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While Firebolt Core provides powerful data warehousing capabilities, some relevant differences exist between Firebolt Core and managed Firebolt and are outlined below.
  • There are no built-in security features in Firebolt Core. The features outlined in Security are only available in managed Firebolt. In particular, the following restrictions apply.
    • There is no authentication mechanism in Firebolt Core. Anyone that can access the HTTP query endpoint of a Firebolt Core node can submit queries to the cluster (see also Connect).
    • There is no role-based access control in Firebolt Core, and attempting to use the respective SQL commands will result in an error.
    • There is no encryption of network traffic within a Firebolt Core cluster. This applies both to inter-node traffic and to traffic to or from users.
  • There are only limited features for automatic management and optimization in Firebolt Core. In particular, the following restrictions apply.
    • There is no support for online upgrades in Firebolt Core. Version upgrades must be done explicitly (see also Deployment and Operational Guide).
    • There is no support for auto-scaling in Firebolt Core. Resizing a Firebolt Core cluster is usually not possible at all (see also Architecture).
    • There is no support for auto-vacuum in Firebolt Core. VACUUM can still be run manually.
    • There is no admission controller in Firebolt Core. Clients are responsible for load-balancing and ensuring that data is distributed evenly (see also Connect), as well as for retrying failed queries.
  • Some further limitations apply to database objects managed by Firebolt Core (e.g. tables or views).
    • There is no storage-compute isolation in Firebolt Core (see also Architecture). As a result, managed database objects are tied to one specific Firebolt Core cluster which cannot be resized.
    • There is no support for zero-copy cloning in Firebolt Core.
    • There is no support for DIMENSION tables in Firebolt Core. All tables are sharded across nodes.
  • At most one write transaction can be active at a time in Firebolt Core (see also Connect). Attempting to start concurrent write transactions will result in an error.
  • There is no support for asynchronous query execution in Firebolt Core.
As a result of the above limitations, only a subset of the documented SQL dialect is available in Firebolt Core. Most importantly, the following statements are unavailable in Firebolt Core.
  • Information Schema tables pertaining to features not available in Firebolt Core (e.g. Accounts) will return placeholder results.
  • Access Control SQL commands are not available in Firebolt Core and attempting to use them will result in an error.
  • Data Definition SQL commands pertaining to features not available in Firebolt Core (e.g. CREATE ACCOUNT) are not available and attempting to use them will result in an error.
  • Engine Commands are not available in Firebolt Core and attempting to use them will result in an error.
  • RECOMMEND DDL is not available in Firebolt Core and attempting to use it will result in an error.