Auto Shutdown

This automation helps you reduce Snowflake compute costs by automatically shutting down idle warehouses.

Overview

Auto Shutdown ensures warehouses are shut down immediately when they become idle — without interrupting active queries. By continuously monitoring your workloads and historical activity, it eliminates unnecessary compute costs while maintaining full performance and stability.

Required role to configure: Editor or higher.

Users with lower roles can view Auto Shutdown status but cannot enable or disable it.

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How It Works

Smarter Auto-Suspend Control

Seemore overrides Snowflake’s built-in auto-suspend logic with a dynamic mechanism. When a warehouse becomes idle, Seemore automatically adjusts the suspend value down to 1 second, ensuring it is suspended almost instantly. This is a graceful shutdown — running queries always complete before suspension.

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Smart Idle Detection

Seemore monitors warehouse activity every few seconds to identify idle periods. When no queries are active, the warehouse is suspended safely, reducing cost without affecting performance.

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Cost-Free Monitoring

Seemore runs lightweight internal checks that read only metadata and configuration details. This means:

• Warehouses are never reactivated by monitoring.

• The process is completely cost-free.

• Performance remains unaffected.

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Benefits

• 15–20 % compute savings on average with zero configuration overhead

• Non-intrusive operation — never terminates active queries

• Fully automated — continuously manages suspension in real time

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Prerequisites

Auto Shutdown requires the MANAGE WAREHOUSES privilege. If you haven't already granted it during initial setup, run:

GRANT MANAGE WAREHOUSES ON ACCOUNT TO ROLE seemore_user_role;

For full setup instructions, see Create Snowflake User and Privileges.

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How to Turn It On

Step 1 — Open the Compute Dashboard

Navigate to Cost Overview → Compute. This screen lists all Snowflake warehouses along with their cost metrics and optimization options.

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Step 2 — Review Total Savings

At the top of the screen, review your total potential savings, including those achievable with Auto Shutdown.

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Step 3 — Enable Auto Shutdown

You can activate Auto Shutdown in two ways:

• All warehouses - Apply Auto Shutdown globally for all warehouses per account.

• Per warehouse: Locate the warehouse in the list and toggle Auto Shutdown to ON.

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Step 4 — Automatic Operation

Once activated, Seemore immediately begins monitoring and will suspend each warehouse whenever it becomes idle.

[!NOTE] You can return to the Compute screen anytime to track results or adjust Auto Shutdown for specific warehouses.

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Monitoring & Validation

• Warehouse Cost Overview – Includes two idle-time monitoring graphs that can be found in the configuration section of each warehouse page by clicking on 'show idle info':

  • Average idle time per session by percentiles (P50 / P90 / P95).

  • Idle time vs. execution time to show how much idle compute is eliminated.

  
• Insights page -Displays total cost reduction and cumulative savings achieved through Auto Shutdown.

• Warehouse Cost Overview - Includes an Event Log that records every configuration change for full visibility.

[!TIP] Combine Auto Shutdown with SmartPulse for maximum savings — Auto Shutdown eliminates idle cost, while SmartPulse optimizes active workloads.

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