Snowflake Reader Accounts

Snowflake Reader Accounts

The reader accounts let providers share the data securely with the consumers who do not have a Snowflake account. Using the reader account, the consumer can view and query the data enabled by the provider with no additional setup and costs to the consumer. The provider account uses shares to share databases with the reader account. In this case, the provider is responsible for the costs incurred by the consumers using the reader account.



  • Restrictions on reader account:

    • Uploading new data from reader account

    • Modifying existing account in reader account

    • Unloading the existing data

  • Restricted commands on reader accounts

    • Insert

    • Update

    • Delete

    • Merge

    • Copy into Table

    • Create Masking Policy

    • Create Pipe

    • Create Row Access Policy

    • Create Share

    • Create Stage

    • Show Procedures

  • Managing the reader accounts involves two important aspects.

    • Creating the reader account

    • Configuring the reader account

  • Creating the reader account

    • Click on “Private Sharing”

    • Click on “Reader Accounts”

    • Fill “New Reader Account“ form or use command line 

    • CREATE MANAGED ACCOUNT IDENTIFIER('"ACCOUNT_NAME"') ADMIN_NAME = 'Break_Glass_Account' COMMENT = 'Provide details' ADMIN_PASSWORD = '☺☺☺☺☺☺☺☺☺☺' TYPE = 'READER';

    • Find Account details and URL.

      • USE ROLE ACCOUNTADMIN;

        SHOW MANAGED ACCOUNTS;

  • Configuring the reader account

    • The newly created reader account contains only a single user aka break glass account. The user gets accountadmin privileges as shown in the above screenshot. Configuring the reader account involves creation of users, roles, warehouses, databases, etc.

      • Login to reader account as account administrator using the break glass account

      • Create custom roles and grant privileges

      • Create users and grant roles

      • Create virtual warehouses and grant privileges

      • Create database from each share shared with the account from provider

      • Invite users to login, reset default passwords and train on the data


References: 
https://docs.snowflake.com/en/user-guide/data-sharing-reader-create
https://docs.snowflake.com/en/user-guide/data-sharing-reader-config

Comments