SnowPro Advanced: Data Engineer · Free practice question 9 of 10
Query Acceleration max scale factor
An engineer runs ALTER WAREHOUSE wh SET ENABLE_QUERY_ACCELERATION = TRUE, QUERY_ACCELERATION_MAX_SCALE_FACTOR = 0. Shortly afterward, credit consumption on that warehouse jumps unexpectedly. What is the most likely cause and the correct remediation?
- A.Setting the scale factor to 0 disabled Query Acceleration entirely; credits are up for unrelated reasons — no change needed.
- B.A value of 0 means no upper bound on the acceleration scale factor, so QAS is spending freely. Set a finite cap (for example 4 or 8) to constrain it.
- C.Query Acceleration was applied to every query on the warehouse. Move affected queries to a warehouse with QAS disabled.
- D.The warehouse rejected queries during the change; rerun them once the configuration stabilizes.
Show answer and explanation
Correct answer: B. A value of 0 means no upper bound on the acceleration scale factor, so QAS is spending freely. Set a finite cap (for example 4 or 8) to constrain it.
Why: For QUERY_ACCELERATION_MAX_SCALE_FACTOR, 0 means 'no maximum' — Snowflake can scale acceleration compute as high as it needs. That easily produces surprise costs. The fix is a finite cap that matches your budget, such as 4 or 8, so QAS still helps eligible queries without unbounded spend.
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