SNOWPRO™ ADVANCED: ARCHITECT

EXAM STUDY GUIDE

Last Updated: April 26th, 2021
SNOWPRO™ STUDY GUIDE OVERVIEW

This study guide highlights concepts that may be covered on Snowflake’s SnowPro™ Advanced:
Architect Certification exam.

This document introduces relevant information that may appear on the SnowPro Advanced:
Architect Exam. This document should serve as an introduction to the knowledge and skills
required to guide your preparation. The material contained within this study guide is not intended
to guarantee a passing score on any Snowflake certification exam.

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 ADVANCED: ARCHIECT CERTIFICATIONS OVERVIEW ......................2

SNOWPRO ADVANCED, ARCHITECT SUBJECT AREA BREAKDOWN ....................2

ADVANCED: ARCHITECT PREREQUISITE KNOWLEDGE .............................................3

RECOMMENDATIONS AND USING THE GUIDE ................................................................4

STEPS TO SUCCESS ..............................................................................................................4

SNOWPRO ADVANCED: ARCHITECT DOMAINS & OBJECTIVES ...............................5

1.0 Domain: Account and Security ...........................................................................................5

2.0 Domain: Connectors & Drivers ..........................................................................................5
3.0 Domain: Data Movement ...................................................................................................5
4.0 Domain: Data Sharing ........................................................................................................6
5.0 Domain: Performance and Tuning......................................................................................6
6.0 Domain: Snowflake Overview & Architecture ..................................................................7
7.0 Domain: Storage and Protection .........................................................................................8

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SNOWPRO ADVANCED: ARCHIECT CERTIFICATIONS OVERVIEW

The SnowPro™ Advanced: Architect is designed for individuals who would like to demonstrate
their knowledge and skills in Snowflake's unique architecture as a Cloud Data Platform
specifically with Data Movement, Performance, Security, Agile Development and Data Sharing
design considerations.

The candidate should be able to:

• Develop a methodology for performance tuning

• Design a comprehensive program for ensuring user, network & data security

• Evaluate Snowflakes advanced architectural concepts

• Employ strategies and best practices for agile development

• Discuss Snowflakes various ingestion methods

Target Audience:

• Solution Architects

• Database Architects

SNOWPRO ADVANCED, ARCHITECT SUBJECT AREA BREAKDOWN

This exam guide includes test domains, weightings, and objectives. It is not a
comprehensive listing of all the content that will be presented on this examination. The
table below lists the main content domains and their weighting ranges.

Domain Estimated Percentage Range

Account and Security 5 - 10%

Connectors & Drivers 3 - 5%

Data Movement 20 - 25%

Data Sharing 8 - 10%

Performance and Tuning 15 -20%

Snowflake Overview & Architecture 25 - 30%

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 Storage and Protection 5 - 10%

ADVANCED: ARCHITECT PREREQUISITE

Eligible individuals must hold an active SnowPro Core Certified credential. If you feel you
need more guidance on the fundamentals, please see the SnowPro Core Study guide.

Recommended for examinees to have at least 2 years of hands-on practical

Snowflake implementation experience prior to attempting the Advanced:
Architect exam.

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RECOMMENDATIONS AND USING THE GUIDE

This guide will show the Snowflake topics and subtopics covered on the exam. Following
the topics will be additional resources consisting of videos, documentation, blogs,
and/or exercises to help you understand architecting on Snowflake.

Estimated length of study guide: 10 – 13 hours

STEPS TO SUCCESS

1. Review Exam Guide

2. Attend Snowflake’s Instructor Led Advanced Course
3. Review and study applicable white papers and documentation
4. Get hands-on practical experience with relevant business requirements using
Snowflake
5. Attend Snowflake Webinars
6. Attend Snowflake Virtual Hands-on Labs for more hands-on practical experience
7. Schedule your exam
8. Take your exam!

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SNOWPRO ADVANCED: ARCHITECT DOMAINS & OBJECTIVES

1.0 Domain: Account and Security

1.1 Account
Understanding account parameter and the impact of settings

1.2 Security
• Explain the access control framework.
• Required privileges for tasks, shares, statements to research Roles Based Access
Control structures
• Role Hierarchy and Privilege Inheritance

Study Resources
Architecture Pattern: Security – Access to Sensitive Objects (Lab Guide)
Architecture Pattern: Security – Authentication (Lab Guide)
Architecture Pattern: Security – Network (Lab Guide)
Cloud Data Platform Security: How Snowflake Sets the Standard (Whitepaper)
Managing your Snowflake Account (Documentation)
Managing Security in Snowflake (Documentation)

2.0 Domain: Connectors & Drivers

2.1 Connectors
• Kafka
o Basic configuration and access privileges for the Kafka connector

2.2 Drivers
• Identifying the various client drivers available to connect to Snowflake

Study Resources
Schema of Topics for Kafka Topics (Documentation)
Workflow for the Kafka Connector (Documentation)
Easy Continuous Data Pipelines with GA of Streams and Tasks (blog)
IOT Reference Architecture (Use Case)
Application Health and Security Analytics Reference Architecture (Use Case)
Connecting to Snowflake (Documentation)

3.0 Domain: Data Movement

3.1 Data Loading & Data Unloading

List best practices and the impact of different scenarios
o Formats
o File number

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 o File size
o Warehouse sizes

3.2 Continuous Data Loads Using Snowpipe

Outline how Snowpipe is different from Bulk Data loading
SQL syntax to create a pipe

3.3 Streams & Tasks

Working with Streams and Tasks
o Limitations
o Rest API endpoints
o Billing
SQL Syntax to create and clone a Stream and Task

Study Resources
Auto-Ingest Twitter Data into Snowflake (Lab Guide)
Build a Recommendation Engine with AWS SageMaker (Lab Guide)
Getting Started with Snowpipe (Lab Guide)
Snowflake for Data Engineering- Easily Ingest, Transform, and Deliver Data for Up-To-The
Moment Insights (Whitepaper)
Loading Data Into Snowflake (Documentation)
Unloading Data From Snowflake (Documentation)
Continuous Data Pipelines (Documentation)
Using Streams and Tasks in Snowflake (Blog)

4.0 Domain: Data Sharing

4.1 Data sharing

Capabilities of data sharing

4.2 Shares
Create and configure shares
Privileges required to work with shares

4.3 Secure views

Study Resources
Automating Data Pipeline to Drive Marketing Analytics with Snowflake & Fivetran (Lab Guide)
Customer 360 Reference Architecture (Use Case)
The Rise of Data Exchanges Frictionless Integration of Third-Party Data (Whitepaper)
Sharing Data Securely in Snowflake (Documentation)

5.0 Domain: Performance and Tuning

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 5.1 Clustering
Outline clustering best practices and appropriate usage
o Evaluate overlap and depth
o Data types
o Cardinality
o Policies
o Auto-clustering

5.2 Materialized Views

Outline the benefits of Materialized view, the corresponding properties,
downsides, and limitations
Identify use-cases when Materialized views should be used
Explain the use-case for Materialized views with External Tables

5.3 Query Profiles & Tuning

Retrieve and interpret query profiles, identify bottlenecks, and outline
recommendations
Given a scenario, determine methods to cut down query processing time
Outline caching

5.4 Warehouse
Identify performance guidelines and best practices for using warehouses in
Snowflake to process queries
Using Warehouses to optimize query performance

5.5 ACCOUNT_USAGE Views

Study Resources
Resource Optimization: Billing Metrics (Lab Guide)
Resource Optimization: Performance (Lab Guide)
Resource Optimization: Setup & Configuration (Lab Guide)
Resource Optimization: Usage Monitoring (Lab Guide)
Databases, Tables, and Views (Documentation)
Virtual Warehouses (Documentation)
Queries (Documentation)

6.0 Domain: Snowflake Overview & Architecture

6.1 Snowflake Architecture

Outline key components of Snowflake’s architecture
o Layers
o Caches
Differentiate Snowflake and other paradigms
o Shared disk
o Shared nothing
Snowflake’s securable object hierarchy

6.2 SQL Syntax

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 Querying metadata
o Stage
o Cluster information
o Timestamps
o Identifiers
o Data types

Study Resources
Query Syntax (Documentation)

7.0 Domain: Storage and Protection

7.1 Time Travel

Define Time Travel feature
o Data retention periods
o Differences between Snowflake Editions
o Querying historical data
o Impact of cloning and restoring objects
o Underlying Storage concepts
Snowflake’s Continuous Data Protection Lifecycle
7.2 Data Replication and Failover
Explain Replication and outline features
o Cross cloud
o Cross region
o Objects that are replicated
How it can be used for Business Continuity

7.3 Clones
Working with clones
Creating new tables
Compare command usage
o Create table like
o Create table as select
o Clone
o Copy grants

7.4 Semi-Structured Data

Working with semi-structured data

Study Resources
Masking Semi-Structed Data with Snowflake (blog)
Getting Started with Time Travel (Lab Guide)
Snowflake Time Travel and Fail-Safe (Documentation)
Database Replication and Failover/Failback (Documentation)
Cloning Considerations (Documentation)
Semi-Structured Data (Documentation)
Querying Semi-Structured Data (Documentation)

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 Semi-Structured Data Types (Documentation)

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