It came as a surprise to many back in 2020 to hear that Salesforce was retiring their Data Recovery Service. Salesforce claimed the service was retired due to several factors, primarily due to the small number of customers who actively used the service, as well as an increase in the number of third-party solutions offered. A statement at the time from Salesforce said, “Customer Trust is our number one priority. The data recovery process did not meet our high standards for customer experience due to the length of time and reliability of the process”. According to many within the Salesforce Community, it was a considerable loss, highlighting that the value of the service simply lies in its existence. However, in a recent chain of events, Salesforce announced that the recovery service would be back, complete with updates.
What is the Data Recovery Service?
The Salesforce Data Recovery service is a solution whereby customers can execute a support request to recover data and metadata which may have been lost. The service is seen as a last resort for many without alternative backup strategies. This process costs $10,000 and takes a minimum of 6-8 weeks, but cannot guarantee 100% data recovery. Therefore, to hear that at least one in three companies face SaaS data loss highlights the extreme importance of this service and its development.
The Updates to Salesforce’s Backup and Restore Services:
With the latest announcement from Salesforce, there are three updates for the service:
As mentioned previously, the complete U-turn on the retirement of the Data Recovery Service with immediate effect.
The AppExchange offerings, this platform currently offers over 150 robust backup and restorative solutions which can offer customers more features than simply Weekly Data Exports and Data Recovery Services.
The selection of trusted partners who provide these solutions can be found on the AppExchange here.
Salesforce states, “that we will pilot Salesforce backup and restore services built natively on the Platform this summer”. This is in line with the key deliverables we have all come to expect from Salesforce.
More information about these updates can be found here.
What does the future hold for the Salesforce Data Recovery and Backup Service?
Notably, the growth of third party solutions. In particular, OwnBackup is prominent with a current base of 3000+ customers. Not to mention having just raised $167.5 Million which was led by notable investors such as, Salesforce Ventures, Insight Partners and Sapphire Ventures. To counter this growth, Salesforce looks to bring out their own backup solution that will live on the Salesforce Platform. This is certainly an interesting move from Salesforce, which could result in attempts to upsell their new solution to existing clientele to challenge OwnBackup and others. As a result, Salesforce may look to implement similar features to partners currently available from the App Exchange in order to thrive in this competitive space. A list of these potential features is shown below:
- Automated backups: OwnBackup is fully automated, thus removing the monotony of manual backups.
- Customisable retention: OwnBackup provides 25 years of storage for daily backups, and 99 years of monthly backups.
- Unlimited storage – there is no limit on your data in terms of storage.
- Competitive Recovery Point Objective (RPO) and Recovery Time Objective (RTO) figures: This reduces the amount of data your organisation will lose, as well as the time it will take to recover it, which was one of the main reasons Salesforce retired the Data Recovery Service initially.
Things to Consider When Choosing a Data Recovery and Backup Service:
As mentioned previously, the rise of data recovery and backup services via third-party offerings is noticeable. Choosing a backup and recovery service has become an increasingly challenging decision that many organisations now face, alongside increasing data security concerns and legal compliance regulations, as well as the increase in the amount of data that is stored and utilised in our modern-day environments. This challenge that organisations now face can no longer be escaped. Below are five key points to consider when choosing backup and recovery solutions:
- Regular and Reliable Backups
Find a tool that is easy to use. Specifically, a tool where performing regular on-demand and automated backups are functional and easy to perform. These features should allow you to analyse the way your data is changing between each backup.
- Customer Support
Data loss is unpredictable, there is no telling when something could go wrong. Therefore, understanding what support you’ll have access to is vital. For example, can you only reach them via email? Can they be reached by phone? Do they have 24/7 support available? These are the types of questions your organisation should be asking themselves when deciding on the right recovery and backup solution.
- Security and Compliance
With the increase in security and legal compliance regulations your organisation needs to be able to trust that your data is safe. Ask yourself these questions, for example, where is our data being stored? How is our data encrypted? Think about compliance with GDPR and CCPA rules and regulations.
- Restore Functionality
Unfortunately, Salesforce data often cannot be restored without first restoring the metadata. Metadata simply describes the structure of objects and their fields, as well as the page layouts associated with them. Therefore, find a solution that is best at restoring metadata and your data for your org, as both are vital in this process.
- Access to Data
During times of data loss, having access to data at speed is key. Therefore, work in partnership with your solution provider to find a strategy that hit’s your organisation’s RPO and RTO figures. Services that cannot hit your goals will affect your organisation’s ability to recover from such data losses, impacting business continuity, as well as having financial implications.
Final thoughts
The return of the Data Recovery Service will be greeted by many as a welcome step back into this space for Salesforce. As announced, Salesforce looks to challenge its partners through the development and testing of a restorative and backup service built natively on the Salesforce Platform. The Salesforce backup and recovery features have the potential to be promising, however, key updates must be made to keep up with partners and other third-party solutions, which have a considerable customer following. It will be interesting to see what features Salesforce create and implement, given the recent success of OwnBackup. Overall, the future is exciting for the data backup space, in particular how Salesforce chooses to develop and differentiate this part of their product alongside partners.
If you would like to speak with one of makepositive’s experts about organising a review or your business options or to discuss the optimal strategy for engaging a backup provider please reach out to [email protected] or complete the contact form on our website.
