included.
- D. Incorrect.
Incorrect. While manually recreating account objects might seem workable, it does not meet the stated requirement for account-level replication and increases operational risk during an outage. Snowflake provides failover groups specifically to replicate supported account objects along with databases for disaster recovery scenarios.