Snowflake ADA-C01 Exam - Topic 4 Question 3 Discussion

According to the Snowflake documentation1, a multi-cluster warehouse is a virtual warehouse that consists of multiple clusters of compute resources that can scale up or down automatically to handle the concurrency and performance needs of the queries submitted to the warehouse. A multi-cluster warehouse has a minimum and maximum number of clusters that can be specified by the administrator. Option B is the most efficient way to support the group of users, as it allows the administrator to create a multi-cluster warehouse with MIN_CLUSTERS set to 2, which means that the warehouse will always have two clusters running to handle the standard workload. The warehouse can also auto-scale up to the maximum number of clusters (which can be set according to the peak workload) when there is a spike in demand, and then scale down when the demand decreases. The warehouse can also auto-resume and auto-suspend, which means that the warehouse will automatically start when a query is submitted and automatically stop after a period of inactivity. The administrator can also give USAGE privileges to the ANALYST role, which means that the users can use the warehouse to execute queries and load data, but not modify or operate the warehouse. Option A is not efficient, as it requires the users to manually start and stop the warehouse, and increase the number of clusters as needed, which can be time-consuming and error-prone. Option C is not efficient, as it creates a standard X-Large warehouse, which is equivalent to four small clusters, which may be more than needed for the standard workload, and may not be enough for the peak workload. Option D is not efficient, as it creates four virtual warehouses of different sizes, which can be confusing and cumbersome for the users to select the appropriate warehouse based on how many queries are being run, and may also result in wasted resources and costs.