Snowflake (GCS Export)

This guide explains how to export data from Snowflake to Auxia’s GCS bucket for ingestion, using Snowflake’s native COPY INTO.

The recommended method for connecting Snowflake to Auxia is Direct Connection, where Auxia reads your tables in place via a read-only role — no export jobs to build or maintain. Use GCS Export if you’d rather push files to Auxia on your own schedule.

1. Overview

In this approach, data is exported from Snowflake directly to Auxia’s GCS bucket using Snowflake’s native COPY INTO command. Auxia then ingests the data from there. Flow:

Client (Snowflake)                         Auxia
      │                                      │
      │                                      │ 1. Provide GCS bucket path
      │<─────────────────────────────────────│
      │                                      │
      │ 2. Create storage integration        │
      │    (Snowflake generates a GCP        │
      │     service account)                 │
      │                                      │
      │ 3. Retrieve & send service account   │
      │─────────────────────────────────────>│
      │                                      │
      │                                      │ 4. Grant bucket access to
      │                                      │    service account (via IAM)
      │<─────────────────────────────────────│
      │                                      │
      │ 5. Set up scheduled exports          │
      │                                      │
      │         Data flows to GCS            │
      │═════════════════════════════════════>│

2. What Auxia Provides

Auxia will provide:

Destination GCS bucket path (e.g., gcs://<your_bucket_path>/)

Contact your Auxia solutions engineer to obtain this.

3. Prerequisites

The user performing this setup must be granted the ACCOUNTADMIN role (required for creating storage integrations).
A running Snowflake warehouse for compute.

4. Running SQL in Snowflake

All SQL commands in this guide are executed using Snowflake’s web interface (Snowsight). To open a SQL worksheet:

In the left navigation menu, select Projects → Worksheets
Click the + button in the top-right corner
Select SQL Worksheet

Before running SQL commands:

In the top-right corner of the worksheet, select your Role (use ACCOUNTADMIN for storage integration commands)
Select a Warehouse for compute resources
Optionally select a Database and Schema context

To execute SQL:

Place the cursor on the statement and click the Run button (or press Cmd+Enter on Mac / Ctrl+Enter on Windows)
To run all statements, select all text first

5. Required Actions

Step 1: Create a Storage Integration

GCS bucket paths copied from the Google Cloud Console use the gs:// prefix. Snowflake requires the gcs:// prefix instead.

Run the following SQL in a worksheet with the ACCOUNTADMIN role selected:

CREATE STORAGE INTEGRATION auxia_gcs_integration
  TYPE = EXTERNAL_STAGE
  STORAGE_PROVIDER = 'GCS'
  ENABLED = TRUE
  STORAGE_ALLOWED_LOCATIONS = ('gcs://<your_bucket_path>/');

A successful execution returns the following:

Step 2: Retrieve and Send the Service Account to Auxia

Run the following SQL to retrieve the Snowflake-generated GCP service account:

DESC STORAGE INTEGRATION auxia_gcs_integration;

Locate the STORAGE_GCP_SERVICE_ACCOUNT row and copy its property_value:

Send the copied value to Auxia. Auxia will grant this service account write access to the destination bucket via GCP IAM.

Step 3: Set Up Scheduled Export

Once Auxia confirms write access is granted, set up a scheduled export to deliver data to the GCS bucket in the format specified below. Cost considerations:

Warehouse compute: Each task execution consumes Snowflake credits based on warehouse size and runtime. Billing is per-second with a 1-minute minimum per execution.
Data egress: Snowflake charges per-byte egress fees for cross-region or cross-cloud data transfers. Same-region transfers are free.
Recommendation: Use an appropriately sized warehouse (e.g., X-Small for small datasets) and consider export frequency based on data volume.

Data format requirements:

File Format

Parquet (required) — must be specified explicitly via FILE_FORMAT = (TYPE = PARQUET) in the export query. Snowflake uses Snappy compression by default for Parquet files.

Partitioning

Data must be partitioned by UTC date (dt=YYYY-MM-DD/) or UTC date and hour (dt=YYYY-MM-DD/hr=HH/). Each folder should contain data that was added to Snowflake during that UTC hour (for hourly exports) or UTC day (for daily exports). Daily partitioning:

<your_bucket_path>/
  data/<table_name>/
    dt=2026-01-24/
      data_0_0_0.parquet
    dt=2026-01-25/
      data_0_0_0.parquet
    dt=2026-01-26/
      data_0_0_0.parquet

Hourly partitioning:

<your_bucket_path>/
  data/<table_name>/
    dt=2026-01-26/
      hr=00/
        data_0_0_0.parquet
      hr=01/
        data_0_0_0.parquet
      hr=14/
        data_0_0_0.parquet

Data Requirements

Treat exported files as immutable — do not modify or delete after writing
Use UTC timestamps for all partitioning

How to achieve this: The export should filter for new data added since the last export. A common approach is to use a timestamp column (e.g., export_timestamp) that records when each row was inserted into Snowflake, and filter based on that column to extract data for the corresponding UTC time period. The exact filtering logic will depend on your data structure and pipeline. Below are Snowflake Task examples to help you get started. The schedule, filtering logic, and export paths shown here are illustrative — modify them to fit your data pipeline.

Sample: Hourly Export

-- Set database context
USE DATABASE <your_database>;
USE SCHEMA <your_schema>;

CREATE OR REPLACE TASK hourly_export_task
  WAREHOUSE = <your_warehouse>
  SCHEDULE = 'USING CRON 5 * * * * UTC'  -- Example: runs once per hour, at HH:05 UTC
AS
DECLARE
  export_ts TIMESTAMP_NTZ := DATEADD(hour, -1, CONVERT_TIMEZONE('UTC', CURRENT_TIMESTAMP()));
  export_date VARCHAR := TO_CHAR(export_ts, 'YYYY-MM-DD');
  export_hour VARCHAR := TO_CHAR(export_ts, 'HH24');
BEGIN
  EXECUTE IMMEDIATE '
    COPY INTO ''gcs://<your_bucket_path>/data/<table_name>/dt=' || export_date || '/hr=' || export_hour || '/''
    FROM (
      SELECT *
      FROM <your_database>.<your_schema>.<table_name>
      -- Convert export_timestamp to UTC (replace <source_timezone> with your timezone, e.g., America/Los_Angeles)
      WHERE DATE(CONVERT_TIMEZONE(''<source_timezone>'', ''UTC'', export_timestamp)) = ''' || export_date || '''::DATE
        AND HOUR(CONVERT_TIMEZONE(''<source_timezone>'', ''UTC'', export_timestamp)) = ' || export_hour || '
    )
    STORAGE_INTEGRATION = auxia_gcs_integration
    FILE_FORMAT = (TYPE = PARQUET)
    HEADER = TRUE
  ';
END;

Once the task is created, resume it to start execution:

ALTER TASK hourly_export_task RESUME;

Sample: Daily Export

-- Set database context
USE DATABASE <your_database>;
USE SCHEMA <your_schema>;

CREATE OR REPLACE TASK daily_export_task
  WAREHOUSE = <your_warehouse>
  SCHEDULE = 'USING CRON 30 0 * * * UTC'  -- Example: runs once per day, at 00:30 UTC
AS
DECLARE
  export_date VARCHAR := TO_CHAR(DATEADD(day, -1, CURRENT_DATE()), 'YYYY-MM-DD');
BEGIN
  EXECUTE IMMEDIATE '
    COPY INTO ''gcs://<your_bucket_path>/data/<table_name>/dt=' || export_date || '/''
    FROM (
      SELECT *
      FROM <your_database>.<your_schema>.<table_name>
      -- Convert export_timestamp to UTC (replace <source_timezone> with your timezone, e.g., America/Los_Angeles)
      WHERE DATE(CONVERT_TIMEZONE(''<source_timezone>'', ''UTC'', export_timestamp)) = ''' || export_date || '''::DATE
    )
    STORAGE_INTEGRATION = auxia_gcs_integration
    FILE_FORMAT = (TYPE = PARQUET)
    HEADER = TRUE
  ';
END;

Once the task is created, resume it to start execution:

ALTER TASK daily_export_task RESUME;

A successful task creation returns the following:

6. Monitoring Task Execution

To verify the export task is running correctly, use the following SQL commands. List all tasks:

SHOW TASKS;

The task created earlier should appear in the results:

View recent task execution history:

SELECT
    NAME,
    STATE,
    SCHEDULED_TIME,
    COMPLETED_TIME,
    ERROR_MESSAGE
FROM TABLE(<your_database>.INFORMATION_SCHEMA.TASK_HISTORY())
WHERE NAME = 'HOURLY_EXPORT_TASK'
ORDER BY SCHEDULED_TIME DESC
LIMIT 10;

Successful task executions appear with SUCCEEDED in the STATE column:

Suspend or resume a task:

-- Suspend
ALTER TASK hourly_export_task SUSPEND;

-- Resume
ALTER TASK hourly_export_task RESUME;

7. Confirm with Auxia

Once the export task is running and verified, notify Auxia and confirm:

Export frequency (hourly or daily)
Table(s) being exported

8. Recommended Practices

Use Parquet format — Snowflake compresses Parquet files with Snappy by default
Partition by UTC date (daily) or UTC date/hour (hourly)
Ensure immutability — once a file is written, it should not be modified or deleted
Use UTC timestamps — all partitioning should be based on UTC time
Monitor task execution — regularly check task history for failures or delays

9. Summary

Step	Action	Owner
1	Provide GCS bucket path	Auxia
2	Create storage integration	Client
3	Retrieve and send service account to Auxia	Client
4	Grant bucket access to service account (via IAM)	Auxia
5	Set up scheduled export task	Client
6	Confirm export is running	Client

Need Help?

Contact support@auxia.io or your Auxia solutions engineer.

​1. Overview

​2. What Auxia Provides

​3. Prerequisites

​4. Running SQL in Snowflake

​5. Required Actions

​Step 1: Create a Storage Integration

​Step 2: Retrieve and Send the Service Account to Auxia

​Step 3: Set Up Scheduled Export

​File Format

​Partitioning

​Data Requirements

​Sample: Hourly Export

​Sample: Daily Export

​6. Monitoring Task Execution

​7. Confirm with Auxia

​8. Recommended Practices

​9. Summary

​Need Help?

1. Overview

2. What Auxia Provides

3. Prerequisites

4. Running SQL in Snowflake

5. Required Actions

Step 1: Create a Storage Integration

Step 2: Retrieve and Send the Service Account to Auxia

Step 3: Set Up Scheduled Export

File Format

Partitioning

Data Requirements

Sample: Hourly Export

Sample: Daily Export

6. Monitoring Task Execution

7. Confirm with Auxia

8. Recommended Practices

9. Summary

Need Help?