ADA-C01 Question 523
Single answerReplicate data to a lower Snowflake editionA company runs its primary Snowflake account on Business Critical edition in AWS us-east-1 and needs to provide a near-real-time reporting copy of selected production databases to a separate Standard edition account in the same region. The reporting team only needs read-only access to the replicated data, and the company wants to minimize re-architecture. Which approach should the Snowflake administrator recommend?
- A
Use database replication from the Business Critical account directly to the Standard edition account, because replication supports cross-edition targets as long as both accounts are in the same cloud region.
- B
Create a failover group in the Business Critical account and add the databases, because failover groups are the supported way to replicate databases to lower editions for read-only reporting.
- C
Use Secure Data Sharing from the Business Critical account to the Standard edition account, because direct replication to a lower edition account is not supported.
- D
Unload the data to external stages on a schedule and reload it into the Standard edition account, because Snowflake does not support any native cross-account data distribution between different editions.
Show answer and explanation
Correct answer: C
Explanation
The key constraint is the target account edition: the destination is Standard edition, while the source is Business Critical. For this requirement, the administrator should distinguish between replication/failover features and data sharing. Database replication and failover groups are part of Snowflake's replication and business continuity feature set and are not the correct solution for providing a lower-edition reporting account with read-only access. In contrast, Secure Data Sharing is a native Snowflake capability that allows a provider account to share live, read-only data with a consumer account without copying the underlying data. This is typically the best practice when the goal is reporting access rather than disaster recovery or account failover. Candidates should know that 'replicate data to a lower Snowflake edition' is effectively a trap in many scenarios: when direct replication is not supported or not appropriate, Secure Data Sharing is usually the correct architectural choice. Refer to Snowflake documentation on Secure Data Sharing and on replication/failover edition requirements and limitations.
- A. Incorrect.
Incorrect. Snowflake replication and failover capabilities require supported account editions and features on both sides, and replicating from a higher edition such as Business Critical to a lower edition such as Standard is not the recommended or supported native pattern for this scenario. A common misconception is that being in the same region is sufficient, but edition compatibility matters.
- B. Incorrect.
Incorrect. Failover groups are used for replication and failover of groups of objects such as databases and account objects, but they are part of Snowflake's Business Continuity capabilities and are not the method for delivering data to a lower edition account for reporting. This option also confuses disaster recovery replication with a data distribution use case.
- C. Correct.
Correct. Secure Data Sharing is the appropriate native Snowflake mechanism when a Business Critical account needs to provide read-only access to data to a lower edition consumer account. It avoids copying data, supports near-real-time access, and requires minimal re-architecture compared with ETL-based alternatives. This aligns with the requirement for read-only reporting access in a Standard edition account.
- D. Incorrect.
Incorrect. While unloading and reloading could work as a manual workaround, the statement that Snowflake does not support any native cross-account data distribution between different editions is false. Secure Data Sharing is a native Snowflake capability specifically designed for this type of cross-account read-only access.