The STRIP_OUTER_ARRAY file format option in Snowflake is used when loading JSON documents that are composed of a large array containing multiple records. When this option is enabled, it removes the outer array structure, which allows each record within the array to be loaded as a separate row in the table. This is particularly useful for efficiently loading JSON data that is structured as an array of records1.
References:
Snowflake Documentation on JSON File Format
[ COF-C03 ] SnowPro Core Certification Exam Study Guide

The Snowflake Cloud Services layer performs a variety of tasks, including the management of metadata and the parsing and optimization of queries. This layer is responsible for coordinating activities across Snowflake, including user session management, security, and query compilation3.

In Snowflake, both materialized views and transient tables will incur storage charges because they store data.
They will also incur compute charges when queries are run against them, as compute resources are used to process the queries. References: [COF-C03] SnowPro Core Certification Exam Study Guide

Scaling out in Snowflake involves adding clusters of the same size to a virtual warehouse, which allows for handling more concurrent queries without affecting the performance of individual queries. Scaling up refers to resizing a virtual warehouse to increase its compute resources, enabling it to handle more complex workloads and larger queries more efficiently.