DAA-C01 Question 39
Single answerA retail analytics team uses Snowflake to analyze online sales and wants to enrich its internal customer and order data with third-party demographic data available through Snowflake. The team must minimize data movement, avoid building custom ingestion pipelines, and ensure analysts can query the provider's data alongside internal tables with low operational overhead. Which approach should the team take?
- A
Subscribe to the provider's listing in Snowflake Marketplace or a private listing, create a database from the shared data, and join the shared objects with internal tables in queries.
- B
Export internal customer data to the provider so the provider can append demographic attributes and send back refreshed files for scheduled loading into Snowflake.
- C
Use Snowpipe Streaming to continuously ingest the provider's demographic data into an internal raw table, because listings cannot be queried directly with internal data.
- D
Replicate the provider's shared database into the retail account's storage layer before analysts can use it in joins, because secure sharing is only for one-time data preview.
Show answer and explanation
Correct answer: A
Explanation
The best solution is to use Snowflake Secure Data Sharing through a Snowflake Marketplace listing, private listing, or another listing/share-based distribution method. This lets the retail analytics team enrich internal data with provider data while minimizing data movement and operational overhead. After acquiring the listing, the consumer can create a database from the share/listing and query the shared objects directly, including joining them to internal tables. This pattern is a core Snowflake best practice for third-party data enrichment because it avoids custom ETL/file exchange processes and leverages governed, near-real-time access to provider-managed data. Relevant Snowflake documentation includes topics on Secure Data Sharing, Snowflake Marketplace/Consumer Guides, and Listings/Private Listings, all of which describe direct access to shared datasets without traditional ingestion pipelines.
- A. Correct.
Correct. Snowflake Marketplace listings, private listings, and other listing-based secure sharing mechanisms allow a consumer to access provider data directly in Snowflake without copying the underlying data into custom pipelines. The consumer typically creates a database from the share/listing and can query shared tables and views alongside local data. This is the standard low-overhead way to enrich existing datasets using secure data sharing.
- B. Incorrect.
Incorrect. This approach introduces unnecessary data movement, external file exchanges, and operational complexity. It also conflicts with the requirement to minimize data movement and avoid custom ingestion pipelines. Secure data sharing and listings are specifically designed to let consumers access provider data directly inside Snowflake.
- C. Incorrect.
Incorrect. Snowpipe Streaming is for ingesting streaming data into Snowflake, not the preferred mechanism for consuming third-party datasets already distributed through Snowflake listings or shares. A common misconception is that external provider data must be ingested into internal tables before use, but secure sharing enables direct access for querying and joining.
- D. Incorrect.
Incorrect. Consumers do not need to replicate a provider's shared database into their own storage just to query it. Secure data sharing is not limited to preview use cases; it is intended for ongoing governed access to live shared data. Replication may be used for other scenarios, but it is not a prerequisite for joining shared data with local data in this scenario.