If there’s one burning question every data protection-conscious Salesforce user wants to know, it’s “How often does Salesforce back up my data?” The answer, is “It depends.”
Salesforce offers some protections against data loss and provides several backup solutions. However, the provider does not hold sole responsibility for protecting the data you put on the Salesforce platform.
How Often Is Salesforce Backed Up?
While Salesforce's standard practice involves daily backups, these backups are not readily accessible to users. Salesforce provides a free Data Export Service that allows you to generate backup files of your data weekly or monthly, depending on your edition.
Your production org will experience a different backup and restore schedule based on the plan you are enrolled in. Higher-tier enterprise customers enjoy a tighter backup schedule to protect critical data.
It’s a good idea to check your Salesforce edition and its functionality to understand the specific backup data services available to you. Unlimited editions allow you to create and export backup data as often as you’d like.
The most important thing to remember is that this process isn’t automated. Salesforce users with the correct permissions must manually schedule data and metadata backups. They must also manually schedule exports.
Manually booking daily or weekly exports can complicate data management and increase the risk of deletion, loss, or a lack of preparedness.
How Often Should You Back Up Your Data?
Backup frequency depends on your specific needs. You’ll first want to establish your recovery time objective (RTO) and recovery point objective (RPO).
RTO is the amount of time your business can tolerate being without access to critical data before it severely impacts operations. If your business will suffer intolerable consequences after just 24 hours without access to essential data, you should identify that period as your RTO in your backup strategy.
RPO refers to how much data your business can afford to lose. The recovery point objective is measured by the time between your last backup and a potential data loss event. If you heavily rely on CSV files and other data from your Salesforce CRM, you may need to back up data on a daily — or even hourly — basis.
Keep in mind that Salesforce backup frequency may not be sufficient if you have more stringent data recovery needs. A third-party data recovery service can automate the backup and export process while also allowing you to customize the frequency to align with your business needs.
Who Is Responsible for Backing Up Salesforce Data?
Salesforce operates under a shared responsibility model. As the name suggests, they take on some of the responsibility for protecting data and ensuring platform continuity, but you must also do your part.
Here’s a quick shared responsibility model overview:
- Salesforce takes measures to ensure the security and availability of the platform
- You are responsible for your own data protection and backups
- Salesforce handles the operational and infrastructure aspects of platform security
- It’s up to you to ensure the data you upload is properly backed up and recoverable
Salesforce does provide you with some tools to simplify the process of backing up data. These solutions are meant to serve as a starting point. They are not capable of meeting all of your data backup needs and could leave your business scrambling to recover key information if a breach occurs.
How Do I Back up Salesforce?
There are several options-Salesforce native tools as well as third-party options on the AppExchange.
A multifaceted approach to Salesforce backup is the best way to promote business continuity. Salesforce’s native tools, such as the data export service and report export function, can help you manually extract and store important information. These native options are available to all Salesforce users but don’t automate daily backups.
The third-party options available through AppExchange allow you to find the solution and feature set that best aligns with your company’s needs.
Before selecting an option, it’s important to consider factors like ease of use, automation, and your company’s specific RTO and RPO requirements. A combination of native tools and third-party services is the best approach for most businesses.
Take advantage of demo opportunities to see third-party platforms in action. Pay close attention to the user-friendliness of the interface and what features each tool offers. Finding a platform with automation functionality is vital, as automating backups and exports will save your team time and make it easier to stick to a backup schedule.
How Can Own Help With Backing Up & Restoring Salesforce Data?
Own offers tools designed to expedite your recovery from data breaches, loss, accidental deletions, and corruption. Our Salesforce backup and recovery product deliver peace of mind, knowing your critical data is in good hands.
