SNOWPRO™ CORE
EXAM STUDY GUIDE
Last Updated: April 26th, 2021
SNOWPRO™ STUDY GUIDE OVERVIEW
This is a self-learning study guide which highlights concepts that may be covered on
Snowflake’s SnowPro™ Core Certification exams.
This study guide does not guarantee certification success.
For an overview and more information on the SnowPro™ Core Certification exam or
SnowPro™ Advanced Certification series, please navigate here.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
SNOWPRO™ STUDY GUIDE OVERVIEW ......................................................................................... 1
SNOWPRO CORE SUBJECT AREA BREAKDOWN........................................................................ 3
CORE PREREQUISITE KNOWLEDGE ................................................................................................ 3
RECOMMENDATIONS AND USING THE GUIDE.............................................................................. 4
SNOWFLAKE OVERVIEW & ARCHITECTURE ................................................................................ 5
SNOWFLAKE PRICING & REGIONS ............................................................................................... 6
SNOWFLAKE ARCHITECTURE ....................................................................................................... 6
INTERFACES & CONNECTIVITY .................................................................................................... 6
CATALOG & OBJECTS ...................................................................................................................... 7
DATA SHARING.................................................................................................................................. 7
SNOWFLAKE VIRTUAL WAREHOUSES ............................................................................................ 8
COMPUTE ............................................................................................................................................ 8
SNOWFLAKE STORAGE AND PROTECTION ................................................................................... 8
STORAGE ............................................................................................................................................. 8
CONTINUOUS DATA PROTECTION ............................................................................................... 8
SNOWFLAKE DATA MOVEMENT........................................................................................................ 9
DATA LOADING ................................................................................................................................. 9
DATA UNLOADING ........................................................................................................................... 9
SEMI-STRUCTURED DATA .................................................................................................................. 10
SNOWFLAKE PERFORMANCE & TUNING ..................................................................................... 10
PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT .................................................................................................. 10
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SNOWFLAKE ACCOUNT AND SECURITY ....................................................................................... 10
ACCOUNT MANAGEMENT ............................................................................................................ 10
SECURITY .......................................................................................................................................... 11
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SNOWPRO CORE SUBJECT AREA BREAKDOWN
Snowflake Overview and Architecture: 28%
Snowflake Virtual Warehouses: 18%
Snowflake Storage and Protection: 15%
Data Movement (Loading and Unloading): 14%
Snowflake Account and Security: 12%
Snowflake Performance and Tuning: 9%
Semi-Structured: 4%
The scope and content of future exams will evolve, and these questions may not reflect updated topics, or the level
of detail called upon for future exams and are provided for informational purposes only.
CORE PREREQUISITE KNOWLEDGE
The exam does not cover cloud fundamentals or basics of SQL syntax, but some questions on the
exam assume knowledge of these concepts. If you need to brush up on these concepts, search
through some computer science textbooks or do some light internet searching.
Database Basic Concepts
Basic Terminologies Related to Database and SQL
Tables & Data Types
Selecting & Manipulating Data
Views, Store Procedures, Function Concepts
Security (Authentication & Authorization)
Basics of Cloud Fundamentals
Types of Cloud Computing & Benefits
Types of Cloud Services
Cloud Computing Architecture (Storage & Compute)
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RECOMMENDATIONS AND USING THE GUIDE
This guide will show the Snowflake topics covered on the exam, each topic will be hyperlinked
to their location in the Snowflake Documentation where you can review the topic in more depth.
Following the topics will be additional resources consisting of videos, documents, blogs or
exercises to help you fully understand Snowflake.
Estimated length of study guide: 8 – 12 hours
Some links may have more value than others, dependent on your experience, same amount of
time should not be spent on each link.
The first section focuses on what Snowflake is (pg. 5): Recommended starting place for
individuals new to Snowflake.
The middle section focuses on Snowflake functionality (pg. 6 – pg. 8): Recommended
starting place for individuals who understand Snowflake but need to confirm fine grain
details.
The last section focuses on Snowflake features (pg. 9- pg. 17): Recommended starting
place for individuals who understand Snowflake and have hands-on-experience with
Snowflake.
Prior to reviewing the study guide, please make sure you have the following setup and can access
the following:
o Snowflake University (using your Community log in)
o Snowflake 30-day free trial Account for Hands-On Lab
o Hands-On Lab Guide for Snowflake Free Trial
o Download .sql file required for the Hands-On Lab
Throughout the guide, we’ll refer to module exercises within the Hands-On Lab guide and link to
Snowflake University on-demand videos. If you are new to Snowflake, please go through all the
Snowflake Getting Started steps and complete the Hands-On Lab prior to using this exam guide.
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SNOWFLAKE OVERVIEW & ARCHITECTURE
Below is a list of various documents, videos and training videos to help get you up to Snowflake
speed:
Snowflake Company Overview
o Snowflake Website
o About Snowflake
o Meet the Two Guys Who Built the #1 Cloud Data Platform (Video)
o What is Snowflake? 8 Minute Demo (Video)
o Intro to the Cloud Data Platform (Video)
o Reinventing the Data Warehouse (Video)
o Introduction to Snowflake Cloud Data Platform (Video)
o Snowflake University, LevelUp: Snowflake’s Key Concepts
How Snowflake is Different
o Introduction to Snowflake - Key Concepts & Architecture
o Snowflake Getting Started Documentation
o Getting Started with Snowflake – Key Concepts (Video)
o Before You Begin
o See Snowflake in 8 Minutes (Video)
Snowflake Editions & Deployments
o Snowflake University, LevelUp: Snowflake Account Options & Assurances
o Technology Partners - Amazon Web Services
o Technology Partners - Microsoft Azure
o Technology Partners - Google Cloud Platform
o Snowflake Regions
o Snowflake Editions
Key Features
o Overview of Key Features
o Introduction to Semi-Structured Data
o Bringing Together Structured and Semi-Structured Data (Video)
o Semi-Structured Data Types
o Querying Semi-Structured Data
o Continuous Data Protection
o Snowflake Fast Clone
o A Quick Look at Zero-copy Cloning (Video)
o Cloning in Snowflake (Video)
o Using Persisted Query Results
o Accelerating BI Queries with Caching in Snowflake (Video)
o Top 10 Cool Snowflake Features, #10: Snowflake Query Result Sets Available to
Users via History
o Sharing Data in Snowflake
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SNOWFLAKE PRICING & REGIONS
You should understand the differences between Snowflake Editions, pricing and regions:
Snowflake Editions & Pricing
Snowflake Regions
SNOWFLAKE ARCHITECTURE
You should understand Snowflake’s unique multi-cluster, shared data and the three distinct
layers:
Database Storage
Query Processing
Cloud Services
Additional Resources:
Snowflake University, LevelUp: Snowflake’s Three Layer Design (Document + Quiz)
Snowflake Architecture, Cloud Services (Video)
Fundamental Data Warehouse Architecture (Paper)
INTERFACES & CONNECTIVITY
You should understand a good sense of Snowflake’s WebUI and the Connector Ecosystem:
Snowflake WebInterface (UI)
The Snowflake UI is accessed via a URL dedicated to a specific Snowflake Account
Note: If the account uses Private Link, the account name requires an additional Private Link segment.
SnowSQL (CLI)
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Connector Ecosystem
Partner Connector Ecosystem
Exercise:
Hands-on Lab Guide for Snowflake
Module 1: Prepare your Lab Environment
Module 2: The Snowflake User Interface & Lab “Story”
Additional Resources:
Quick Tour of the Web Interface (Document + Video)
User Interface Quick Tour (Video)
Snowflake University, Badge Workshop 1: Data Warehousing (Project work + video)
Snowflake University, Level Up: Snowflake Ecosystem (Document + quiz)
Getting Started on Snowflake with Partner Connect (Video)
CATALOG & OBJECTS
You should understand and know Snowflake Catalog & Objects
Database & Schema
Tables
Views
Data Types
DATA SHARING
You should understand the following about Snowflake Data Sharing:
Sharing Configuration & Access Control options
Secure Data Sharing
Providers, Consumers & Reader Accounts
Creating & Managing Shares
Exercise:
Hands-on Lab Guide for Snowflake
Module 9: Data Sharing
Additional Resources:
Data Sharing for Dummies (eBook)
Level Up – Snowflake Data Marketplace (Video + Quiz)
Snowflake Workloads Explained: Data Sharing (Video)
Stephanie Stillman Data Sharing (Video)
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Snowflake University – Level Up – Snowflake Data Marketplace (Video + Quiz)
Snowflake University - Badge Workshop 2: Data Sharing (Course + project work)
SNOWFLAKE VIRTUAL WAREHOUSES
COMPUTE
You should understand the following Snowflake concepts about Compute:
Warehouses & Types
Warehouse Sizing & Scaling
Credit Usage
Warehouse Management
Warehouse Caching
Warehouse Monitoring
Additional Resources:
Tackling High Concurrency with Multi-Cluster Warehouses (Video)
Snowflake University, LevelUp: Query & Result (Video + Quiz)
Snowflake Workloads Explained: Data Warehouse (Video)
Managing Snowflake’s Compute Resources (Blog)
SNOWFLAKE STORAGE AND PROTECTION
STORAGE
You should understand the following Snowflake concepts about Storage:
Micro partitions
Metadata
Clustering
Data Storages – Cost & Retention
Table Types, File Formats
Storage Monitoring
Additional Resources:
Meta Data Archiving with Snowflake (Blog)
Snowflake University, Level Up: Container Hierarchy (Document + quiz)
Top 10 Cool Snowflake Features, #7: Snowflake Fast Clone (Blog + video)
CONTINUOUS DATA PROTECTION
You should understand the following about Continuous Data Protection with Snowflake:
Time Travel, Fail Safe
Data Encryption
Security – Network policies
Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA)
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Federated Authentication & SSO
Exercise:
Hands-on Lab Guide for Snowflake
Module 7: Using Time Travel
Additional Resources:
Snowflake Continuous Data Protection (White Paper)
Snowflake University, Level Up: Backup and Recovery (Document + quiz)
How to Make Data Protection and High Availability for Analytics Fast and Easy (Blog)
SNOWFLAKE DATA MOVEMENT
DATA LOADING
You should understand how to load data (COPY vs INSERT) and Snowflake’s offerings:
Stages, file format, pipe
Bulk Load using COPY
Loading Consideration & Load Management
Continuous Load Options – Snowpipe
Error handling & Troubleshooting
Exercise:
Hands-on Lab Guide for Snowflake
Module 3: Preparing to Load Data
Module 4: Loading Data
Additional Resources:
Getting Started - Introduction to Databases and Querying (Video)
How to Load Terabytes into Snowflake - Speeds, Feeds and Techniques (Blog)
Snowflake University, Level Up: Data Loading (Document + quiz)
Building and Deploying Continuous Data Pipelines (Video)
DATA UNLOADING
You should understand data can be unloaded from Snowflake to either local storage or cloud
storage locations:
Unloading data from Snowflake to External Cloud Storage (S3,GCS,AZURE BLOB)
Unloading data from Snowflake to Internal Snowflake Storage
Unloading data from Snowflake to Local / Network Drive
Data Unloading Considerations
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SEMI-STRUCTURED DATA
You should understand best practices to load and store semi-structured data and the types
supported with Snowflake:
Different Formats, Variant Table Type
Native Syntax, Flattening DATA
Hands-on Lab Guide for Snowflake
Module 6: Working with Semi-Structured Data
Additional Resources:
Best Practices for Using Tableau with Snowflake (White Paper)
Easily Loading and Analyzing Semi-Structured Data in Snowflake (Video)
SNOWFLAKE PERFORMANCE & TUNING
PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT
You should understand best practices for Snowflake performance management and
troubleshooting:
Query Performance & Analysis
SQL optimization
Load Testing
Clustering & Materialized Views
Query Profile
Caching
Additional Resources:
Using Materialized Views to Solve Multi-Clustering Performance Problems (blog)
Snowflake Materialized Views: A Fast, Zero-Maintenance Accurate Solution (blog)
Snowflake University, Level Up: Caching (Video + Quiz)
SNOWFLAKE ACCOUNT AND SECURITY
ACCOUNT MANAGEMENT
You should have an understand the following Snowflake Account Management concepts:
Managing Your Snowflake Account
WAREHOUSE & Storage credit usage
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Materialized Views
Auto /Re Clustering
DR & Replication
Information Schema
Differences Between Account Usage and Information Schema
Exercises:
Hands-on Lab Guide for Snowflake
Module 8: Role Based Access Controls and Account Admin
Additional Resources:
Snowflake Community Administering Snowflake Guide
SECURITY
You should understand Snowflake uses role-based security and that roles are the entities to
which privileges can be granted and revoked:
Access Control
Role Hierarchy and Privilege Inheritance
Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA)
Data Encryption
Network Security & Policies
Federated Authentication & SSO
Snowflake Editions
Exercises:
Hands-on Lab Guide for Snowflake
Module 8: Role Based Access Controls and Account Admin
Additional Resources:
Snowflake Security Overview (Video)
Data Protection with Time Travel in Snowflake (Video)
Crucial Security Controls for Your Cloud Data Warehouse (Video)
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The information provided in this guide is provided for your internal purposes only and may not be
provided to third parties.
IN ADDITION, THIS STUDY GUIDE IS PROVIDED “AS IS”. NEITHER SNOWFLAKE NOR
ITS SUPPLIERS MAKES ANY OTHER WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED,
STATUTORY OR OTHERWISE, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF
MERCHANTABILITY, TITLE, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE OR
NONINFRINGEMENT.
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