Backup in Salesforce

Why would you backup Salesforce data (including metadata)? 

Salesforce performs real-time replication to disk at each data center, and near real-time data replication between the production data center and the disaster recovery center. However, there are many different reasons why a customer would like to organize their own backup of information from Salesforce. We could mention for example:

• Recover from data corruption (unintended user error or malicious activity)
• Prepare for a data migration rollback
• Archive data to reduce volumes
• Replicate data to a data warehouse/BI
• Take snapshots of development versions

What to backup and how?

There are two types of information you can backup from Salesforce: data and metadata. Salesforce provides four APIs to backup data and metadata information from the application:

• REST API
• SOAP API
• Bulk API
• Metadata API

These APIs will allow you to set up either a full, incremental or partial backup.

1. Full Backup 
• Contains all data
• Pros-Contains all information that may be required
• Cons-Can represent a large volume, takes more time to retrieve a subset of data and be reactive to handle a data incident
2. Incremental Backup
• Backup differences since last full backup (daily incremental backup, weekly, monthly, etc.), 
• Pros-Efficient for retrieving a change that took place on a specific date, smaller files that are easier to handle
• Cons- It may lack related information and take longer to rebuild a complete picture (merge full backup and last incremental backups.
3. Partial Backup  
• Backup a subset of data (for example, closed cases only)
• Pros-Efficient for retrieving a record from a subset of data, ideal approach for archiving purposes (i.e. records older than 5 years)
• Cons- May lack of information

You could implement, for example, a strategy mixing several backup types to optimize backup time and target business-critical information. Your backup plan might look something like:

• Weekly
• Daily
• Monthy