ARA-C01 Question 22
Single answerKey considerations and constraints when defining an account strategyA global enterprise is designing its Snowflake account strategy for three business units: Finance, Retail, and R&D. The company has the following requirements: Finance data must remain in the EU for regulatory reasons; Retail and R&D need to share curated datasets frequently with minimal data movement; each business unit wants strong isolation for administration and billing visibility; and the security team wants to minimize operational complexity where possible. Which approach best balances these requirements?
- A
Create a separate Snowflake account for each business unit, placing Finance in an EU region and Retail/R&D in the same region when frequent data sharing is required.
- B
Create a single Snowflake account for all business units and use databases, schemas, and roles to enforce isolation, because account-level separation is rarely necessary.
- C
Create separate virtual warehouses for each business unit in one Snowflake account, because warehouses provide both regional isolation and independent governance boundaries.
- D
Create one Snowflake account per business unit in different cloud regions to maximize isolation, then use database replication as the primary method for day-to-day cross-business-unit sharing.
Show answer and explanation
Correct answer: A
Explanation
When defining a Snowflake account strategy, architects should evaluate several key constraints: regulatory and data residency requirements, organizational and administrative isolation, billing and chargeback needs, collaboration and sharing patterns, and operational complexity. Snowflake accounts are regional and cloud-specific constructs, so region selection is a foundational part of the strategy. If a business unit has strict residency requirements, such as Finance needing EU residency, it may require its own account in an EU region. If other business units share data frequently, placing them in the same region reduces complexity and supports efficient secure sharing patterns. Separate accounts are often chosen when stronger isolation is needed for administration, security boundaries, and cost visibility, while a single account may be sufficient when simpler operations outweigh the need for hard isolation. Snowflake best practices emphasize aligning account design to governance, compliance, and collaboration requirements rather than assuming one account or many accounts is universally best. Relevant Snowflake documentation includes guidance on organization and account structure, region and cloud considerations, secure data sharing, replication, and access control.
- A. Correct.
Correct. Account strategy should consider regulatory boundaries, data residency, administrative isolation, billing separation, and data sharing patterns. A separate account for Finance in an EU region supports residency requirements. Keeping Retail and R&D in the same region, while still using separate accounts if administrative and billing isolation are needed, enables secure data sharing with minimal movement and lower complexity than cross-region designs. This reflects a practical balance between isolation and operational overhead.
- B. Incorrect.
Incorrect. A single account can simplify operations and support isolation through RBAC and object boundaries, but it does not provide the same level of account-level administrative separation or clean billing segregation desired by the business units. It also does not address the need to place Finance separately in an EU region if the rest of the organization operates elsewhere.
- C. Incorrect.
Incorrect. Virtual warehouses isolate compute, not governance domains such as account administrators, account-level settings, or region placement. Warehouses also do not create separate billing entities at the account level and cannot satisfy data residency requirements by themselves.
- D. Incorrect.
Incorrect. Separate accounts may be appropriate, but placing every business unit in different regions increases complexity and works against the requirement for frequent sharing with minimal data movement. Replication is useful for business continuity and certain distribution use cases, but it is not the best primary design choice for routine collaboration when co-locating accounts in the same region is possible.