A data engineer wants to understand what determines compute charges in Snowflake's credit-based consumption model. For a single virtual warehouse, which factor most directly drives the number of credits consumed?
- AThe total volume of data scanned by the queries the warehouse runs, billed per terabyte read from storage.
- BThe number of distinct users who connect to the warehouse during the billing period, regardless of query activity.
- CThe number of micro-partitions stored in the tables queried, charged at a fixed credit rate for each partition.
- DThe warehouse size and the length of time it runs, since credits accrue per second while a warehouse is active, with a sixty-second minimum. Correct
Why A is wrong: Data scanned drives some cloud services and query cost intuition, but warehouse compute credits are billed on running time and size, not bytes scanned.
Why B is wrong: User count never drives warehouse credits; Snowflake bills compute by warehouse size and the time the warehouse runs, not by connections.
Why C is wrong: Micro-partitions relate to storage and pruning, not compute billing; warehouses are never charged a per-partition credit rate for queries.
Why D is correct: Warehouse credits accrue per second based on size while running, with a one-minute minimum on resume, so size and active time are the direct drivers.