> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.vortexiq.ai/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Active Sessions, Snowflake

> Active Sessions for Snowflake accounts. Tracked live in Vortex IQ Nerve Centre. How to read it, why it matters, and how to act on it.

**Card class:** [Non-Hero](/nerve-centre/overview#card-classes-explained)  •  **Category:** [Capacity](/nerve-centre/connectors#connectors-by-type)

## At a glance

> **Active Sessions** is the live count of open Snowflake sessions: connections held by users, BI tools, drivers, and scheduled jobs that are currently authenticated to the account. It is the connection-side view of demand. A flat baseline that matches your known client fleet is healthy; a sudden climb usually means a connection leak in an application pool or a BI tool that has stopped closing sessions cleanly.

|                    |                                                                                                                                                                                 |
| ------------------ | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **What it tracks** | The number of currently open sessions on the account for the selected period, read from `SESSIONS` in the ACCOUNT\_USAGE / INFORMATION\_SCHEMA views and the live session list. |
| **Data source**    | `detail`: Active Sessions for the selected period. Counts authenticated sessions, not running queries.                                                                          |
| **Time window**    | `RT` (real-time, refreshed on the live polling cycle).                                                                                                                          |
| **Alert trigger**  | None configured by default. Pair with saturation and queue-depth cards for demand alerting.                                                                                     |
| **Roles**          | owner, platform, SRE                                                                                                                                                            |

## Calculation

Calculated automatically from your Snowflake account state. See the At a glance summary above for what the metric tracks and the reconcile pointer below for the native check.

## What it tracks

A session in Snowflake is an authenticated connection to the account. Every BI dashboard, dbt run, JDBC/ODBC client, Python connector, and Snowsight worksheet opens at least one session. Sessions are distinct from queries: a session can sit idle for a long time without running anything, and a single session can run thousands of queries over its life. Counting active sessions tells you how many clients are connected, which is the leading indicator of connection-pool health rather than compute spend. A creeping session count with flat query volume is the classic signature of a leaking connection pool in an upstream application, where sessions are opened but never released. Read this card with [Queries per Hour (live)](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/snowflake/queries-per-hour-live) to separate "more clients" from "more work", and with [Failed Logins (24h)](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/snowflake/failed-logins-24h) when an unexpected session surge looks like it could be unwanted access.

**Reconcile against the source:** query `SELECT COUNT(*) FROM SNOWFLAKE.ACCOUNT_USAGE.SESSIONS WHERE DELETED_ON IS NULL;` for the account view (note ACCOUNT\_USAGE latency), or use `SHOW SESSIONS` for the live list. The Vortex IQ count should match the live open-session count at poll time.

***

### Tracked live in Vortex IQ Nerve Centre

*Active Sessions* is one of hundreds of KPI pulses Vortex IQ tracks across Snowflake and 70+ other ecommerce connectors. Nerve Centre runs the detection layer; Vortex Mind investigates the cause when something moves; Ask Viq lets you interrogate any number in plain English.

[Start for free](https://app.vortexiq.ai/login) or [book a demo](https://www.vortexiq.ai/contact-us) to see this metric running on your own data.