Snowflake

Snowflake is a cloud-hosted relational database for building data warehouse.

You can configure Snowflake using one of the following methods:

Create new connection – If you select the Create new connection tab, refer to the Create new connection - configuration details table to provide configuration details.
Import from database – You can import connection details from an existing database in the data platform. If you select the Import from database tab, refer to the Import from database - configuration details table to provide configuration details.
Import from project – You can import connection details from an existing project in the data platform. If you select Import from project, refer to the Import from project - configuration details table to provide configuration details.

Important: The Import from database and Import from project features are limited to the same cluster. databases or projects created in a different cluster within the data platform cannot be imported.

Create new connection - configuration details

Crete new connection - configuration details
Field	Description
Target persistence	Select the target persistence: Watsonx.data instance - The instance console database stores the connection details exclusively. Platform asset database - The default database in the data platform stores your connection details. If you select `Platform asset database` as the target persistence, you must specify a warehouse name. You can enable the Platform asset database option only if data platform services are active, a Platform asset database exists in the data platform, and you have access to it.
Display name	Enter the data source name to be displayed on the screen.
Database name	Enter the name of your database.
Account name	Enter your Snowflake Account name. This may include region information (For example, account_name.region_id). If you do not have region information, use the account name that is provided by your Snowflake administrator.
Warehouse name (optional)	Enter the Warehouse name.
Username	Enter the username.
Password	Enter the password.
Connection status	Click the Test connection link to test the database connection. If the database connection is successful, a success message appears.
Name	Enter the name of the database associated with your data source and serves as your query interface with the data stored within.
Create	Click Create to create the data source.

Import from database - configuration details

Import from database - configuration details
Field	Description
Select database	Use the dropdown to select a database.
Select data source	Use the dropdown to select a data source from the selected database.
Target persistence	Select the target persistence: Watsonx.data instance - The instance console database stores the connection details exclusively. Platform asset database - The default database in the data platform stores your connection details. You can select the `Platform asset database` option only if data platform services are active, a Platform asset database exists in the data platform, and you have access to it.
Connection status	Click the Test connection link to test the database connection. If the database connection is successful, a success message appears.
Display name	Enter the database name to be displayed on the screen.
Name	Enter the name of the database associated with your data source and serves as your query interface with the data stored within.
Create	Click Create to create the database.

Import from project - configuration details

Import from project - configuration details
Field	Description
Select project	Use the dropdown to select a project.
Select data source	Use the dropdown to select a data source from the selected project.
Target persistence	Select the target persistence: Watsonx.data instance - The instance console database stores the connection details exclusively. Platform asset database - The default database in the data platform stores your connection details. You can select the `Platform asset database` option only if data platform services are active, a Platform asset database exists in the data platform, and you have access to it.
Connection status	Click the Test connection link to test the database connection. If the database connection is successful, a success message appears.
Display name	Enter the database name to be displayed on the screen.
Name	Enter the name of the database associated with your data source and serves as your query interface with the data stored within.
Create	Click Create to create the database.

Limitations for SQL statements

CREATE TABLE AS is also supported for CREATE TABLE statement.
DROP TABLE statement only when enabled in the database.
For data source-based databases the CREATE SCHEMA, CREATE TABLE, DROP SCHEMA, DROP TABLE, DELETE, DROP VIEW, ALTER TABLE, and ALTER SCHEMA statements are not available in the Metastore UI.

Limitations for data types

BLOB and CLOB data types support SELECT statement but do not support operations such as equal, like, and in.
The data that is shown from the UI for BLOB data type is in Base64 format, while the result from presto-cli is in hexadecimal format.
BINARY data type supports only SELECT statement.
When the fields of data type REAL have 6 digits or more in the decimal part with the digits being predominately zero, the values when queried are rounded off. It is observed that the rounding off occurs differently based on the precision of the values. For example, a decimal number 1.654 when rounded to 3-digits after the decimal point are the same. Another example is 10.890009 and 10.89000. It is noticed that 10.89000 is rounded to 10.89, whereas 10.89009 is not rounded off. This is an inherent issue because of the representational limitations of binary floating point formats. This might have a significant impact when querying involves sorting.