There are a lot of tools that can help you get the most from your Salesforce DevOps environment. Automated release management offers a variety of options for optimizing and streamlining your development pipeline. Data security is a major aspect of a complete DevOps plan, but there are measures you can take beyond secure passwords.
Salesforce data backup and restore are essential aspects of a complete data security strategy.
You can’t completely guard against data loss events. Human error is a major cause of these events and is impossible to eradicate. Other factors such as cybercriminals, hardware failure, and even natural disasters can result in losing access to essential system data.
A reliable and complete data backup and the ability to restore this information quickly and efficiently is essential to regaining operations after such an event. A failure to put these systems in place will leave your team members without the data they need to perform their duties.
But how can you be sure you’re getting the most from your backup and recovery plan?
Here are 7 things you can do to optimize your Salesforce data backup and restore:
1. Establish a Recovery Point Objective
The main goal of a Salesforce data backup and restore strategy is to get your system back online after a data loss event. However, that goal doesn’t look the same for everybody. Setting a Recovery Point Objective (RPO) helps identify your specific needs and goals from this effort.
RPO refers to the maximum period of data your company is willing to lose in the event of a data disaster.
A shorter RPO means your backups will have to occur more often, which in turn necessitates more storage capacity. On the other hand, a longer RPO is more affordable because of the diminished need for storage but will result in losing more data when it comes time to recovery and restore after a data loss event.
2. Define a Recovery Time Objective
Another consideration when planning how to configure your data backup settings relates to how important it is for your company to be able to quickly return to operations.
A Recovery Time Objective (RTO) relates to how fast you can recover from the moment a data disaster occurs to the moment your company is able to return to normal operations.
A shorter RTO means you are able to get your system operational in a short amount of time, which will save money from a minimization of downtime. However, this requires a higher degree of attention and retention so it will cost more to keep it up.
Find your sweet spot of upkeep and recovery to set an RTO that works best for your company.
3. Select a Type of Backup
The needs of every company are not going to be the same when it comes to Salesforce data backup and restore strategies. And just how your needs aren’t all the same, the options for how you backup your data will vary.
Choosing the right type of data backup will keep your storage needs at a manageable level while providing proper coverage.
There are four types of backups to choose from:
Full Backup: Entirety of data and metadata
Incremental Backup: Select incremental changes since previous backup
Normal Backup: Selected data objects as defined in backup configuration
Hierarchical Backup: All relationships corresponding to the selected data objects and associate relationships
4. Configure Your Settings
Specifications can be made within your data backup and restore tools to further customize your coverage and storage needs. This can be performed within Salesforce itself or within your tool, depending on the provider you choose.
Properly configured settings will stipulate which data sets are essential to cover so you aren’t left with outdated important information.
Select the desired set of data and metadata that you need to be backed up. This might not include your entire Salesforce data repository. However, you should be aware of government regulations regarding the types of data that should be covered.
The retention period for the backed up data should also be set. A long retention period means you will need to store a growing amount of information. A short retention period means data might be deleted when you still need it. Configure these to your needs.
5. Consider Archiving Certain Data Sets
Archiving is another method of storing data that can reduce the amount of information stored within your backups.
Data archiving is the process of identifying data that is no longer used, moving it out of the production system, and storing it in long-term storage.
This can sometimes become confused with backing data up. Backups are a copy of essential data that doesn’t affect the original files. Archives serve as data repositories for information that isn’t critical but must be retained.
The absence of this information doesn’t affect normal operations of the Salesforce environment. In fact, it makes it better by diminishing the workload of the server. This also makes it easier and faster to backup essential information.
6. Keep Regulations in Mind
There are a variety of regulations that stipulate how certain industries must handle, store, and protect sensitive information. Healthcare and financial companies are among the most regulated.
A dedicated Salesforce data backup and restore tool will be able to help companies remain in compliance with government regulations relating to handling sensitive information.
Vault Data Backup & Recovery, for instance, addresses an aspect of the GDPR “right to be forgotten” rule with a special feature that deletes a person’s data when it’s no longer needed for its original purpose.
7. Institute a Reliable Restore Functionality
There are many options for Salesforce backup functionality. Salesforce itself offers a backup option, however it doesn’t provide the necessary functionality to restore this data after a data loss event occurs. You need to make sure you have this capability because backed up data that can’t be moved back into your live environment doesn’t provide the benefits you need.
A Salesforce data backup and restore option that integrates with the rest of your application lifecycle management tools will provide the greatest benefits.
The AutoRABIT platform has everything you need to optimize your Salesforce DevOps processes, while backing up this important information with the ability to restore it should something go wrong. Be sure to follow Salesforce Backup and Recovery Best practices to further minimize your risk of losing data.