ADA-C01 Question 563
Single answerEnable or disable Time TravelA Snowflake administrator is asked to reduce storage costs for a transient staging schema that holds reloadable data for only a few hours. The schema currently inherits the database default Time Travel setting. The administrator must minimize historical data retention for all existing and future tables in that schema without converting object types or changing application logic. Which action should the administrator take?
- A
Set DATA_RETENTION_TIME_IN_DAYS = 0 on the staging schema.
- B
Set MAX_DATA_EXTENSION_TIME_IN_DAYS = 0 on the staging schema.
- C
Convert the schema to a temporary schema so that Time Travel is disabled automatically.
- D
Disable Fail-safe on the schema to eliminate historical storage costs.
Show answer and explanation
Correct answer: A
Explanation
The correct administrative control for enabling or disabling Time Travel is the DATA_RETENTION_TIME_IN_DAYS parameter. To minimize retention for all current and future objects in a staging schema, set this parameter at the schema level, typically to 0 for transient or reloadable data where historical recovery is unnecessary. This is a practical cost-optimization pattern in Snowflake environments. MAX_DATA_EXTENSION_TIME_IN_DAYS is often confused with Time Travel retention, but it is used to help keep streams from becoming stale by allowing retention extension under specific conditions. Fail-safe is not user-configurable and should not be confused with Time Travel. Per Snowflake documentation, retention settings can be defined at multiple object levels, with lower-level settings overriding inherited defaults.
- A. Correct.
Correct. Time Travel retention is controlled by the DATA_RETENTION_TIME_IN_DAYS parameter at the account, database, schema, and table levels. Setting this parameter to 0 on the schema disables Time Travel for supported objects in that schema, which is the appropriate way to minimize historical retention for reloadable staging data. Because the setting is applied at the schema level, future objects in the schema inherit it unless overridden.
- B. Incorrect.
Incorrect. MAX_DATA_EXTENSION_TIME_IN_DAYS is related to how long Snowflake can extend data retention to prevent streams from becoming stale. It does not directly enable or disable Time Travel. A candidate might choose this option because it sounds retention-related, but it addresses stream usability rather than historical data recovery windows.
- C. Incorrect.
Incorrect. Snowflake supports permanent and transient schemas, not temporary schemas as a schema type. Temporary applies to tables, not schemas. Also, the requirement explicitly avoids changing object types, so this would not be an appropriate solution even if it were possible.
- D. Incorrect.
Incorrect. Fail-safe is a Snowflake-managed recovery feature for permanent objects and cannot be disabled by setting a schema parameter. In addition, transient objects do not have Fail-safe, but that is separate from Time Travel configuration. A common misconception is to treat Fail-safe as administrator-configurable like Time Travel, but it is not.