This document explains how our Cache Optimizer Agent cuts down Snowflake spend with just one click.
Typically, the AUTO_SUSPEND parameter is set to 60 seconds for all warehouses. This means that a warehouse will run idle for 60 seconds before it gets shut down.
Let’s say you have 15 warehouses, each of size SMALL. If a warehouse starts and shuts down even once every hour, it is equivalent to $10,000 per year of Snowflake costs - spent on just idle time.
Here’s how this estimate is calculated.
$$ \text{Idle time cost estimate} = \text{Idle time (in hours)} \times \text{Cost per hour} = \left( 15 \times 24 \times 365 \times \frac{1}{60} \right) \times \left( \text{credits\_per\_hour of SMALL} \times \text{cost\_per\_credit} \right) $$
The goal of Cache Optimizer agent is to minimize the idle time of every Snowflake warehouse, while maintaining the same level of performance. It does this by balancing the suspension times and cache utilization for each warehouse. The diagram below shows a warehouse timeline, demonstrating how this agent operates.
This agent suspends the warehouse long before the automatic suspension time of Snowflake. Every warehouse is optimally suspended once the agent is enabled based on its past cache utilization metrics.