How to design an effective Salesforce data backup & recovery strategy: A simplified approach

For companies using Salesforce CRM in today’s tech-driven business world, data is surely the most precious asset. Whether they’re storing customer information in the Service Cloud, inputting financial data in the Finance Cloud, or accessing proprietary documentation in their Sales Cloud, it won’t be wrong to say that nearly all the business functions flow through digital datasets. Now it is important that this Salesforce data is safeguarded at all times lest something were to happen to it.

Although the company may take various precautionary steps to protect the digital data, it may still be at risk. Loss of Salesforce data by way of crashes or data breaches can wreak havoc on the internal business processes. Failure to have sufficient protection strategies in place might result in substantial financial losses & loss of credibility, not to mention the consumer frustration. Therefore, creating a viable Salesforce data backup & recovery strategy is crucial for protecting valuable business interests.

Most organizations get confused when it comes to planning the data backup & recovery initiatives. Essentially, data backup is simply the process of creating accessible copies of the data that can be easily recovered in the event of any breach or loss. Surprisingly, approximately 50% of the businesses have absolutely no data backup plans currently in place. Before moving any forward, it’s important to first know some important things about the data backup policy.

An ideal Salesforce backup strategy is one that sets forth the importance of data and system backups; clearly defines the rules for planning, executing & validating backups; and includes specific activities to ensure that critical data is backed up to secure storage locations. All the above mentioned facts are automatically taken care of by an ideal backup strategy. Now after knowing all this, we can move ahead and discuss the three important things that are crucial in creating a holistic and simple Salesforce data backup & recovery strategy.

In order to devise a more comprehensive Salesforce data backup and recovery strategy, the first critical factor is its ability to backup all forms of data stored in your system. When choosing a backup solution, be sure that it can protect all your data lest some data go unprotected or multiple backup solutions are needed. Salesforce data can range from anything to spreadsheets, Google documents, financial logs, confidential customer data to even personal information.

To reduce the risk of data loss, the backup solution must back up both data files and databases, in addition to the utility programs, different operating systems, applications, configurations, hardware elements, and other computing devices. Typically all kinds of data that is necessary for the server workloads must be securely backed up. It is always recommended to check whether your Salesforce data backup solution offers to backup all such kinds of data or not, before implementing it.

Types of Data Backups Models Offered

Next thing to take into consideration, when creating an efficient data backup strategy, is the different types of data backup models available for your Salesforce data. It’s good to remember that backup is not the ultimate goal but only a means to accomplish the higher goal of protecting the critical Salesforce data. With this in mind, the most common backup types used are:

Full Backup: As the name suggests, a full data backup captures a copy of the entire Salesforce data, whereby a complete copy of all the data is made available in a single storage location. It is worth noting that even though a full data backup is considered to be the most reliable method, in essence it is time-consuming and requires more storage space. Because of this reason, many backup strategies perform only periodic full data backups with intermittent incremental data backups.
Incremental Backup: In comparison to full backup, an incremental Salesforce data backup model only backs up that data which has changed since the previous full backup or the previous incremental backup. In this model, the backup solution records and keeps track of the time & date on which all the backup operations occur. Though this backup model is faster and requires less storage, a full system restore becomes challenging and time-consuming because not only the first full backup has to be restored but all the subsequent incremental backups have to be recovered as well.

Ability to Restore Data

Lastly, your Salesforce data backup strategy needs to focus on data recovery, often more so than the actual backup process. This is because backed up data will amount to nothing if it cannot be recovered properly, when needed. Data restoration refers to the process of retrieving data from the backup & restoring operations by copying data from the backup location to the existing device or to an entirely new server.

Data recovery ultimately helps businesses restore their database to the correct state in the event data is lost or any failure occurs. It also improves the reliability of the database since it allows it to recover to a consistent state after sudden failure. Disaster recovery is essential while designing the Salesforce data backup strategy so that it can help your business quickly restore the hardware, application, and data needed to maintain business continuity.

How DataArchiva Backup Can Simplify Your Salesforce Data Backup Needs

Now we understand that finding that perfect all-in-one Salesforce data backup solution that offers fast, reliable backups and possesses rapid recovery capabilities can be very challenging. But since it can dramatically reduce the costs associated with data loss and business downtime, it’s essential that enterprises adopt efficient data backup & recovery strategies for their Salesforce data.

In this spirit, DataArchiva Backup offers reliable cloud backup services and near-instant recovery for the Salesforce data, tailor-made capabilities for seamless customization, setup & management, and 24×7 support for the customers. Easily available on AppExchange, our powerful data backup & recovery application is completely aligned with the Salesforce roadmap and supports plenty of its services like Sales Cloud, Service Cloud & Custom Solutions.

Offering both full and incremental backup services, DataArchiva Backup can easily be used to overcome various data loss challenges by not only safeguarding the critical Salesforce data but by also ensuring its security within the cloud infrastructure. Not only this, this cost-effective and easy-to-use solution also comes with a seamless data restoration ability. Loaded with several advantageous features, this application is surely ideal as an enterprise’s long-term Salesforce data management strategy.

To know more about DataArchiva Backup and how this solution has everything your enterprise has been looking for, please get in touch with us or schedule a demo here.