Snowflake reliability patterns

Snowflake Reliability Patterns

Overview

Production-grade reliability patterns for Snowflake: database replication, account failover, Time Travel recovery, and application-level circuit breakers.

Instructions

Step 1: Time Travel for Point-in-Time Recovery

-- Query historical data (up to 90 days on Enterprise Edition)
SELECT * FROM orders
AT (TIMESTAMP => '2026-03-21 14:00:00'::TIMESTAMP_NTZ);

-- Restore a table to a previous state
CREATE OR REPLACE TABLE orders
  CLONE orders AT (TIMESTAMP => '2026-03-21 14:00:00'::TIMESTAMP_NTZ);

-- Restore a dropped table
UNDROP TABLE orders;
UNDROP SCHEMA my_schema;
UNDROP DATABASE my_database;

-- Query by offset (5 minutes ago)
SELECT * FROM orders AT (OFFSET => -300);

-- Query by statement ID (before a specific query ran)
SELECT * FROM orders BEFORE (STATEMENT => '<query_id_of_bad_update>');

-- Set retention period per table
ALTER TABLE critical_data SET DATA_RETENTION_TIME_IN_DAYS = 90;
ALTER TABLE temp_staging SET DATA_RETENTION_TIME_IN_DAYS = 0;  -- No Time Travel

Step 2: Database Replication Across Regions

-- Enable replication on source account (primary)
ALTER DATABASE PROD_DW ENABLE REPLICATION TO ACCOUNTS
  myorg.us_east_account,
  myorg.eu_west_account;

-- On target account: create replica database
CREATE DATABASE PROD_DW_REPLICA
  AS REPLICA OF myorg.us_west_account.PROD_DW;

-- Refresh replica (manual or scheduled)
ALTER DATABASE PROD_DW_REPLICA REFRESH;

-- Check replication status
SELECT * FROM TABLE(INFORMATION_SCHEMA.DATABASE_REPLICATION_USAGE_HISTORY(
  DATE_RANGE_START => DATEADD(hours, -24, CURRENT_TIMESTAMP())
));

-- Check replication lag
SELECT database_name, primary_snowflake_region,
       replication_allowed, is_primary,
       DATEDIFF('minute', snowflake_region_last_refresh_time, CURRENT_TIMESTAMP()) AS lag_minutes
FROM TABLE(INFORMATION_SCHEMA.REPLICATION_DATABASES())
WHERE database_name = 'PROD_DW_REPLICA';

Step 3: Account Failover Groups

-- Create failover group (replicates databases, warehouses, roles, etc.)
-- On primary account:
CREATE FAILOVER GROUP prod_failover
  OBJECT_TYPES = DATABASES, WAREHOUSES, ROLES, USERS, INTEGRATIONS
  ALLOWED_DATABASES = PROD_DW
  ALLOWED_ACCOUNTS = myorg.us_east_account
  REPLICATION_SCHEDULE = '10 MINUTE';

-- On secondary account: create as replica
CREATE FAILOVER GROUP prod_failover
  AS REPLICA OF myorg.us_west_account.prod_failover;

-- Promote secondary to primary (during outage)
ALTER FAILOVER GROUP prod_failover PRIMARY;

-- After recovery, switch back
-- On original primary:
ALTER FAILOVER GROUP prod_failover PRIMARY;

Step 4: Application-Level Connection Failover

// src/snowflake/resilient-connection.ts
import snowflake from 'snowflake-sdk';

interface FailoverConfig {
  primary: snowflake.ConnectionOptions;
  secondary: snowflake.ConnectionOptions;
  healthCheckIntervalMs: number;
}

class ResilientSnowflakeConnection {
  private activeConn: snowflake.Connection | null = null;
  private isPrimary = true;
  private config: FailoverConfig;

  constructor(config: FailoverConfig) {
    this.config = config;
  }

  async connect(): Promise<snowflake.Connection> {
    try {
      this.activeConn = await this.tryConnect(this.config.primary);
      this.isPrimary = true;
      return this.activeConn;
    } catch (primaryErr) {
      console.warn('Primary Snowflake connection failed, trying secondary');
      try {
        this.activeConn = await this.tryConnect(this.config.secondary);
        this.isPrimary = false;
        return this.activeConn;
      } catch (secondaryErr) {
        throw new Error(`Both Snowflake connections failed.
          Primary: ${primaryErr.message}
          Secondary: ${secondaryErr.message}`);
      }
    }
  }

  private tryConnect(opts: snowflake.ConnectionOptions): Promise<snowflake.Connection> {
    return new Promise((resolve, reject) => {
      const conn = snowflake.createConnection(opts);
      conn.connect((err, conn) => (err ? reject(err) : resolve(conn)));
    });
  }

  async healthCheck(): Promise<{ connected: boolean; isPrimary: boolean }> {
    try {
      await new Promise<void>((resolve, reject) => {
        this.activeConn!.execute({
          sqlText: 'SELECT 1',
          complete: (err) => (err ? reject(err) : resolve()),
        });
      });
      return { connected: true, isPrimary: this.isPrimary };
    } catch {
      return { connected: false, isPrimary: this.isPrimary };
    }
  }
}

// Usage
const resilientConn = new ResilientSnowflakeConnection({
  primary: {
    account: 'myorg-primary',
    username: process.env.SNOWFLAKE_USER!,
    password: process.env.SNOWFLAKE_PASSWORD!,
    warehouse: 'PROD_WH',
    database: 'PROD_DW',
  },
  secondary: {
    account: 'myorg-secondary',
    username: process.env.SNOWFLAKE_USER!,
    password: process.env.SNOWFLAKE_PASSWORD!,
    warehouse: 'PROD_WH',
    database: 'PROD_DW_REPLICA',
  },
  healthCheckIntervalMs: 30000,
});

Step 5: Pipeline Retry and Idempotency

-- Idempotent data loading (safe to retry)
MERGE INTO silver.orders AS target
USING (
  SELECT * FROM bronze.raw_orders
  WHERE ingestion_time >= DATEADD(hours, -1, CURRENT_TIMESTAMP())
) AS source
ON target.order_id = source.order_id
WHEN NOT MATCHED THEN INSERT
  (order_id, customer_id, amount, order_date)
VALUES
  (source.order_id, source.customer_id, source.amount, source.order_date);

-- MERGE is idempotent: running it twice with the same data produces the same result
-- Prefer MERGE over INSERT for retry-safe pipelines

-- Task retry configuration
CREATE OR REPLACE TASK reliable_transform
  WAREHOUSE = ETL_WH
  SCHEDULE = '5 MINUTE'
  ALLOW_OVERLAPPING_EXECUTION = FALSE  -- Prevent concurrent runs
  SUSPEND_TASK_AFTER_NUM_FAILURES = 3  -- Auto-suspend after 3 failures
  WHEN SYSTEM$STREAM_HAS_DATA('orders_stream')
AS
  MERGE INTO dim_orders ...;

ALTER TASK reliable_transform RESUME;

Step 6: Backup Strategy

-- Zero-copy clone backups (instant, no extra storage until data changes)
CREATE DATABASE PROD_DW_BACKUP_20260322
  CLONE PROD_DW;

-- Automated daily backup via task
CREATE OR REPLACE TASK daily_backup
  WAREHOUSE = ADMIN_WH
  SCHEDULE = 'USING CRON 0 3 * * * UTC'
AS
BEGIN
  LET backup_name VARCHAR := 'PROD_DW_BACKUP_' || TO_CHAR(CURRENT_DATE(), 'YYYYMMDD');
  EXECUTE IMMEDIATE 'CREATE DATABASE IF NOT EXISTS ' || :backup_name || ' CLONE PROD_DW';
  -- Clean up backups older than 7 days
  -- (done via separate cleanup task or stored procedure)
END;

Recovery Time Objectives

Scenario	Recovery Method	RTO	RPO
Accidental table drop	UNDROP	Instant	Zero
Bad data update	Time Travel CLONE	Minutes	Configurable (up to 90 days)
Regional outage	Failover group	10-30 min	Replication lag
Account compromise	Contact Snowflake support	Hours	Last backup

Error Handling

Issue	Cause	Solution
Time Travel expired	Past retention period	Increase DATA_RETENTION_TIME_IN_DAYS
Replication lag high	Large data changes	Check replication schedule, network
Failover fails	Secondary not synced	Verify failover group status
UNDROP fails	Object recreated with same name	Rename current object first

Resources

• Time Travel
• Database Replication
• Failover Groups
• Business Continuity

Next Steps

For policy enforcement, see snowflake-policy-guardrails.