Snowflake
Feature | Status |
---|---|
Stage | PROD |
Metadata | |
Query Usage | |
Data Profiler | |
Data Quality | |
Lineage | |
DBT | |
Supported Versions | -- |
Feature | Status |
---|---|
Lineage | |
Table-level | |
Column-level |
In this section, we provide guides and references to use the Snowflake connector.
Configure and schedule Snowflake metadata and profiler workflows from the OpenMetadata UI:
If you don't want to use the OpenMetadata Ingestion container to configure the workflows via the UI, then you can check the following docs to connect using Airflow SDK or with the CLI.
Ingest with Airflow
Configure the ingestion using Airflow SDKIngest with the CLI
Run a one-time ingestion using the metadata CLIRequirements
OpenMetadata 0.12 or laterTo deploy OpenMetadata, check the Deployment guides.
To run the Ingestion via the UI you'll need to use the OpenMetadata Ingestion Container, which comes shipped with custom Airflow plugins to handle the workflow deployment.
To ingest basic metadata snowflake user must have the following priviledges:
USAGE
Privilege on WarehouseUSAGE
Privilege on DatabaseUSAGE
Privilege on SchemaSELECT
Privilege on Tables
While running the usage workflow, Openmetadata fetches the query logs by querying snowflake.account_usage.query_history
table. For this the snowflake user should be granted the ACCOUNTADMIN
role or a role granted IMPORTED PRIVILEGES on the database SNOWFLAKE
.
If ingesting tags, the user should also have permissions to query snowflake.account_usage.tag_references
.For this the snowflake user should be granted the ACCOUNTADMIN
role or a role granted IMPORTED PRIVILEGES on the database
You can find more information about the account_usage
schema here.
Metadata Ingestion
1. Visit the Services Page
The first step is ingesting the metadata from your sources. Under Settings, you will find a Services link an external source system to OpenMetadata. Once a service is created, it can be used to configure metadata, usage, and profiler workflows.
To visit the Services page, select Services from the Settings menu.

Find Databases option on left panel of the settings page

Add a new Service from the Database Services page

Select your service from the list
4. Name and Describe your Service
Provide a name and description for your service as illustrated below.
Service Name
OpenMetadata uniquely identifies services by their Service Name. Provide a name that distinguishes your deployment from other services, including the other {connector} services that you might be ingesting metadata from.

Provide a Name and description for your Service
5. Configure the Service Connection
In this step, we will configure the connection settings required for this connector. Please follow the instructions below to ensure that you've configured the connector to read from your snowflake service as desired.

Configure the service connection by filling the form
Connection Options
- Username: Specify the User to connect to Snowflake. It should have enough privileges to read all the metadata.
- Password: Password to connect to Snowflake.
- Account: Snowflake account identifier uniquely identifies a Snowflake account within your organization, as well as throughout the global network of Snowflake-supported cloud platforms and cloud regions. If the Snowflake URL is
https://xyz1234.us-east-1.gcp.snowflakecomputing.com
, then the account isxyz1234.us-east-1.gcp
. - Role (Optional): You can specify the role of user that you would like to ingest with, if no role is specified the default roles assigned to user will be selected.
- Warehouse: Snowflake warehouse is required for executing queries to fetch the metadata. Enter the name of warehouse against which you would like to execute these queries.
- Database (Optional): The database of the data source is an optional parameter, if you would like to restrict the metadata reading to a single database. If left blank, OpenMetadata ingestion attempts to scan all the databases.
- Private Key (Optional): If you have configured the key pair authentication for the given user you will have to pass the private key associated with the user in this field. You can checkout this doc to get more details about key-pair authentication.
- The multi-line key needs to be converted to one line with
\n
for line endings i.e.-----BEGIN ENCRYPTED PRIVATE KEY-----\nMII...\n...\n-----END ENCRYPTED PRIVATE KEY-----
- The multi-line key needs to be converted to one line with
- Snowflake Passphrase Key (Optional): If you have configured the encrypted key pair authentication for the given user you will have to pass the paraphrase associated with the private key in this field. You can checkout this doc to get more details about key-pair authentication.
- Include Temporary and Transient Tables: Optional configuration for ingestion of
TRANSIENT
andTEMPORARY
tables, By default, it will skip theTRANSIENT
andTEMPORARY
tables. - Connection Options (Optional): Enter the details for any additional connection options that can be sent to Snowflake during the connection. These details must be added as Key-Value pairs.
- Connection Arguments (Optional): Enter the details for any additional connection arguments such as security or protocol configs that can be sent to Snowflake during the connection. These details must be added as Key-Value pairs.
- In case you are using Single-Sign-On (SSO) for authentication, add the
authenticator
details in the Connection Arguments as a Key-Value pair as follows:"authenticator" : "sso_login_url"
- In case you authenticate with SSO using an external browser popup, then add the
authenticator
details in the Connection Arguments as a Key-Value pair as follows:"authenticator" : "externalbrowser"
- In case you are using Single-Sign-On (SSO) for authentication, add the
6. Test the Connection
Once the credentials have been added, click on Test Connection
and Save the changes.

Test the connection and save the Service
7. Configure Metadata Ingestion
In this step we will configure the metadata ingestion pipeline, Please follow the instructions below

Configure Metadata Ingestion Page
Metadata Ingestion Options
Name: This field refers to the name of ingestion pipeline, you can customize the name or use the generated name.
Database Filter Pattern (Optional): Use to database filter patterns to control whether or not to include database as part of metadata ingestion.
- Include: Explicitly include databases by adding a list of comma-separated regular expressions to the Include field. OpenMetadata will include all databases with names matching one or more of the supplied regular expressions. All other databases will be excluded.
- Exclude: Explicitly exclude databases by adding a list of comma-separated regular expressions to the Exclude field. OpenMetadata will exclude all databases with names matching one or more of the supplied regular expressions. All other databases will be included.
Schema Filter Pattern (Optional): Use to schema filter patterns to control whether or not to include schemas as part of metadata ingestion.
- Include: Explicitly include schemas by adding a list of comma-separated regular expressions to the Include field. OpenMetadata will include all schemas with names matching one or more of the supplied regular expressions. All other schemas will be excluded.
- Exclude: Explicitly exclude schemas by adding a list of comma-separated regular expressions to the Exclude field. OpenMetadata will exclude all schemas with names matching one or more of the supplied regular expressions. All other schemas will be included.
Table Filter Pattern (Optional): Use to table filter patterns to control whether or not to include tables as part of metadata ingestion.
- Include: Explicitly include tables by adding a list of comma-separated regular expressions to the Include field. OpenMetadata will include all tables with names matching one or more of the supplied regular expressions. All other tables will be excluded.
- Exclude: Explicitly exclude tables by adding a list of comma-separated regular expressions to the Exclude field. OpenMetadata will exclude all tables with names matching one or more of the supplied regular expressions. All other tables will be included.
Include views (toggle): Set the Include views toggle to control whether or not to include views as part of metadata ingestion.
Include tags (toggle): Set the 'Include Tags' toggle to control whether to include tags as part of metadata ingestion.
Enable Debug Log (toggle): Set the Enable Debug Log toggle to set the default log level to debug, these logs can be viewed later in Airflow.
Mark Deleted Tables (toggle): Set the Mark Deleted Tables toggle to flag tables as soft-deleted if they are not present anymore in the source system.
Mark Deleted Tables from Filter Only (toggle): Set the Mark Deleted Tables from Filter Only toggle to flag tables as soft-deleted if they are not present anymore within the filtered schema or database only. This flag is useful when you have more than one ingestion pipelines. For example if you have a schema
8. Schedule the Ingestion and Deploy
Scheduling can be set up at an hourly, daily, weekly, or manual cadence. The timezone is in UTC. Select a Start Date to schedule for ingestion. It is optional to add an End Date.
Review your configuration settings. If they match what you intended, click Deploy to create the service and schedule metadata ingestion.
If something doesn't look right, click the Back button to return to the appropriate step and change the settings as needed.
After configuring the workflow, you can click on Deploy to create the pipeline.

Schedule the Ingestion Pipeline and Deploy
Troubleshooting
Workflow Deployment Error
If there were any errors during the workflow deployment process, the Ingestion Pipeline Entity will still be created, but no workflow will be present in the Ingestion container.
You can then edit the Ingestion Pipeline and Deploy it again.
From the Connection tab, you can also Edit the Service if needed.

Edit and Deploy the Ingestion Pipeline