Snowflake SnowPro Certification Practice Test

Which type of table persists data longer than a temporary table?

1. Permanent Table

2. External Table

3. Data Lake Table

4. Materialized Table

The correct answer is: Permanent Table

A permanent table is designed to hold data that persists beyond the session in which it was created. This type of table stores data in the Snowflake database and remains available for future queries and transactions until it is explicitly deleted. Unlike temporary tables, which are session-specific and automatically dropped at the end of the session, permanent tables use the underlying storage infrastructure of Snowflake, ensuring data durability and long-term accessibility. External tables serve as a bridge to query data stored in an external location like Amazon S3, but they do not store data within the Snowflake database itself. Data lake tables typically refer to data structures used within large-scale data lake environments and may not be specific to Snowflake's terminology. Materialized tables, while they do hold persisted query results to enhance performance, do so in the context of previously defined queries, and they can be refreshed, but they are not primarily designed for data persistence like a permanent table. Thus, the option of a permanent table is the most fitting choice when considering the requirement for longer data persistence compared to temporary tables.