Answer: Metadata management

The question asks which Snowflake function is maintained separately from the data and supports Time Travel, Secure Data Sharing, and pruning. Option D (Metadata management) is correct because Snowflake maintains metadata separately from the actual data storage. This metadata includes information about data files, their locations, statistics, and access patterns, which enables features like Time Travel (by tracking historical data changes), Secure Data Sharing (by managing permissions without copying data), and pruning (by using metadata to skip irrelevant micro-partitions during queries). The community discussion unanimously supports D with 100% consensus, noting that options A (Column compression), B (Data clustering), and C (Micro-partitioning) are data-related features that are not maintained separately from the data itself.

Author: LeetQuiz Editorial Team