Introduction
Snowflake collaboration gives providers governed ways to expose selected data and related objects to consumers without distributing unmanaged file copies. Secure Data Sharing, direct shares, listings, Snowflake Marketplace, and reader accounts serve different relationship and delivery models. The correct choice depends on audience, region, commercial terms, governance, and whether the consumer already has a Snowflake account.
Collaboration Architecture
In Secure Data Sharing, a provider grants supported objects to a share. A consumer creates a read-only imported database from that share and uses its own virtual warehouse to query it. Snowflake's services and metadata make updates available without copying the shared table data into consumer storage.
The provider controls which objects are included and which accounts can consume them. The consumer controls its local roles and compute. Because the imported objects are read-only, consumers create their own derived objects when transformation or persistence is required.
Direct Shares and Listings
Direct shares
A direct share targets known Snowflake consumer accounts, typically within a supported regional relationship. It is suitable for controlled provider-consumer relationships where discovery, product metadata, and fulfillment features of a listing are unnecessary.
Listings
A listing packages a share with metadata and terms for private distribution, a data exchange, or Snowflake Marketplace. Listings support broader discovery and fulfillment models. Cross-region or cross-cloud delivery can require replication or Cross-Cloud Auto-fulfillment, with cost, account, and regulatory implications.
Marketplace publication also has provider policies, review requirements, and legal obligations. A technically valid share does not prove that the provider has the right to distribute the data.
Reader Accounts
A reader account enables a provider to share data with a consumer that does not have a full Snowflake account. It belongs to the provider that created it and can consume data only from that provider. The provider is responsible for the reader account's administration and associated compute cost.
Reader accounts need users, roles, a warehouse, and an imported database before consumers can query shared data. They are not a generic free Snowflake environment and do not provide the full capabilities of a regular account.
Secure Object Design
Shares are securable objects that encapsulate granted access. Providers can use database roles or direct grants according to current sharing rules. When consumers should see a governed subset rather than base tables, use supported secure objects and verify the current requirements for secure views, materialized views, functions, policies, and cross-database references.
The provider must test the consumer experience with the same share and grants. A newly created or recreated object is not automatically available merely because another object with the same name was shared earlier; current grants must include it.
Provider and Consumer Responsibilities
| Responsibility | Provider | Consumer |
|---|---|---|
| Select shared objects | Yes | No |
| Control provider-side share grants | Yes | No |
| Create imported database | No | Yes |
| Grant local roles access to imported database | No | Yes |
| Supply query compute | No, except reader-account model | Yes |
| Maintain source freshness | Yes | Observes availability |
| Validate legal right to share | Yes | Validates permitted use |
These responsibilities can vary for listings, paid products, reader accounts, clean rooms, or applications. Verify the selected collaboration feature rather than treating the table as a complete contract.
Cross-region and Governance Considerations
- Confirm data residency, privacy, export-control, and contractual restrictions before cross-region fulfillment.
- Use secure views or supported policies to limit exposed rows and columns.
- Monitor consumers and listing usage with documented sharing views.
- Define what happens when a consumer is removed or a shared object is replaced.
- Test identifier compatibility and sample queries for listing consumers.
- Include replication and consumer compute in cost ownership.
Common Mistakes
- Describing Secure Data Sharing as a physical data copy.
- Treating a clone as a provider-consumer share.
- Assuming consumers can modify imported shared objects.
- Forgetting that consumers need their own warehouse and local role grants.
- Using a reader account as though it could consume from multiple unrelated providers.
- Recreating a shared object and assuming the old grant automatically applies.
- Ignoring legal rights and regional restrictions because technical access works.
Certification Relevance
COF-C03 includes data collaboration and protection. Candidates should distinguish provider and consumer control, direct shares and listings, reader accounts and full accounts, and metadata-based access versus replication for remote fulfillment.
Authoritative Sources
- About Secure Data Sharing
- Share secure database objects
- Create and configure shares
- Configure a reader account
Conclusion
Snowflake collaboration separates provider governance from consumer compute and local access. Choose direct shares, listings, Marketplace delivery, or reader accounts from the relationship and regional requirements, then validate object grants, consumer experience, legal rights, and cost ownership.