Which action would provide optimal performance for the second SQL query?

A Snowflake user runs a complex SQL query on a dedicated virtual warehouse that reads a large amount of data from micro-partitions. The same user wants to run another query that uses the same data set.

Which action would provide optimal performance for the second SQL query?
A . Assign additional clusters to the virtual warehouse.
B . Increase the STATEMENT_TIMEOUT_IN_SECONDS parameter in the session.
C . Prevent the virtual warehouse from suspending between the running of the first and second queries.
D . Use the RESULT_SCAN function to post-process the output of the first query.

View Answer

Answer: C

Explanation:

When a user runs a complex SQL query on a dedicated virtual warehouse involving a large amount of data read from micro-partitions, the best action for optimal performance of a second query is to prevent the warehouse from suspending between the two queries. This ensures that the data cache (such as the result set cache and local disk cache) remains "warm," providing faster performance for the second query because it may be able to utilize these caches instead of reading the data from the micro-partitions again.

Option A (Assign additional clusters to the virtual warehouse) might not directly impact the performance of the second query unless the current size of the warehouse is already insufficient for the parallel processing needs. Option B (Increase the STATEMENT_TIMEOUT_IN_SECONDS parameter in the session) does not improve query performance; it simply increases the maximum time a query can run. Option D (Use the RESULT_SCAN function to post-process the output of the first query) is for accessing the cached results of a previous query but may not apply in this scenario, as it is for processing the exact same result set, not a new query based on the same data set.