page22
2
In this book you will learn to develop tools and techniques based upon sound,
proven, real-life scenarios. I use these tools and techniques daily, and as you become
familiar with them, I hope you will too.
Performance tuning needs to be a continual activity. Data profiles change over
time, and
INSERT
,
UPDATE
, and
DELETE
operations can cause skewed data where the
distribution of data within a table or database becomes increasingly imbalanced or
uneven. The impact of data skew over time can be significant, particularly when it comes
to query performance.
All the examples used within this book were developed using a Snowflake trial
account available at
www.snowflake.com
. Click the Start For Free button, and enter a few
details to start a 30-day free trial account.
For those operating within a corporate environment, select Business Critical Edition
because it is most likely the version used by your organization.
All the code samples in this book have been tested using Business Critical Edition
and are believed to work with lower editions. You can find further details on Snowflake
editions at
https://docs.snowflake.com/en/user-guide/intro-editions
.
I also assume you are familiar with the Snowflake user interface SnowSight (though
the examples should work using SnowSQL or Visual Studio configured for Snowflake).
You can find further details on SnowSight at
https://docs.snowflake.com/en/user-
guide/ui-snowsight
. And for those starting their Snowflake journey for the very first
time, start here:
https://docs.snowflake.com/en/user-guide-getting-started
.
I have attempted to divide this book content into readily consumed thematic
chapters, and for the curious, the last chapter of this book on “gotchas” summarizes
best practices. Before you jump straight to the end of this book, though, please read the
intervening chapters as they will give you helpful context.
Last but certainly not least, you can find the Snowflake documentation at
https://
docs.snowflake.com/en/
. Reading this book will definitely improve your learning curve;
however, there are times where there is no substitute for reading official documentation
(which is actually rather good); I will highlight some of it later, but for now, at least you
know where it is.
ChaptEr 1
tuning thE SnowFlakE Data ClouD