M2.12 module quiz
Ten questions. 80% to pass (8 of 10). Open book, unlimited retakes.
Answers are collapsed under each question. Answer first, then check.
Q1
Snowflake connects to ZopNight as:
A. A standalone connection on every cloud, with the cloud derived from the account identifier
B. A credential on the underlying cloud account that actually hosts the deployment
C. A Databricks-style workspace connection, standalone on AWS
D. A generic API integration with a base URL and token
Show answer
Correct: A. Azure Databricks is the exception that makes this confusing: that one rides the Azure subscription. Snowflake never does, on any cloud.
Q2
The four parented Snowflake resource types are:
A. warehouse, database, user, resource-monitor
B. table, materialized-view, stage, pipe
C. account, warehouse, database, user
D. Only tables
Show answer
Correct: B. All four parent to their database with the schema folded into the UID, which keeps the hierarchy two levels deep in an account with thousands of tables.
Q3
A Snowflake warehouse’s compute cost is:
A. Instance-hours multiplied by a fixed hourly rate
B. A flat monthly fee per warehouse created
C. Per query executed against the warehouse
D. Credits consumed times the per-edition credit rate
Show answer
Correct: D. Credits are consumed only while the warehouse is running, which is the mental-model shift from the rest of the curriculum: an idle auto-suspended warehouse costs nothing.
Q4
Each step up the warehouse size ladder:
A. Adds a fixed increment of credits
B. Roughly doubles the credits per hour
C. Halves the credits burned per hour
D. Has no effect on the credit burn
Show answer
Correct: B. So sizing up saves money only when doubling the size more than halves the runtime. A query going from 60s to 35s on a doubled warehouse costs about 1.17× as much.
Q5
Which Snowflake resource types are schedulable?
A. Warehouses only
B. Every discovered type
C. Warehouses, databases and pipes
D. Warehouses and resource monitors
Show answer
Correct: A. Nothing else has a power state. Cost control on the other eight types runs through retention, transient tables, clustering and search-optimization settings.
Q6
A Snowflake warehouse Stop is:
A. Terminal, exactly like a Databricks cluster stop
B. A scale-to-zero that keeps the warehouse allocated
C. A reversible SUSPEND; Resume restores the same warehouse
D. A deletion, requiring the warehouse to be recreated
Show answer
Correct: C. Which makes warehouse scheduling a comfortable first action: the worst realistic outcome of a badly-chosen window is a warehouse that resumes on the next query, or a failed query if AUTO_RESUME is off, not a destroyed resource.
Q7
A warehouse with tight auto-suspend and AUTO_RESUME on is suspended by a ZopNight schedule at 20:00. A stray query arrives at 03:00. What happens?
A. The query fails because the schedule refuses the resume
B. ZopNight holds the query until the next scheduled start
C. ZopNight suspends the warehouse again as the query starts
D. Snowflake auto-resumes the warehouse and runs the query
Show answer
Correct: D. ZopNight’s Stop issues a SUSPEND and does not change AUTO_RESUME, so any query wakes the warehouse. To genuinely close the window, set AUTO_RESUME = FALSE on the warehouse in Snowflake yourself; ZopNight’s scheduled Start still resumes it explicitly.
Q8
Snowflake recommendations are:
A. Native rules on the same interface as AWS rules
B. Not available; Snowflake has no rules
C. Served by a separate capability-catalog engine
D. Split between two engines running side by side
Show answer
Correct: A. The catalog-driven engine that once served Snowflake was removed, and its coverage was ported to twenty native rules, RC-2100 to RC-2119, on the same rule interface as every other provider. The findings are cost and governance only; there is no Snowflake security family.
Q9
Four of the fifteen advisory Snowflake rules are guardrails with no dollar figure. The right treatment is:
A. Dismiss them as unpriceable
B. Act on them anyway; they bound the worst case
C. Wait until they show a saving
D. Route them across to the security team instead
Show answer
Correct: B. Auto-suspend, statement timeout, resource monitor and tags. Only five Snowflake rules are priced (idle warehouse, oversized warehouse, auto-clustering, search optimization, materialized-view refresh). On a credit model a single runaway query on an oversized warehouse can burn a month’s budget in a weekend, and these are what bound that.
Q10
Reconciling ZopNight’s Snowflake figure against the customer’s own is easier than on AWS because:
A. Snowflake bills monthly rather than daily
B. Snowflake offers no commitment discounts
C. Both sides read the same account-usage views
D. ZopNight ingests the Snowflake invoice directly
Show answer
Correct: C. A disagreement narrows quickly to edition rate, window, or a compute-versus-storage scope difference, where an AWS reconciliation has to reason about amortization, credits and unattributed line items.
What’s next
Back to Snowflake.