Why migrate
With a single default warehouse, every query—exploratory, production, audience builds—competes for the same resources. Compute pools solve this by letting you assign different warehouses to different workloads:- Right-size compute for the job. Use a small warehouse for quick lookups and a large one for heavy processing, rather than over-provisioning a single warehouse for all cases.
- Isolate workloads. Prevent an expensive production pipeline from slowing down ad-hoc exploration, or vice versa.
- Control costs. Smaller warehouses for lightweight work cost less per credit-second than running everything on a large warehouse.
- Set collaboration policies. Control which companies in your data plane can use which warehouses, so shared environments stay predictable.
Prerequisites
- ACCOUNTADMIN role or equivalent in your Snowflake account
- Access to the Narrative Snowflake Native App in your account
- One or more Snowflake warehouses you want to register as compute pools
- A Narrative API token with Compute Pools Read and Write permissions (manage API keys)
Migration steps
Grant warehouse access to the native app
For each warehouse you want to register as a compute pool, run the following in a Snowflake worksheet:For example, to register two warehouses:Each granted warehouse is automatically registered as a compute pool on your data plane. You can grant access to your existing warehouse plus any additional warehouses you want to add.
Verify compute pools appear
Navigate to Settings > Data Planes, select your Snowflake data plane, and open the Compute Pools tab. You should see each registered warehouse listed as a compute pool.
Set a default compute pool
From the Compute Pools tab, open the action menu (
···) on the warehouse you want as your default and select Set as default. This warehouse is used whenever a query doesn’t specify a compute pool.Select compute pools in the context selector
The context selector now shows your registered compute pools in the second column. Select the appropriate warehouse for your current workload. The previous static “DEFAULT” label is replaced by your registered pools.
What changes after migration
| Before | After |
|---|---|
| Single warehouse for all workloads | One or more warehouses, each as a named compute pool |
| No choice in the context selector | Context selector populates with your registered warehouses |
| Warehouse configuration managed entirely in Snowflake | Basic settings visible and editable from the data plane detail page |
Related content
Compute Pools
Understand compute pool types and when to use each
Using the Context Selector
Choose your compute pool and other execution context settings
Snowflake Native App Installation
Full installation guide for new Snowflake data planes