SnowPro Core Certification COF-C02 Snowflake Study Notes

In Snowflake, permissions for accessing database objects, including tables, are not granted directly to users but rather to roles. A role encapsulates a collection of privileges on various Snowflake objects. Users are then granted roles, and through those roles, they inherit the permissions necessary to read a table or perform other actions. This approach adheres to the principle of least privilege, allowing for granular control over database access and simplifying the management of user permissions.

In Snowflake, reader accounts are special types of accounts that allow data sharing with external consumers without them having their own Snowflake account. The creation and management of reader accounts can be performed by users with the ACCOUNTADMIN role or the ORGADMIN role. The ACCOUNTADMIN role has comprehensive administrative privileges within a Snowflake account, including managing other accounts and roles. The ORGADMIN role, which is higher in hierarchy, oversees multiple accounts within an organization and can manage reader accounts across those accounts.

References:

Snowflake Documentation: Creating and Managing Reader Accounts

Snowflake's access control framework utilizes a combination of Discretionary Access Control (DAC) and Role-based Access Control (RBAC). DAC in Snowflake allows the object owner to grant access privileges to other roles. RBAC involves assigning roles to users and then granting privileges to those roles. Through roles, Snowflake manages which users have access to specific objects and what actions they can perform, which is central to security and governance in the Snowflake environment.References: Snowflake Documentation on Access Control,

In Snowflake, a table's clustering depth indicates the degree of micro-partition overlap based on the clustering keys defined for the table. A clustering depth of 1 implies that the table has no overlapping micro-partitions. This is an optimal scenario, indicating that the table's data is well-clustered according to the specified clustering keys. Well-clustered data can lead to more efficient query performance, as it reduces the amount of data scanned during query execution and improves the effectiveness of data pruning.

References:

Snowflake Documentation on Clustering: Understanding Clustering Depth