Skip to main content

Overview

nOps reads Snowflake usage and billing data — warehouse credit consumption, query history, and organization-level spend — from Snowflake’s ACCOUNT_USAGE and ORGANIZATION_USAGE system views to show cost and performance in Inform. Snowflake uses RSA key-pair authentication: you provide only your account identifier, and nOps generates a key pair and gives you the exact SQL commands to run. You can connect multiple Snowflake accounts, each with its own generated key pair.
Only create one integration from your Snowflake organization admin account. The ORGANIZATION_USAGE views return identical data across every account in the organization, so connecting more than one account causes duplicate data and inconsistent reporting.

Prerequisites

  • ACCOUNTADMIN privileges in Snowflake
  • Access to your Snowflake organization admin account (required for ORGANIZATION_USAGE views)
  • Ability to create databases, roles, warehouses, and service users
  • nOps organization administrator access
Only admins and owners can connect, view instructions, or disconnect. Members see Admin Only on connectable cards.

Connect in nOps

Where to open Snowflake

  • To connect for the first time — go to Settings → Integrations and click the Snowflake card.
  • To manage existing connections — open the same card or use Settings → Account Status → Connected apps and click the Snowflake chip.

Connect steps

  1. Click the Snowflake card.
  2. Enter your account identifier — just the identifier, not the full URL (for example ngb14322.us-east-1 from ngb14322.us-east-1.snowflakecomputing.com).
  3. Click Generate key pair. nOps creates a 2048-bit RSA key pair for this connection and shows setup instructions.
  4. Copy the generated SQL and run it in a Snowflake worksheet using ACCOUNTADMIN.
You don’t need to look up your account identifier manually. Run this in a Snowflake worksheet to get the exact value:

Default configuration

nOps uses the following defaults for every new Snowflake integration — you only provide the account identifier:

Run the setup SQL in Snowflake

After you generate the key pair, nOps shows SQL split into four steps. Run them in order as ACCOUNTADMIN (steps 1–2) and then as the nops role (steps 3–4):
  1. Initial setup — creates the nops role, the nops warehouse, the nops database, and grants IMPORTED PRIVILEGES on the SNOWFLAKE database so the role can read usage views.
  2. Create the service user — creates a SERVICE-type user, attaches the nOps-generated RSA public key with ALTER USER ... SET RSA_PUBLIC_KEY=..., and grants the nops role to both the service user and your current user.
  3. Create views — creates query_history, warehouse_metering_history, and usage_in_currency_daily views in the nops database that wrap the underlying SNOWFLAKE.ACCOUNT_USAGE and SNOWFLAKE.ORGANIZATION_USAGE tables, then grants SELECT to the nops role.
  4. Verify — runs a test query as the nops role to confirm the setup works.
nOps also shows a Copy all button to copy every step at once.

Network configuration (optional)

If your Snowflake account restricts access with a network policy, add the nOps IP to your allowlist. SET ALLOWED_IP_LIST replaces the entire list, so include your existing IPs alongside the nOps address:

Manage your connections

Administrators can view instructions or remove individual Snowflake integrations from the Snowflake modal. Removing an integration deletes the stored RSA private key from AWS Secrets Manager and stops nOps from connecting to that account. nOps does not perform a live connectivity check when you connect — verify the SQL ran successfully in Snowflake to confirm access.

Troubleshooting

  • Invalid account identifier — enter only the identifier (for example ngb14322.us-east-1), not the full https://...snowflakecomputing.com URL.
  • RSA_PUBLIC_KEY errors — make sure you copied the full SQL block from step 2 without truncation; the key is a single long base64 string.
  • Permission errors while running the SQL — confirm you’re using ACCOUNTADMIN for steps 1–2, and that you’re logged into the organization admin account.
  • No data after setup — confirm the views in step 3 were created successfully and that the nops role has SELECT on them.
  • Duplicate or inconsistent data across accounts — you likely connected more than one account in the same organization; keep only the integration created from the org admin account.

Security

Snowflake authentication uses public key cryptography — no password is stored or transmitted. The private key is generated by nOps, stored securely in AWS Secrets Manager, and never shown after key generation completes. Only the public key is placed in your Snowflake account.