As Salesforce data grows exponentially year over year, enterprises face an inevitable challenge: how to manage and retain historical records without compromising performance or overspending on storage.
Whether you’re dealing with millions of closed cases, aging opportunity data, or years of activity logs, the solution lies not in deletion but in smart data archiving.
This is where Salesforce Big Objects come into play. A native, scalable storage feature within Salesforce, Big Objects allows you to store massive data volumes cost-effectively and access them when needed — without hitting storage limits or slowing down your org.
Why an Archival Strategy is Essential in Salesforce
Every Salesforce org eventually faces data bloat. Over time, inactive records accumulate, slowing down performance, impacting user experience, and driving up storage costs.
But the problem isn’t just technical. Many industries, like finance, healthcare, manufacturing, or the public sector, must retain historical data for compliance (e.g., GDPR, HIPAA, SOX). Simply deleting data can lead to compliance violations or audit risks.
That’s why an effective archival strategy is essential. It helps you:
- Retain business-critical data for compliance.
- Improve Salesforce performance and user productivity.
- Maintain easy access to historical data when needed.
To achieve all this within Salesforce, businesses often turn to Big Objects: a core part of the Salesforce Big Object architecture designed specifically for large-scale data retention.
Things to Know Before Setting up an Archival Strategy with Salesforce Big Objects
Before you start designing your archival plan, it’s crucial to understand how Big Objects work.
Big Objects vs Custom Objects
| Feature | Custom Objects | Big Objects |
|---|---|---|
| Purpose | Operational data (real-time use) | Historical/archived data |
| Storage Volume | Limited by Salesforce storage allocation | Can store billions of records |
| Performance | High for active data | Optimized for low-cost, long-term storage |
| Querying | Standard SOQL | Async SOQL (asynchronous queries) |
| Cost | Consumes standard data storage | Uses Big Object storage (much cheaper) |
Big Objects are a perfect fit for Salesforce large data storage, but setting them up requires thoughtful planning around schema, automation, and compliance.
Steps to Design an Archival Strategy for Big Objects
Designing a scalable archival strategy is about ensuring that data is structured, compliant, accessible, and efficiently stored.
Let’s break down the key steps:
Define and Identify What to Archive
Start by determining what data needs to be archived. Use parameters such as record age, status, or last modified date.
Example: Archive cases closed more than two years ago or opportunities older than three years.
Align your selection criteria with business rules and compliance mandates.
Data Modeling and Schema Design
Once you’ve defined the scope, design your Big Object schema carefully:
- Choose index fields wisely to determine how efficiently data can be queried later.
- Avoid unnecessary fields to keep the schema lightweight and cost-effective.
- Plan relationships between archived and active records for traceability.
This ensures your Salesforce Big Object architecture remains scalable and easy to maintain.
Automation and Data Movement
Data archiving isn’t a one-time task — it’s a recurring process. Automate it using:
- Apex batch jobs or Async SOQL for periodic archiving.
- Archiving apps like DataArchiva automate data movement, scheduling, and retention management without coding.
Unlock 80% Cost Savings and Scalable Archiving for Salesforce Data
Most often, enterprises go for achieving this using Apex batch jobs or Async SOQL for large datasets, but with DataArchiva, the process becomes fully automated. You can easily configure archive jobs based on rules like record age or status, schedule them to run at regular intervals, and monitor their progress from a central dashboard.
Businesses that have automated their archival processes this way often experience faster org performance and significant storage cost reduction.
Querying and Access
Once data is archived into Big Objects, quick and efficient access becomes vital. Since Big Objects have limits with standard SOQL, using Async SOQL or custom indexing ensures performance at scale.
However, for faster access and advanced querying, Big Objects may fall short. DataArchiva offers a powerful alternative by enabling optimized, Salesforce-native archiving with seamless data access and search capabilities. It ensures archived data remains easy to retrieve for audits, analytics, or compliance, without impacting production performance.
Security & Compliance
A scalable archival strategy must ensure complete security and compliance. While Big Objects support Field-Level Security and encryption, managing compliance across large datasets can be complex.
DataArchiva simplifies this by extending Salesforce’s security framework and offering advanced compliance alignment. It supports strict standards like GDPR, HIPAA, and FedRAMP, whether data is archived within Salesforce or externally.
This unified model ensures your archived information remains fully protected, auditable, and compliant throughout its lifecycle.
How DataArchiva Supports Designing this Archival Strategy with Big Objects
While Salesforce provides the foundation with Big Objects, designing and managing the end-to-end archival process can be complex — from schema design to automation and retrieval.
This is where DataArchiva comes in.
DataArchiva is a Salesforce archiving solution built on Big Objects, purpose-designed to simplify and automate your archival strategy.
Get the Guide on Native Data Archiving in Salesforce: A Closer Look at Big Objects.
Key Highlights of DataArchiva’s Big Object Integration
- Built for Salesforce: No external system dependency.
- Automated Archival Jobs: Define, schedule, and monitor data movement seamlessly.
- Instant Retrieval: Access archived records directly within Salesforce UI.
- Compliance-Ready: Maintain audit trails and adhere to retention policies effortlessly.
- Cost-Efficient: Save up to 80% on Salesforce storage costs.
When to Combine Big Objects with External Archiving Solutions
For enterprises managing massive, multi-org data environments, native Big Objects alone might not be enough. That’s when a hybrid approach works best.
By combining Big Objects with external cloud storage systems (like AWS, Azure, or SharePoint), businesses can balance compliance with scalability.
With DataArchiva, you get both:
- A native archiving layer using Big Objects for compliance, and
- An external archiving layer for cost optimization, analytics, and limitless scalability.
This hybrid flexibility makes it one of the most comprehensive Salesforce archiving solutions available today.
Key Takeaways
- Salesforce Big Objects provide a powerful foundation for scalable, compliant data archiving.
- A well-structured strategy involves identifying what to archive, designing an efficient schema, automating data movement, and enforcing security.
- DataArchiva simplifies every step, making Big Object-based archiving effortless, compliant, and highly cost-effective.
- For enterprises with massive data volumes, combining Big Objects with external archiving ensures long-term scalability and flexibility.
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