SnowPro Associate: Platform Question 351
Single answer4.2 Define Snowflake data sharing capabilities.A data provider wants to share a curated set of reporting tables with an external business partner. The partner uses Snowflake in a different account and should be able to query the shared data without the provider copying or unloading the data. The provider also wants to avoid managing user accounts for the partner. Which approach should the provider use?
- A
Create a secure data share, grant USAGE on the database and schema and SELECT on the shared objects to the share, then add the partner's Snowflake account to the share
- B
Create a database replication configuration to the partner's account so the partner can query the replicated database directly without any additional setup
- C
Unload the reporting tables to an external stage and give the partner cloud storage credentials so they can load the files into their own system
- D
Create users for the partner in the provider's Snowflake account and grant them access to the reporting tables through a virtual warehouse
Show answer and explanation
Correct answer: A
Explanation
The best answer is to use Secure Data Sharing. Snowflake data sharing allows a provider to share live, read-only database objects with another Snowflake account without copying the underlying data. The provider grants privileges to a share and adds the consumer account; the consumer then creates a database from that share. This is a core Snowflake platform capability and a common best practice for external data distribution because it minimizes data movement, reduces administrative overhead, and lets consumers query shared data using their own compute resources. Candidates should recognize that replication and unloading serve different purposes, and that managing external users in the provider account is not the preferred modern pattern when account-to-account secure sharing is available.
- A. Correct.
Correct. Snowflake Secure Data Sharing is designed for exactly this use case: sharing live data between Snowflake accounts without copying or unloading it. The provider creates a share, grants the necessary privileges on the database, schema, and objects, and adds the consumer account to the share. The consumer then creates a database from the share in its own account. This also avoids the need for the provider to manage users for the partner.
- B. Incorrect.
Incorrect. Replication is intended for database/account failover, disaster recovery, and cross-region or cross-cloud replication scenarios, not as the primary mechanism for external partner data sharing. It creates replicated data objects rather than exposing live shared data through a share, and it does not match the requirement to use Snowflake's native data sharing capability without managing partner users.
- C. Incorrect.
Incorrect. Unloading data to cloud storage introduces data copies and operational overhead, which directly conflicts with the requirement to avoid copying or unloading the data. Although this is a common legacy integration approach, it is not Snowflake's native sharing capability.
- D. Incorrect.
Incorrect. Creating users in the provider's account is an older account-sharing style pattern and does not meet the stated requirement to avoid managing partner user accounts. In addition, direct data sharing between Snowflake accounts is better handled through Secure Data Sharing, where the consumer accesses the data from its own account.