A micro-partition is the small, contiguous unit of storage (roughly 50-500 MB uncompressed) into which Snowflake automatically divides table data. Snowflake stores columnar metadata per micro-partition to enable pruning, which skips partitions that cannot match a query.
A virtual warehouse is a cluster of compute resources in Snowflake that executes queries, loads data, and performs DML.
A micro-partition is the small, contiguous unit of storage (roughly 50-500 MB uncompressed) into which Snowflake automatically divides table data.
Time Travel is a Snowflake feature that lets you query, clone, or restore data as it existed at a point in the past within a defined retention period.
Fail-safe is a non-configurable 7-day period after Time Travel during which Snowflake can recover historical data only through Snowflake support.
Zero-copy cloning is a Snowflake operation that creates a copy of a database, schema, or table without duplicating the underlying storage.
A stage is a Snowflake object that references a location where data files are stored for loading or unloading.
Snowpipe is Snowflake's continuous, serverless data-ingestion service that loads files as soon as they arrive in a stage.
RBAC (role-based access control) is Snowflake's security model in which privileges are granted to roles, and roles are granted to users or other roles.
The result cache is a Snowflake caching layer that returns the stored result of an identical query for 24 hours without using a virtual warehouse.
A clustering key is a subset of columns that Snowflake uses to co-locate related rows in the same micro-partitions.
Secure data sharing is a Snowflake capability that provides live, read-only access to data across accounts without copying it.
The Snowflake Marketplace is a platform where data providers publish listings that consumers can access through secure data sharing.
Snowsight is Snowflake's web interface for running queries, exploring data, and administering the account.
Snowflake Cortex is the suite of AI and machine-learning features in the Snowflake AI Data Cloud.
The Query Profile is a Snowflake diagnostic view that shows the execution plan and per-operator statistics for a query.