Answer: Cloud Services Layer

According to Snowflake's official documentation and the community consensus (with D receiving 100% of votes and multiple upvoted comments referencing the documentation), metadata and statistics are stored in the Cloud Services Layer. This layer handles metadata management, query optimization, security, and infrastructure management. While some comments initially suggested the Database Layer (C) or Storage Layer (A), the official Snowflake architecture clearly places metadata management in the Cloud Services Layer, which coordinates all components and maintains metadata for optimization purposes.

Author: LeetQuiz Editorial Team