Last Updated: 2024-01-11

Background

Snowflake is a cloud computing data platform. It specializes in cloud data warehouses for use in data analytics.

Scope of tutorial

In this tutorial, you will learn how to configure a Snowflake catalog in Starburst Galaxy.

Learning objectives

Once you've completed this tutorial, you will be able to:

• Configure a Snowflake catalog using Starburst Galaxy.
• Access your own Snowflake data source using Starburst Galaxy.

Prerequisites

• You need a Starburst Galaxy account to complete this tutorial. Please see Starburst Galaxy: Getting started for instructions on setting up a free account.
• This tutorial comes with a bring your own storage requirement. Before proceeding with this tutorial, you must already have a Snowflake account set up.
  
  If this is not the case, please set this up first then return to this tutorial.

About Starburst tutorials

Starburst tutorials are designed to get you up and running quickly by providing bite-sized, hands-on educational resources. Each tutorial explores a single feature or topic through a series of guided, step-by-step instructions.

As you navigate through the tutorial you should follow along using your own Starburst Galaxy account. This will help consolidate the learning process by mixing theory and practice.

Background

You're going to begin by signing in to Starburst Galaxy and setting your role to begin the process of connecting your Snowflake datasource.

This is a quick step, but an important one.

Step 1: Sign into Starburst Galaxy

Sign into Starburst Galaxy in the usual way. If you have not already set up an account, you can do that here.

Step 2: Set your role

Starburst Galaxy separates users by role. Configuring a new catalog will require access to a role with appropriate privileges. Today, you'll be using the accountadmin role.

Your current role is listed in the top right-hand corner of the screen.

• Check your role, to ensure that it is set to accountadmin.
• If it is set to anything else, use the drop-down menu to select the correct role.

Background

Adding a new Snowflake catalog follows the same process as adding other data sources in Starburst Galaxy.

The steps below will show you how to start the process of configuring a new catalog.

Step 1: Create a new catalog

Create a new catalog for your Snowflake datasource.

• In the left-hand navigation bar, click Catalogs.
• Click the Create catalog button.

Step 2: Select Snowflake

Starburst Galaxy allows the creation of catalogs for a number of different data sources. In this case, you are going to create a new catalog in the Snowflake category.

• Click the Snowflake tile.

Step 3: Input cloud provider, name, and description

Snowflake works with all three major cloud providers: AWS, Azure, and GCP. You will need to select which one you want to use for this catalog.

Additionally, the catalog needs both a name and description. This ensures that you can find it later.

• Select your cloud provider.
• In the Catalog name field, enter the name of the new catalog.
• In the Description field, input a description. This can be anything you want, so make it meaningful for you.
• Scroll down to continue the configuration process.

Background

When you connect Starburst Galaxy to a new datasource, it is necessary to undergo an authentication process. This helps ensure that you are connecting the right data source and that you have the appropriate permissions.

Step 1: Choose the connection type

Now it's time to choose a connection type. There are two options:

• Connect directly: Choose this option if your database has a public IP that allows direct connection from Galaxy.
• PrivateLink: Choose this option if you have enabled PrivateLink for your Galaxy account and have already worked with your Starburst TAM to configure a PrivateLink between Galaxy and your AWS VPC.

Step 2: Enter Snowflake connection details

Now it's time to connect Starburst Galaxy to your Snowflake account.

If you are connecting directly, this will involve entering your Snowflake account identifier. The identifier is the first portion of the URL in your Snowflake address, before the .snowflakecomputing.com domain.

For example, consider the following scenario

Snowflake URL: iv99999.us-east-1.snowflakecomputing.com

Snowflake account identifier: iv99999.us-east-1

• Enter your Snowflake account identifier in the field provided.
• Enter your Snowflake Username in the field provided.
• Enter your Snowflake Password in the field provided.
• Enter the Database name in the field provided.
• Enter the Warehouse name in the field provided.
• Enter a role with the required access rights in the Snowflake role field.
• Select Enable parallel mode to allow faster queries (optional).

Background

Every new catalog connection includes a test before you connect it. This helps to ensure that you have input the correct credentials and allows you to quickly fix any problems before actually connecting.

Step 1: Test and Connect

You're almost there! Time to test the connection and then complete the process of creating your new Snowflake catalog.

• Click the Test connection button.
• Confirm that you see the Hooray! You can now add this catalog to a cluster message.
• Click the Connect catalog button.

Background

Starburst Galaxy allows you to configure your catalog in a number of ways regarding access controls. The most important of these involves granting write access or restricting the catalog to read-only access.

Take some time to consider whether you require write access, or whether read-only access will be sufficient.

Step 1: Select read access

Select the appropriate read access for your situation.

• If you want to restrict the write access, select the read-only catalog button.
• If you want to grant write access, deselect the read-only catalog button.
• Click the Save access controls button.

Background

The catalog is now created, but you are not able to use it until you add it to a cluster. Clusters can include many catalogs. You can either add the new Snowflake catalog to an existing cluster, or do this at a later stage.

Step 1: Add catalog to cluster or skip

You can add a catalog to a cluster at any time.

• If you want to add the catalog to a cluster later, click Skip
• If you want to add the catalog to a cluster now, select the cluster name from the drop-down menu and click Add to cluster.

Tutorial complete

Congratulations! You have reached the end of this tutorial, and the end of this stage of your journey.

You're all set! Now you can query the data in your Snowflake datasource.

Continuous learning

At Starburst, we believe in continuous learning. This tutorial provides the foundation for further training available on this platform, and you can return to it as many times as you like. Future tutorials will make use of the concepts used here.

Next steps

Starburst has lots of other tutorials to help you get up and running quickly. Each one breaks down an individual problem and guides you to a solution using a step-by-step approach to learning.

Tutorials available

Visit the Tutorials section to view the full list of tutorials and keep moving forward on your journey!