SnowPro Associate: Platform Question 49
Single answerQuery historyA Snowflake administrator is troubleshooting a report that ran much slower this morning than it did yesterday. The administrator wants to compare the two executions of the same SQL statement and identify details such as execution status, start time, warehouse used, bytes scanned, and whether the query spilled data to local or remote storage. Which Snowflake feature should the administrator use first to retrieve this information for recent runs?
- A
Query History in Snowsight or the QUERY_HISTORY table function/Account Usage view
- B
Access History, because it is designed to show query performance metrics like spill and bytes scanned
- C
Database storage usage views, because they track how much data each query scanned over time
- D
Login History, because query slowdown is usually caused by authentication latency
Show answer and explanation
Correct answer: A
Explanation
For troubleshooting query performance, Snowflake administrators should start with Query History. Query History in Snowsight and the QUERY_HISTORY family of functions/views expose execution-level metadata such as query text, user, warehouse, start and end time, status, bytes scanned, and spill-related metrics. These details are directly relevant when comparing one execution to another. By contrast, Access History is intended for auditing object access, storage usage views are for storage monitoring, and Login History is for authentication events. Snowflake documentation on monitoring query activity and account usage identifies Query History as the core feature for investigating recent query behavior and performance.
- A. Correct.
Correct. Query History is the appropriate starting point for investigating recent query executions. In Snowsight, the Query History page shows execution details for queries, including status, timing, warehouse, rows produced, bytes scanned, and spill indicators. Similar information can also be queried programmatically through Snowflake-provided query history functions/views such as QUERY_HISTORY and related Account Usage views. This is the standard tool for comparing recent runs of the same statement.
- B. Incorrect.
Incorrect. Access History is primarily used for governance, auditing, and understanding which objects were accessed by a query, not for primary performance troubleshooting. While it can help answer who accessed what data, it is not the best source for execution metrics such as spill to local/remote storage or query timing comparisons.
- C. Incorrect.
Incorrect. Storage usage views focus on storage consumption and billing-related storage metrics, not per-query execution details. They do not provide run-specific troubleshooting information like execution status, bytes scanned by a specific query execution, or spill behavior.
- D. Incorrect.
Incorrect. Login History tracks authentication and session login events, which can be useful for security and access troubleshooting. However, it does not provide the execution-level query metrics needed to compare two slow and fast runs of the same SQL statement.