What does role hierarchy and privilege inheritance accomplish in Snowflake's access control model?

• A. Granting lower-level functional roles to higher-level functional roles in a parent-child relationship
• B. Granting higher-level roles to lower-level roles
• C. Mapping roles to business units but not permissions
• D. Restricting all roles to the same level

Answer: (A)

Snowflake uses a role hierarchy so privileges can flow through a chain of roles. When you grant a lower-level role to a higher-level role, the higher-level role automatically gains all the privileges that the lower-level role has, and this can chain up the hierarchy. This lets you define permissions once on a base role and then compose broader access by granting that base role to other roles, reducing duplication and keeping access consistent across users who hold different, higher roles. In short, role hierarchy and privilege inheritance enable centralized, scalable permission propagation: privileges belong to the lower roles, and higher roles inherit them through grants.