From Salesforce Weekly Export to Own: Arvest’s Data Protection Evolution 

At Arvest, Oscar’s division maintains the Salesforce technology, “making sure that we deliver a quality product that we keep up and running with as minimal interruption or distraction as possible,” he explains. Oscar himself is responsible for ensuring utilization of the right tools to keep all processes and the Salesforce application itself running efficiently and successfully.

Mission: Zero RPO 

Arvest’s RPO depends on the type of environment, volume, and velocity of that data — just as with most organizations. “We consider Salesforce top-tier business-critical, because that’s how we communicate,” Oscar says. “It’s becoming the central hub of customer information and how we take action.”

The bank’s RPO is currently 24 hours, but “we’re trying to get that down to four hours,” Oscar says. It all comes down to loan origination and the “material financial exposure” acting as an incentive to recover data as quickly as possible: New accounts can be very lucrative, and a low RPO helps manage fraud potential. Oscar and his team want to be proactive, especially when working with other teams—like security—to provide them with the insight they need. 

In line with its low RPO strategy, Arvest was keen to pilot continuous data protection because it knew how important protecting its mission-critical data was — and how continuous data protection could help bring their  RPO as close to zero as possible.

A tailored data protection solution

Oscar and his team also work with other teams focused on product, infrastructure, security, and development to integrate data in the best possible way. “We make sure we deliver this functionality and these solutions to our end users so they can focus on doing what they really want to be doing — taking care of our customers at Arvest Bank,” Oscar highlights.

Prior to Own, Arvest used the Salesforce weekly data export as a method to back up their Salesforce production environment. To level up, his team needed a solution that was tailor-made to protect Salesforce data, and would ensure accessible, accurate data at any time. Oscar needed a best-in-class solution that:

• Was easy for his team to use and integrated with their enterprise level data infrastructure

• Gave Arvest the backup and recovery tools it needed to achieve its RPO and RTO objectives.

• Provided sandbox seeding capabilities

• Offered anonymization of sensitive data

“We have very Salesforce-specific people who are not necessarily technology-savy,” Oscar explains. “My team isn’t as well-versed in things like SQL and other tech stacks.” Whatever solution Oscar and his team chose needed to be easy to use and understand for Salesforce admins. 

Taking responsibility for the data

The data Arvest processes and stores in Salesforce was too critical for the weekly export to handle effectively. That data includes customers’ personally identifiable information (PII), including financial data, of which Oscar’s team may not be the source but is responsible for storing securely in Salesforce.

“We need to make sure end users take action on that data,” Oscar says, “and that we know what’s there is accurate and up-to-date. That’s why we wanted to backup the data.” 

Depending on the types of customers and thus financial services offered, Arvest must ensure taking certain actions based on its standard operating procedures — and track those actions. “We wanted to make sure we had a backup in case there’s any loss [of data], because we do need to go back for regulatory purposes.”

The impact of a potential data loss at Arvest without a backup solution means more than just a longer recovery time––it can put the bank’s compliance in jeopardy “We also lose speed to market,” Oscar says, and the ability to “identify the costs [of the loss] to our end users.” If banks don’t take care of their employees and associates, how will they, in turn, be able to take care of the bank’s customers?

Planning for their future: Growing Salesforce orgs

Thankfully, Arvest didn’t experience any major data loss on the road to choosing Own as its backup and recovery solution. The choice was about ensuring data resiliency and business continuity in the event of a disaster from which the bank needed to quickly recover. But Oscar and his team also saw a big jump in Salesforce platform usage — so Own as a backup solution became something they needed to have.

Currently, Arvest has 3,500 Salesforce users. “With that comes [the increased likelihood of] failed exports — especially with the amount of records and data we’re inputting every day,” Oscar highlights. Additionally, no Salesforce customer can escape the dreaded scaling limit in terms of what and how much they can back up in a given period. The more users they have in their   Salesforce org, the more data they have to deal with — and constant 24-hour backups of critical data just aren’t realistic.

But with Own, Salesforce customers like Arvest can benefit from a solution that scales the more they use Salesforce. continuous data protection means no more worries about hitting scaling limits or compromising what data to back up. 

Luckily, Oscar also experienced the benefits of Own Recover while working at another company: “We knew what we were looking at — and it was a very similar situation [when compared to Arvest] in terms of how we were evaluating solutions.”

From weekly data exports to adding Own Recover, the entire process “was an absolute breeze,” Oscar emphasizes. Onboarding was simple and engaging — it required “very minimal time and effort. Own made it so easy to get set up and get going.”

The importance of continuous data protection to Arvest

For a regional bank — even one as large as Arvest — trust is everything. In some branches, “everyone knows each other,” Oscar explains. “We don’t want to ruin that trust.” 

Arvest knows that it has specific, mission-critical, highly-transactional data for loans and loan origination. A traditional 24-hour RPO won’t provide adequate protection for this type of data. Instead, Arvest needed a selective RPO for it, with a higher backup frequency than one day that was constant — something that wasn’t previously available in the market before Own.

For commercial loans, data tracking and monitoring are just as important for data protection as having a backup and recovery solution in place. That means running and then disposing of the right credit reports in a timely and compliant manner, ensuring the correct collateral for each loan, and following government regulations like the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) and requirements laid down by the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC).

“With continuous data protection, we know we’re acting on the right financial data,” Oscar highlights. “Confidential loans, PII, and demographic data were the trigger for us to engage with Own in using the continuous data protection capability.” For Oscar and his team, full data loss incidents are rare. Uploads gone wrong and smaller data corruptions are more frequent, and having continuous data protection which is constantly tracking and capturing every and all data changes provides consistent reassurance. “We can easily go back to correct a mistake,” he says — not in terms of months or weeks in the past, or even 24 hours, but just a few hours, and perhaps minutes. With this constant data capturing capability in place, the team can quickly identify — and more quickly recover from — any adverse data changes that may occur.

How Own changes the way Arvest backs up

While it’s important for employees to keep abreast of their company’s disaster recovery processes, Oscar and his team found Own Recover to exceed the “set and forget it” principle. Though Arvest has piloted and became and early adopter of Own’s continuous data protection capability, Oscar is quick to point out that his regular daily backups with Recover “covered 95% of what we needed out-of-the-box, which was really nice.”

When the team refreshes sandboxes, they can quickly get back up to speed with data from sandbox templates. This way, teams can train and develop with the latest data, ensuring that sandbox outcomes are error-free when they hit production. 

With the Own continuous data protection in place , “we can focus on what we need to focus on — it frees up much more time,” Oscar highlights. Those extra hours each week that his team would spend on exporting data can now refocus on leading new solutions and functionality to drive business value in their Salesforce processes and take extra care of stakeholders.

Own continuous data protection: A no-brainer for success

Arvest first clocked Own at the Salesforce’s 2023 Dreamforce, when Own introduced its forthcoming plans for continuous data protection. It was at that moment that Arvest realized the forward-thinking approach Own takes to data, offering the first step towards Continuous Data Protection in SaaS with the introduction of continuous data protection. Arvest leapt at the opportunity to try the new technology.

Arvest’s participation in the Own continuous data protection pilot program has also influenced Oscar’s perception of the value it has for the bank by driving more creative, innovative thinking. 

“It was so easy to work with the [Own] team,” he says. “It’s easy to use, set up, and get acclimated to. We’re now thinking, what else can we do that adds major value for end users? It’s honestly a no-brainer.”

Capturing all data changes in any SaaS production environment is almost impossible for organizations because it’s resource-intensive and extremely costly. However, with continuous data protection, Arvest Bank now relies on Own to keep track of all the changes to their data without lifting a finger. It’s much better to rest assured that any and all eventualities are covered (because Own is constantly capturing and storing those changes) than to lose everything in a worst-case scenario. 

Continuous data protection helps ensure that banks like Arvest keep customers — and their data — safe, secure, and accessible.

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