Register a Snowflake data source

Updated: June 5, 2026

Before you can synchronize your data source, you have to register the data source to create an initial structure in a selected community in Data Catalog.

Prerequisites

• You have gone through the preflight checks.
• You have created a JDBC connection.
• You have added the Catalog JDBC ingestion capability to the connection.

Steps

1. On the main toolbar, click → Catalog.
   The Catalog homepage opens.
2. Click Integrations.
   The Integrations page opens.
3. Click the Data source registration tab.
4. In the row of the data source that you want to register, click Register.
   The Register a Data Source dialog box opens.
   Note You can register multiple databases via the same JDBC connection. If a database is already registered, the name of the Database asset is shown in the Data sources column.
   
5. Enter the required information.

   Field	Description
   Community	The name of the parent community in which the assets will be created.
   System	The name of the System asset. After you have registered the database, a relation of the type Technology Asset groups / is grouped by Technology Asset is created between this System asset and the newly created Database asset. Important  A Database asset should have only one relation of the type 'Technology asset groups / is grouped by Technology asset' to a System asset.
   Owner	Tip By default, this field is called Owner, referencing the out-of-the-box Owner resource role. If you change the name of this out-of-the-box resource role, the updated name will be displayed instead. After the registration, a new domain and Database asset will be created specifically for this database in the community that you have specified. The user you select in this field will receive the responsibility for the domain. This ownership is then inherited by the Database asset. By default, the current user is selected. Note  An owner must be associated with the Database asset for synchronizations to run. The owner can be changed later on, but should not be removed.
   Database	Select the name of the database that you want to register via the JDBC connection. The drop-down list automatically shows which databases exist in your data source. You can refresh the list by clicking . The process automatically discovers databases available to the configured connection user. Only databases on which the role has the USAGE privilege are included. Show more technical details Collibra queries the account to list the available databases, equivalent to the native SHOW DATABASES IN ACCOUNT command. If the account has access to only one specific database, meaning SHOW DATABASES IN ACCOUNT returns no results, only the database specified in the connection is retrieved. The retrieval relies on the standard JDBC driver behavior. The actual results depend on the installed driver version. The behavior is described for driver 3.x series. The ingestion logic retrieves the list of databases (catalogs) using the JDBC API method: metaData.getCatalogs(). This directly invokes SnowflakeDatabaseMetaData.getCatalogs() inside the Snowflake JDBC driver. Note  Snowflake allows you to use one connection to register multiple databases. In that case, the drop-down list shows more than one name. The name will also be the name of the Database asset that is created as a result of registering the data source via Edge. Important  If you rename a database in the data source, the Edge synchronization process treats it as a new database. The existing Database asset is marked with the Missing from source status. You must create a new Database asset through a new data source registration.
   Description	A description of the data source.

6. Click Register.

   When the registration of your data source is complete:

   • A confirmation message appears.
   • A Physical Data Dictionary domain containing a Database asset is created.
   • A relation of the type "Technology asset groups / is grouped by Technology asset" is created between the Database asset and the System asset.
   • The Database asset page opens and a list of available schemas is available on the Configuration tab page of the Database asset.
7. Make sure the Database asset has an assigned owner.
   To validate this, go to the Database asset → Responsibilities. The owner is assigned during the registration of the data source. The owner doesn't need to be the same user as the user who triggers the synchronization.

Note If you registered a database without schemas, a new Schema asset is automatically created with the same name as the database or with a name as defined in the Edge capability.

What's next

You can now configure the synchronization of the schemas in the database.