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Teach Yourself Snowflake - Free Starter Account


Information from this blog comes from the Snowflake Architecture and SQL book by Tom Coffing and David Cook.


This blog will show you how to get a free Snowflake starter account. You can also purchase the 1120-page PDF from Tom Coffing, download and create the same tables in the book, and teach yourself Snowflake. The book is the same book Tom uses for students to teach his 5-day Snowflake Architecture and SQL Boot Camp. Check out the book Table of Contents and the course objectives here.


Contact Tom to purchase the book or if your organization wants to take a virtual class with Tom at Tom.Coffing@CoffingDW.com.


Snowflake will give employees of a company a free starter trial account. Follow these steps to get your starter account.


Using any web browser, go to the website Snowflake.com.





Although Snowflake constantly changes the website, look for the START FOR FREE button and give it a click.




A screen will appear stating, "Start your 30-day FREE trial." You will then fill in your name, email, and company and press CONTINUE.






It is time to choose your edition of Snowflake and the Cloud Provider. You will choose between Snowflake's Standard, Enterprise, and Business Critical editions. Choose the Standard edition.


You will also choose your cloud provider of AWS, Google Cloud Platform, and Microsoft Azure. Below, we have chosen the Standard edition and the cloud provider of AWS. We have chosen the US EAST (Northern Virginia) site, but you can choose the one closest to you.


Place a checkmark on the terms of service information and then press the GET STARTED button.




You will receive a message that you are signed up. An email will arrive in a few minutes where you can activate your account.




You will receive an email to CLICK TO ACTIVATE your Snowflake trial account. Please keep the email because it has the link for your data warehouse. But beware, you might have to look in your spam folder. The email usually arrives in about five minutes.


Once the message comes, you can hit the CLICK TO ACTIVATE button. You can use the link to connect to your account.




Once you click on the link Snowflake sent you, you will choose a username and password. You will then click GET STARTED. Make sure you save the User Name and the Password, or you will have to contact Snowflake Support to retrieve it.





We used the classic console when this book and course were created. However, you can switch to the class console so the pictures are consistent with the book.




Once you see the WELCOME TO SNOWFLAKE message and the menu above, you can click the X and enter the Snowflake tool to begin creating tables and querying.





You should now be able to see the Snowflake Browser and Query tool. This browser is a simple but effective way to query Snowflake easily. Warning: This is not a sophisticated query tool like the Nexus Query Chameleon from CoffingDW.com, but you can run queries here and get an answer set.


Your next mission will be to load the SQL_CLASS and SQL_Views tables and views from a script.





In the top menu bar, press on "Worksheets." You can type in your SQL in the window below. Next, you will see a "RUN" button to execute the SQL queries. Once a successful query is executed, you will receive your result set below. Our next couple of pages will dedicate to executing a script to create a database, schema, tables, and views.





If you are in a CoffingDW training class for Snowflake, you were sent a script in your email with the name SnowflakeClass.txt. If you are not in the class, you can go to NexusDataServer.com and follow the instructions over the following pages to retrieve the text file. The text file will create the tables and views that match this book.




After using your browser to go to the website Nexusdataserver.com, you press CLASSES on the top menu. Then, scroll down until you see the "Snowflake Architecture and SQL" course and press the Course Outline button.





You will then click on the Download Snowflake Class Database Script button. The script then downloads to your PC, so check your downloads for the file SnowflakeClass.txt.




Open the SnowflakeClass.txt file from the email (if you are in a CoffingDW Snowflake class) or the one you downloaded from NexusDataServer.com (see previous pages) and copy the text in the script. You will paste this into the Snowflake Worksheet to execute.





There are two ways to run the script on Snowflake. Here is the first way.

Paste the copied text from the SnowflakeClass.txt file into your Snowflake worksheet. Next, place a checkmark in the ALL QUERIES box. Then, press the RUN (82) button to execute the 82 queries. The database Nexus is created containing the SQL_CLASS and SQL_VIEWS schema, plus all of the tables and views to match the book.




Here is the second way you can run the script. If the first way was successful, you don't need to do this again. However, this will show you there are different methods to run a script of SQL.


You will see three dots for more options on the far right of the menu with the RUN button. Click on the three dots, and from the menu, choose LOAD SCRIPT. Next, browse where you put your SnowflakeClass.txt file, SELECT it, and choose OPEN. You will then see your script pasted inside the worksheet window.




Once you execute your SnowflakeClass.txt script, it will create the Nexus database containing the SQL_CLASS and SQL_VIEWS schemas. Drill down in the SQL_CLASS schema, and you will see your tables.





Once you execute your SnowflakeClass.txt script, it will create the Nexus database containing the SQL_CLASS and SQL_VIEWS schemas. Drill down in the SQL_CLASS schema, and you will see your tables. Drill down in the SQL_VIEWS schema, and you will see your views.




Use the dropdowns to set your default database to NEXUS and your default SCHEMA to SQL_CLASS. Then, type in the query above. Finally, execute the query by hitting the RUN button.




You can try the Nexus Query Chameleon for Free, as well. Download the Nexus at CoffingDW.com and query all systems in your enterprise from the best tool on the market. Nexus also migrates data and can join data across platforms.



The Snowflake query browser is light years behind the 18 years of development of the Nexus Query Chameleon. And the best part is that Nexus can query all systems in your enterprise and has a Super Join Builder that builds the SQL automatically as the user's point-and-click. And the most amazing part is that Nexus can easily join Snowflake tables with Excel, Access, and tables and views from all other database platforms. Check out just some of the amazing features of Nexus here.


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