Metadata for an external table can be refreshed automatically using which service?

• A. Event notification services (SQS/Microsoft Azure)
• B. Snowflake Tasks
• C. Manual refresh only
• D. REST API

Answer: (A)

Event notification services (such as SQS for AWS or Azure Event Grid) are used to automatically refresh metadata for an external table. The external table relies on the list of files in the external stage, and when new files land, storage event notifications trigger Snowflake to refresh the table’s metadata so those new files are visible in queries without manual intervention. This event-driven approach keeps the external table in sync with the data as it arrives. While scheduled tasks or REST API calls can refresh metadata, they don’t provide the same automatic, event-driven responsiveness as cloud storage notifications.