SnowPro Specialty: Gen AI Question 208
Single answerCreate image repositoryA data science team is preparing to deploy a custom inference service in Snowpark Container Services for a GenAI application. Security policy requires all container images to be stored inside Snowflake rather than in an external registry. The platform engineer needs to create a repository that developers can push versioned images to and that Snowflake services can pull from during deployment. Which Snowflake SQL command should the engineer use first to meet this requirement?
- A
CREATE IMAGE REPOSITORY genai_repo;
- B
CREATE STAGE genai_repo DIRECTORY = (ENABLE = TRUE);
- C
CREATE GIT REPOSITORY genai_repo API_INTEGRATION = git_int ORIGIN = 'https://example.com/repo.git';
- D
CREATE SERVICE genai_repo FROM SPECIFICATION_FILE = 'service.yaml';
Show answer and explanation
Correct answer: A
Explanation
To store container images inside Snowflake for Snowpark Container Services, the correct object to create is an image repository using CREATE IMAGE REPOSITORY. This is the Snowflake-managed registry construct intended for internal storage and retrieval of container images. In practice, teams typically create the image repository first, authenticate to the repository, push tagged images, and then reference those images in a CREATE SERVICE workflow. Common misconceptions include confusing stages with registries, because both store objects in Snowflake, or confusing Git repositories with image repositories, because both are developer-oriented assets. Snowflake documentation for Snowpark Container Services and image repositories describes CREATE IMAGE REPOSITORY as the supported approach for managing container images within Snowflake.
- A. Correct.
Correct. CREATE IMAGE REPOSITORY is the Snowflake SQL command used to create an internal image repository for Snowpark Container Services. This repository is designed to store OCI-compatible container images that developers can push to and that services can later reference when deploying containers.
- B. Incorrect.
Incorrect. A stage stores files such as data files, model artifacts, or configuration files, but it is not a container image registry. Enabling a directory table on a stage helps with file listing and metadata, not image storage or image pull workflows for container services.
- C. Incorrect.
Incorrect. A Git repository clone in Snowflake is used to access version-controlled source code and related files from an external Git provider. It does not function as a container registry and cannot store/publish OCI container images for Snowpark Container Services deployment.
- D. Incorrect.
Incorrect. CREATE SERVICE deploys a service definition, but it does not create a container image repository. The image repository must exist first so that images can be pushed and referenced by the service specification.