SnowPro Core COF-C03 vs COF-C02: What Changed

Sajeev Sebastian — Sat, 10 Oct 2026 04:00:00 +0000

Snowflake’s SnowPro Core certification moved from exam version COF-C02 to COF-C03 in 2026. If you studied from older material, here is what changed and what did not.

The key dates

Event	Date
COF-C03 released in English	16 February 2026
COF-C03 released in Japanese, Korean, French and Spanish	15 April 2026
English COF-C02 retired	14 May 2026
Translated COF-C02 versions retired	31 July 2026

In other words, COF-C03 is now the only SnowPro Core exam you can book.

What changed

Snowflake says the content remains the same but has been restructured from six domains into five, with newer features added, such as Snowflake Notebooks, Apache Iceberg tables and Snowflake Cortex. These are the COF-C03 domains and weights:

Domain	Weight
Features & Architecture	31%
Performance Optimization, Querying, and Transformation	21%
Account Management and Data Governance	20%
Data Loading, Unloading, and Connectivity	18%
Data Collaboration	10%

What stayed the same

Length: 100 multiple choice and multiple select questions in 115 minutes
Difficulty: Snowflake says it stays the same, and there was no beta period
Pass mark: 750 on a scaled score from 0 to 1000
Prerequisites: none, though Snowflake recommends 6 or more months of Snowflake experience and familiarity with basic ANSI SQL
Fee: USD 175, or USD 140 in India

What it means for your preparation

Check your study material’s version. Anything organised around six domains was written for COF-C02.
Add the newer features. Make sure you have covered Notebooks, Iceberg tables and Cortex, which older material may skip.
Use the official study guide. Snowflake’s COF-C03 study guide (last updated 8 July 2026) lists the objectives per domain and includes sample questions.
Practise hands-on. The study guide suggests a 30-day Snowflake free trial account for the labs.

Confirm the latest details on Snowflake’s SnowPro Core COF-C03 page before you book.

I run ExamCrest, where this post first appeared. If you're preparing for SnowPro Core, there are 10 free SnowPro Core practice questions, each with the answer and a full explanation.

ServiceNow CSA Exam 2026: Domains, Weights and Study Plan

Sajeev Sebastian — Fri, 09 Oct 2026 09:25:05 +0000

ServiceNow updated its Certified System Administrator (CSA) exam blueprint in January 2026. Here are the six official domains and their weights, how to divide your study time, and what to practise hands-on for the biggest domain.

The six official domains

These come from ServiceNow’s Certified System Administrator (CSA) Mainline Exam Blueprint, marked “Updated January 2026”.

Domain	Weight
Database Management and Platform Security	30%
Configuring Applications for Collaboration	20%
Self Service & Automation	20%
Data Migration and Integration	13%
Instance Configuration	10%
Platform Overview and Navigation	7%

For the full topic list, download the blueprint from the CSA learning path on ServiceNow University. You need to enrol in the path to get it.

How to divide your study time

Database Management and Platform Security is the largest domain, at 30%. Together with the two 20% domains, it makes up 70% of the exam. A simple rule is to give each domain a share of your time that matches its weight. If you have about 40 hours to study, that works out roughly as:

12 hours: Database Management and Platform Security
8 hours each: Configuring Applications for Collaboration, and Self Service & Automation
5 hours: Data Migration and Integration
4 hours: Instance Configuration
3 hours: Platform Overview and Navigation

Move extra time to whichever domains you find hardest, but do not drop the smaller ones. The bottom three still add up to 30% of the exam.

What to practise in a Personal Developer Instance

ServiceNow offers free Personal Developer Instances (PDIs) with admin-level access, so you can try everything you study. For Database Management and Platform Security, practise:

creating tables and adding fields to them
setting up users, groups and roles
working through access controls

A PDI is reclaimed after 10 days without activity on the Developer Site, so save your work regularly, for example in update sets.

Prerequisites, courses and price

ServiceNow University lists no prerequisite for the CSA exam. Its CSA career map suggests two courses first: Welcome to ServiceNow, an on-demand introduction of about 3 hours, and ServiceNow Administration Fundamentals, offered as a three-day instructor-led course or a self-paced on-demand course. The CSA learning path also recommends 6 or more months of hands-on ServiceNow administration experience.

The exam lasts 1 hour 30 minutes and is delivered by Pearson VUE, online or at a test centre. ServiceNow University lists it at 300 learning credits and also accepts payment by credit card.

The pass mark

ServiceNow does not publish the CSA pass mark. The blueprint says each question is worth one point and your total is compared with a predetermined cut score that “is not publicly shared and is not always 70%”. Treat any 70% figure you see as an estimate, not a target, and aim to score comfortably across every domain in your practice.

Always confirm the details on ServiceNow University’s CSA exam page before you book.

I run ExamCrest, where this post first appeared. If you're preparing for CSA, there are 10 free CSA practice questions, each with the answer and a full explanation.

DEV Community: Sajeev Sebastian