Snowflake connection

To access your data in Snowflake, create a connection asset for it.

Snowflake is a cloud-based data storage and analytics service.

Create a connection to Snowflake

To create the connection asset, you need the following connection details:

  • Account name: The full name of your account
  • Database name
  • Role: The default access control role to use in the Snowflake session
  • Warehouse: The virtual warehouse

Credentials

Authentication method:

  • Username and password

  • Key-Pair: Enter the contents of the private key and the key passphrase (if configured). These properties must be set up by the Snowflake administrator. For more information, see Key Pair Authentication & Key Pair Rotation in the Snowflake documentation.

  • Okta URL endpoint: If your company uses native Okta SSO authentication, enter the Okta URL endpoint for your Okta account. Example: https://<okta_account_name>.okta.com. Leave this field blank if you want to use the default authentication of Snowflake. For information about federated authentication provided by Okta, see Native SSO.

For Credentials, you can use secrets if a vault is configured for the platform and the service supports vaults. For information, see Using secrets from vaults in connections.

Choose the method for creating a connection based on where you are in the platform

In a project
Click Assets > New asset > Data access tools > Connection. See Adding a connection to a project.
In a catalog
Click Add to catalog > Connection. See Adding a connection asset to a catalog.
In a deployment space
Click Add to space > Connection. See Adding connections to a deployment space.
In the Platform assets catalog
Click New connection. For more information, see Adding platform connections.

Next step: Add data assets from the connection

Where you can use this connection

You can use Snowflake connections in the following workspaces and tools:

Projects

  • AutoAI (Watson Machine Learning)

  • Cognos Dashboards (Cognos Dashboards service)

  • Data quality rules (Watson Knowledge Catalog)

  • Data Refinery (Watson Studio or Watson Knowledge Catalog)

  • DataStage (DataStage service). For more information, see Connecting to a data source in DataStage.

  • Metadata enrichment (Watson Knowledge Catalog)

  • Metadata import (Watson Knowledge Catalog). For information about the supported product versions and other prerequisites when connections are based on MANTA Automated Data Lineage for IBM Cloud Pak for Data scanners, see the Lineage Scanner Configuration section in the MANTA Automated Data Lineage on IBM Cloud Pak for Data Installation and Usage Manual. This documentation is available at https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/node/6597457.

    For metadata import (lineage), advanced metadata import must be enabled and a MANTA Automated Data Lineage license key must be installed. See Installing Watson Knowledge Catalog, Installing MANTA Automated Data Lineage, and Enabling lineage import.

  • Notebooks (Watson Studio). Click Read data on the Code snippets pane to get the connection credentials and load the data into a data structure. For more information, see Load data from data source connections.

  • SPSS Modeler (SPSS Modeler service)

Catalogs

  • Platform assets catalog

  • Other catalogs (Watson Knowledge Catalog)

Watson Query service
You can connect to this data source from Watson Query. This connection requires special consideration in Watson Query. For more information, see Connecting to Snowflake in Watson Query.

Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS) compliance

The Snowflake connection is compliant with FIPS.

Snowflake setup

General Configuration

Running SQL statements

To ensure that your SQL statements run correctly, refer to the Snowflake SQL Command Reference for the correct syntax.

Learn more

Snowflake in 20 Minutes

Parent topic: Supported connections