The latest releases of Snow­flake rol­led out inOc­to­ber 2023, brin­ging a slew of exci­ting updates and fea­tures desi­gned to enhance user expe­ri­ence and func­tion­a­lity. The release has suc­cessfully con­cluded, and users can now explore the platform’s latest enhance­ments. For a detailed look at the chan­ges from in-advance to final ver­si­ons, the Release Notes Change Log pro­vi­des valuable insights.

New Fea­tures

Bud­gets — Preview

Snow­flake intro­du­ces the pre­view of Bud­gets, allo­wing account-level moni­to­ring and noti­fi­ca­tion of cre­dit usage for spe­ci­fic Snow­flake objects. Users can set a monthly spen­ding limit on com­pute costs for sup­ported objects and receive noti­fi­ca­ti­ons when approa­ching or excee­ding the limit. Cus­tom bud­gets can be crea­ted to moni­tor cre­dit usage for spe­ci­fic groups of objects, enhan­cing con­trol and flexibility. 

Dyna­mic Tables Enhanced

Dyna­mic tables, inclu­ding those with down­stream lag, now refresh upon crea­tion by default. New sha­ring capa­bi­li­ties for dyna­mic tables faci­li­tate seam­less col­la­bo­ra­tion, making data sha­ring more accessible. 

Log­ging and Tra­cing from Hand­ler Code — Gene­ral Availability

Pre­viously available as a pre­view fea­ture, log­ging and tra­cing from hand­ler code is now gene­rally available. Users can emit log and trace event data from UDF and pro­ce­dure hand­ler code, allo­wing for sto­rage in an event table asso­cia­ted with their account.

SQL Updates

Intro­du­cing the CURRENT_ACCOUNT_NAME func­tion under the Con­text Func­tions (Ses­sion) cate­gory. This func­tion returns the name of the cur­rent account, ser­ving as the pre­fer­red account identifier.

Fixed an Issue with Column Ali­a­ses for Aggre­ga­tes and the GROUP BY ALL Clause

An issue with column ali­a­ses for aggre­ga­tes and the GROUP BY ALL clause has been resol­ved. State­ments with these con­fi­gu­ra­ti­ons will no lon­ger fail with „not a valid group by expres­sion“ errors.

Data Col­la­bo­ra­tion Updates

Users with the ACCOUNTADMIN role can now dele­gate pri­vi­le­ges to non-admin roles, allo­wing them to set up auto-ful­fill­ment and share lis­tings with con­su­mers in dif­fe­rent regions. 

ALTER TABLE: Sup­port for IF [NOT] EXISTS with ADD COLUMN and DROP COLUMN

The ALTER TABLE com­mand intro­du­ces enhan­ced func­tion­a­lity with sup­port for key­words IF NOT EXISTS with ADD COLUMN and IF EXISTS with DROP COLUMN. This fea­ture pro­vi­des more fle­xi­bi­lity when adding or drop­ping columns, allo­wing users to stream­line their data­base manage­ment processes.

H3 Func­tions for GEOGRAPHY Objects — Preview

Snow­flake intro­du­ces the pre­view of H3 func­tions for GEOGRAPHY objects. H3, a hier­ar­chi­cal geos­pa­tial index, divi­des the world into hexa­go­nal cells. Snow­flake pro­vi­des SQL func­tions, enab­ling users to leverage H3 with GEOGRAPHY objects for enhan­ced geos­pa­tial capabilities.

Web Inter­face Updates

The release includes a pre­view of task graph run debug­ging, allo­wing users to review run history and iden­tify cri­ti­cal fai­ling tasks, long-run­ning tasks, and inef­fi­ci­ent task graphs. 

Acces­sing Bil­ling Usage State­ments — Gene­ral Availability

The gene­ral avai­la­bi­lity of using Snow­sight to view and down­load bil­ling usage state­ments is announ­ced. Users can now access bil­ling usage state­ments, start­ing with the July 2023 state­ment, with a reten­tion period of 1 year.

Vie­w­ing Query History in Work­s­heets — Preview

The pre­view of Query History in work­s­heets in Snow­sight is intro­du­ced, allo­wing users to review queries run in a Snow­sight work­s­heet along with the query results.

Can No Lon­ger Add or Manage Pay­ment Details Using Clas­sic Console

Start­ing with this release, cus­to­mers can no lon­ger add or manage pay­ment details for Snow­flake On Demand using the Clas­sic Con­sole web inter­face. Ins­tead, users must use Snow­sight for mana­ging pay­ment details.

Snow­sight as the Default Inter­face for Snow­flake Accounts in US Govern­ment Regions

Start­ing Novem­ber 6, 2023, Snow­sight beco­mes the default inter­face for users in Snow­flake accounts in US govern­ment regi­ons. Users in these accounts will no lon­ger have the option to choose Clas­sic Con­sole as the default expe­ri­ence for their user pro­file. This change aims to stream­line the user expe­ri­ence and encou­rage migra­tion to Snowsight.

Exten­si­bi­lity Updates

Sup­port for Python 3.11 in Snow­park, UDFs, UDTFs, and Stored Pro­ce­du­res — Preview

Snow­flake intro­du­ces sup­port for Python 3.11 in Snow­park Python, Python UDFs, Python UDTFs, and Python stored pro­ce­du­res as a pre­view fea­ture to all accounts. Deve­lo­pers can set up their deve­lo­p­ment envi­ron­ments for Snow­park Python and explore the capa­bi­li­ties of Python UDFs and stored procedures.

Rea­ding Files with a Python Func­tion or Pro­ce­dure — Gene­ral Availability

Python sup­port for rea­ding files with the Snow­flake­File class is now gene­rally available. This class, part of the snowflake.snowpark.files module, enables dyna­mic read access for files on an inter­nal or exter­nal stage, offe­ring ver­sa­ti­lity for tasks such as rea­ding unstruc­tu­red data or using machine lear­ning models in UDFs, UDTFs, or stored procedures.

Python Packa­ges Poli­cies — Preview

Snow­flake intro­du­ces sup­port for Python packa­ges poli­cies as a pre­view fea­ture to all accounts. This fea­ture empowers users to set allow­lists and block­lists for third-party Python packa­ges from Ana­conda at the account level, offe­ring fine-grai­ned con­trol over package availability.

Data Col­la­bo­ra­tion Updates

Com­pany Name for Lis­ting Analytics

In this release, users can now view the name of the com­pany or orga­niza­tion that is a con­su­mer of their lis­tings on the Ana­ly­tics tab in Pro­vi­der Stu­dio. This enhance­ment pro­vi­des more detailed insights into lis­ting usage.

Secu­rity Updates

Net­work Rules Sup­port Azure Private End­points — Preview

Snow­flake expands the pre­view of net­work rules, now inclu­ding sup­port for Azure private end­points. Users can uti­lize net­work rules along­side net­work poli­cies to rest­rict access to the Snow­flake ser­vice when the request ori­gi­na­tes from an Azure private endpoint.