The Importance of Backing Up Your Data 

Sleek encourages all of our Salesforce customers to develop a routine data backup strategy as part of their overall data management and security model. Remember that the responsibility for your data backup lies with you. Here are some of the biggest reasons why backing up your Salesforce data is essential: 

• Data Loss Prevention: User mistakes that happen with accidental deletions/updates, data corruption, or system errors can lead to the loss of critical information. Having a backup ensures that you can restore your data to a previous state, minimizing the impact of data loss. 
• Business Continuity: In the event of a system failure, data breach, or disaster, having a backup allows you to quickly recover your data and resume operations, reducing downtime and minimizing the impact on your business. 
• Compliance and Legal Requirements: Depending on your industry and location, there may be legal and regulatory requirements to retain and protect certain data. Regular backups can help you comply with these obligations. 
• Data Security: Salesforce provides robust security measures, but having an extra layer of protection through backups can add an additional level of security. In case of a security breach, a backup copy of your data can prevent data theft or unauthorized access. 
• Data Migration and Integration: If you are migrating to a new Salesforce instance or integrating with other systems, having a backup can serve as a reference point for data mapping and validation. 
• Long-Term Data Preservation: Some historical data might not be needed for daily operations but could be essential for future analysis, reporting, or compliance. Some types of data, like Activities, are only reportable for so long, so backups help preserve data for the long term. 
• Development and Testing: Backups can be used to create a sandbox environment for development and testing, allowing you to experiment without affecting the production data. 

Considerations Moving Forward 

Regularly scheduled backups are crucial to ensure your data is protected and recoverable in case of any unexpected event. When backing up Salesforce data, it’s important to implement a comprehensive strategy that ensures data integrity and recoverability. Here are some recommendations for backing up Salesforce data: 

• Regular and Automated Backups: Schedule regular automated backups to ensure that your data is consistently protected.  
• Use Multiple Backup Locations: Store your backups in multiple locations, including both on-premises and cloud-based storage solutions. This redundancy reduces the risk of data loss due to localized failures or outages. 

Options for Data Protection 

• Salesforce offers various tools and features to manually create backups, such as Data Export and Data Loader, which allows you to schedule weekly or monthly backups of your data to a specified email address or an external data storage system. While Salesforce provides these tools, they strongly encourage the use of a third-party backup solution. 
• OwnBackup – The market leader when it comes to Salesforce Backup. OwnBackup provides automated comprehensive backup and recovery solutions. Three plan options are priced per SF license/month: $2.90, $3.65, or $6.65. 
• Spanning is another established player in the Salesforce Backup space. They’ve been around since 2010, and have a comprehensive platform. A basic level costs $200/month with a free 14-day trial.  
• Gearset is one of the leading DevOps platforms for Salesforce. They also have a comprehensive platform for data and metadata backup. Pricing is $34.50 per active SF license/year with a free 30-day trial. 
• Odaseva comes from a slightly different angle, selling itself as an enterprise-proven Salesforce data management solution. This includes data backup, as well as data privacy and compliance tools. Plan XXSmall allows for <2GB used data storage and <20GB used file storage and is $4,800/year, while plan XSmall allows for <8GB used data storage and <100GB used file storage and is $12,000/year. 

* Sleek Consulting is merely providing various available exemplary options that are subject to change. Offerings are under control of the independent vendors and statements are examples based on findings at the time of creation. Pricing and features are subject to change over time and based on org specifications. 

A quick comparison of popular 3^rd party data backup solutions ➡️

Figure 1: A table that compares popular data backup solutions based on what they back up, how often they allow backups, how they restore data after an incident, and pricing.

Moving Forward 

Please keep in mind that neither Salesforce nor Sleek endorses any specific third-party data backup vendor. Sleek is available to help you set up whichever vendor you think works best for your organization, and the vendors we have shared are just a few of the many options to choose from. Take some time to evaluate how each vendor will work together if you want to handle your data backup manually or automatically, or if it would be more cost-effective to purchase either a pay-per-user or a flat-rate plan. Third-party vendor specifications and reviews can be reviewed in the Salesforce AppExchange. When you’re ready to protect your data, we are here to help ensure that the process goes smoothly.

Feel free to reach out to helpdesk@sleekconsulting.com for support.