Hamid Mahmood Qureshi - Snowflake SnowPro Core Certification Study Guide

1. Chapter 1
2. Chapter 6
3. Chapter 8
4. Chapter 10

1. Chapter 1
2. Chapter 2
3. Chapter 3
4. Chapter 4
5. Chapter 5
6. Chapter 6
7. Chapter 7
8. Chapter 8
9. Chapter 9
10. Chapter 10

Hamid Mahmood Qureshi

Copyright 2022 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey.

Published simultaneously in Canada.

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To my wife and my children, who have provided support and encouragement throughout the strenuous process of writing this book.

Although this book lists my name as author, it would not be in its current form without the absolutely amazing team that contributed to its creation. Acquisitions Editor Devon Cajas got the wheels rolling on this book. Janet Wehner served as project manager, supported by Managing Editor Pete Gaughan and Saravanan Dakshinamurthy, content refinement specialist. Special thanks to the technical editor, Hassaan Sajid, who reviewed each chapter for content, structure, and technical correctness; Nancy Carrasco, who proofread and corrected many of my writing shortcomings; and Christopher Marland, who reviewed the book technically for correctness. Special thanks to all the other people who contributed to this book.

Hamid Mahmood Qureshi is a Senior Cloud and Datawarehouse Professional with two decades of experience architecting, designing, and leading the deployment of many data warehouses and business intelligence solutions. He has substantial experience and qualifications with various data analytics systems, including Teradata, Oracle, Hadoop, and modern cloud-based tools like Snowflake. Having worked extensively with traditional technologies. combined with his knowledge of modern platforms, he has accumulated substantial practical expertise in data warehousing and analytics, which he has captured in his publications.

Hassaan Sajid has 13 years of experience in data warehousing and business intelligence (BI/DW) in the retail, telecommunications, banking, insurance, and government sectors. He is currently working at Coles Australia, where his role as a senior technical analyst enables the business to understand the power and value of data. In the past, he has worked with various clients in Australia, UAE, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and the United States in multiple BI/DW roles including BI architect, BI developer, ETL developer, data modeler, operations analyst, data analyst, and technical trainer. He holds a master's degree in business intelligence and is a Professional Scrum Master. He is also certified in Snowflake, MicroStrategy, Tableau, Power BI, and Teradata. His hobbies include reading, traveling, and photography.

Why should you learn Snowflake? Over the last few years, Snowflake has become increasingly popular with data-led organizations and data enthusiasts. Snowflake is a data warehousing and data analysis platform built for the cloud and has been built from scratch to take full advantage of cloud features. It provides several novel features that changes how you work with data platforms.

With its increasing popularity, learning Snowflake means you increase your standing in the job market. Even if you are already knowledgeable in one or more data warehousing platforms, understanding Snowflake will give you an edge when searching for a new job or aiming for a promotion. Snowflake does not have a steep learning curve because of its simplicity and its use of SQL as the primary language. Once you have grasped the foundations of Snowflake architecture, the rest of the learning naturally flows.

Snowflake has a range of certifications available. SnowPro Core certification is at the foundation level, while other role-specific advanced certifications are also available for focused areas such as data engineering, administration, or data science on the Snowflake platform. The SnowPro Core certification is a prerequisite for the advanced certifications; therefore, it's a good way to kick-start your Snowflake journey.

This book aims to help you pass the SnowPro Core exam. This exam covers all the foundational concepts, such as Snowflake architecture, virtual warehouses, storage, security, Time Travel, cloning, data sharing, and data loading. These topics are emphasized in this book to help you prepare for the exam. Even after you pass the SnowPro Core exam, this book should remain a useful reference for you.