Snowflake

Snowflake is a managed cloud Data Warehousing platform. It separates compute and storage resources, providing a managed data infrastructure that automatically scales based on needs.

Snowflake is cross-cloud compatible. Meaining you can choose to host on any of the cloud providers such as AWS, GCP, and Microsoft Azure.

Snowflake processes both structured and semi-structured data, supporting formats such as JSON, Avro, Parquet, and XML. Additionally, it adheres to standards like SQL and ACID transactions.

The platform is compatible with leading business intelligence tools, including Tableau, Looker, and PowerBI. Additionally, Snowflake accommodates various programming and scripting languages.

Snowflake emphasizes data security. It incorporates enterprise-grade encryption for data at rest and in transit. Other features include multi-factor authentication and granular access controls.

Setup Guide

For Weld to be able to connect to Snowflake, you need a user with the right credentials.

New to snowflake? No worries, in order to use Weld for snowflake, you just need to know the basics. Here is a good place to start: https://docs.snowflake.com/en/user-guide-getting-started.html

To facilitate this, you need to create a Snowflake user for Weld, as well as create a default role for that user. Furthermore you need to assign the following privileges to this users default role. It is important that you create a new user, and a new role for this, and only attach this policy to that role. This ensures that Weld can only access what is required, and helps secure your Snowflake account.

Setting Up - The Fast & Easy Way

Want to run all commands yourself? Sure, just skip ahead to the Setting Up - The Manual Way section.

Don't want to do all this yourself? We got your back! Just run our script in your Snowflake instance as accountadmin, and it will be ready for Weld!

1. To run the script, create a new worksheet.

2. Paste in the script found below:

	-- create variables for role / user / database (needs to be uppercase for objects)
	set user_weld_password = 'SET_PASSWORD_HERE';

    set user_weld = 'WELD_USER';
    set role_weld = 'WELD_ROLE';

    set database_landing = 'WELD_LANDING';
    set database_models = 'WELD_MODELS';

    set warehouse_name = 'compute_wh';


    use warehouse identifier($warehouse_name);

    -- change role to securityadmin for user / role steps
    use role securityadmin;

    -- create role for weld
    create role if not exists identifier($role_weld);

    -- create user for weld
    create user if not exists identifier($user_weld)
    	password = $user_weld_password
    	default_role = $role_weld
    	must_change_password = false;

    	grant role identifier($role_weld) to user identifier($user_weld);

    	grant usage on warehouse identifier($warehouse_name) to role identifier($role_weld);
    -- change role to sysadmin for database steps
    use role sysadmin;

    -- create databases
    create database if not exists identifier($database_landing);
    create database if not exists identifier($database_models);

    -- grant role access to landing and model databases

    grant CREATE SCHEMA, USAGE
    	on database identifier($database_models)
    	to role identifier($role_weld);

    grant CREATE SCHEMA, USAGE
    	on database identifier($database_landing)
    	to role identifier($role_weld);

    use role accountadmin;

    grant CREATE TABLE, CREATE VIEW, USAGE
    	on future schemas
    	in database identifier($database_models)
    	to role identifier($role_weld);

    grant CREATE TABLE, CREATE VIEW
    	on future schemas
    	in database identifier($database_landing)
    	to role identifier($role_weld);

    USE DATABASE WELD_MODELS;
    CREATE SCHEMA WELD_RAW;

3. Change the SET_PASSWORD_HERE value on line 2, to a password you decide. Make sure to note it somewhere safe, as it is needed later. It should look like this. set user_weld_password = 'the password you decide here';

4. Mark the entire query and press Run in the top run.

Did you successfully run the script? Great! You can now skip ahead to the Where's My Credentials part of this documentation, sign in with your snowflake credentials and begin your Weld journey. If you didnt do the setup script, continue below:

Setting Up - The Manual Way

Start by creating a role and a user for Weld. The default role of the weld user will need access to the following databases. You might have to create them

• WELD_MODELS
• WELD_LANDING

It can be done by granting the following privileges for each of the above databases:

GRANT CREATE SCHEMA, USAGE ON DATABASE databaseName TO ROLE roleName;
GRANT CREATE TABLE ON FUTURE SCHEMAS IN DATABASE databaseName TO ROLE roleName;
GRANT CREATE VIEW ON FUTURE SCHEMAS IN DATABASE databaseName TO ROLE roleName

Also make sure to create the follwing schema in the WELD_MODELS db

USE DATABASE WELD_MODELS;
CREATE SCHEMA WELD_RAW;

Lastly, the default role must also have USAGE rights to the warehouse GRANT USAGE ON warehouseName TO ROLE roleName

note: please remember to assign your created role to the weld user, as well as assign it as the default role for that user.

You are now all set up, and ready to go! Fill in your snowflake credentials, and start welding!

Where's my credentials?

Account

Can be found in the Account URL in the following format:
https://{account_identifier}.snowflakecomputing.com/

So in case of this URL:
https://ab12345.eu-central-1.snowflakecomputing.com/

You need to provide the following account identifier:
ab12345.eu-central-1

The easiest way to find your Account URL is by going to the login page of Snowflake, where it asks for your Username and Password. The URL of the page will be something like this:
https://{account_identifier}.snowflakecomputing.com/...

If you are already logged in to Snowflake (Snowsight UI), hover over your account in the list of the logged in accounts in bottom left corner, then click on the small link icon with the Copy account URL tooltip text.

If you are already logged in to the Classic Console, you should find the account url in the browser URL bar.

Warehouse
the default warehouse is COMPUTE_WH

User name
The default User name is WELD_USER

Password
This is the password you should have decided on yourself.

Something we overlooked?

We are the happiest when you reach out with any comments or questions. It helps us stay in the loop and make the documentation and the product better. Don't hesitate to reach out!