Snowflake Tagging

urn:js:virtue:aspire:proposal:8.1

TL;DR

Object Tags in Snowflake MUST conform to the tagging standards in the sainsburys-tech/aspire-snowflake-administration repository.

Rational

• Snowflake Tag Schemas
• Snowflake Object Tagging Documentation

Background

Snowflake has released the Object Tagging feature, which was made available to Sainsbury’s as part of the Private Preview. Tagging objects provides an opportunity to apply data about objects directly to those objects and assist with organising the account.

Up until now, data about an object has regularly been inserted into the ‘COMMENT’ on the object, which has then appeared in the Data Dictionary (Alation). This data is often not relevant in the Data Dictionary and confusing to its users.

Benefits

• Readers of tags know exactly what the contents of a tag should be.
• Tags can be easily analysed for their conformity to the standards.
• Tags are not currently in use in the account, so no transformation of existing tags is required.
• Ensures that tags do not become a wild-west environment, and helps to ensure that PII data does not become contained in tags.
• Object technical data is kept out of the data dictionary, as the ‘COMMENT’ property of Snowflake objects is regularly copied into the Data Dictionary (Alation).

Impact / Downsides

• Some tag-like data will need to be migrated out of Snowflake ‘COMMENT’ properties and into tags.

Implications

None.