Telling apart accounts, databases, schemas, and the objects that live in each

Snowflake organizes objects in a strict hierarchy: Organization > Account > Database > Schema > Object (tables, views, stages, etc.), with securable objects owned by roles that control access. Understanding this hierarchy is essential for managing namespaces, access control, and object resolution using fully qualified names.

1 · Learn the must-know

• 1The full object hierarchy is Organization -> Account -> Database -> Schema -> Object, and every securable object belongs to exactly one schema.
• 2Every database automatically contains two default schemas: INFORMATION_SCHEMA (read-only metadata views) and PUBLIC (default schema for user objects).
• 3Objects can be referenced using one-part, two-part, or three-part names (object, schema.object, or database.schema.object); unqualified names resolve using the session's current database/schema context.
• 4Schemas and databases can be created as either permanent or TRANSIENT, and tables can be PERMANENT, TRANSIENT, or TEMPORARY, each with different Time Travel and Fail-safe retention behavior.
• 5Account-level objects (like roles, users, warehouses, databases, resource monitors, and shares) exist outside any database/schema and are managed at the account level.
• 6Ownership of objects is tied to roles, not individual users, and access to any object requires privileges granted through the role hierarchy down to the securable object.

2 · Check your understanding