In July 2020, Salesforce announced that they were retiring their Data Recovery Service for backup and recovery. This add-on service enabled customers to recover their Salesforce data that had been inadvertently lost through accidental deletion, overwriting, or simple user error. With the retirement of the service, Salesforce no longer keeps “backups from which customers can recover from errors made in the past.
Salesforce was very candid in explaining why they chose to discontinue Data Recovery Service. They stated that the service did not “meet our high standards for customer experience due to the length of time and reliability of the process. This process takes a minimum of 6-8 weeks to complete and we cannot guarantee 100% data recovery.” Despite the shortfalls that many experienced, the Data Recovery Service was relied upon by many thousands of Salesforce customers as the last resort for backing up and recovering their mission critical SaaS data.
Data Retention, a Core Business Need
A core element of backup and recovery is data retention. Data retention, also known as backup retention, is the continued storage of an organization’s data for compliance or other business reasons. Effective data retention policies are critical to business of all sizes — small and medium sized business (SMB) up to enterprises — as they anticipate recovery from data loss associated with: cyberattacks such as ransomware, malware, and phishing threats; disasters, whether they be human caused (both malevolent and accidental) or natural; litigation and other legal discovery/processing needs; and intrusion/editing caused by internal bad actors.
The consequences of losing mission critical data can be crippling to a business. As indicated in the Infrascale blog post, “How Cyber Awareness Can Save Your Company” these costs include:
- Business downtime (lost revenue, lost opportunity)
- Loss of customer trust
- Loss of employee trust
- Loss of business viability
Of the business costs listed above, the most dangerous is the potential loss of overall business viability. The possibility of going out of business due to data loss is a frightening, and unfortunately growing threat.
- According to National Archives & Records Administration in Washington, 93% of companies that lost their data center for 10 days or more during a disaster, filed for bankruptcy within one year of the disaster.
- Of companies that suffer catastrophic data loss: 43% never reopen and 51% close within two years per a University of Texas study.
- In a study conducted by Cybersecurity Ventures, 60% of SMBs close within six months of falling victim to a cyber-attack.
The stakes are real, and the consequences of not creating a retention policy, and the backup processes that enforce the retention policy and protect the data, is significant.
Dose of Reality: You are Responsible for your Data
News Flash: A SaaS provider, such as Salesforce, cannot detect data loss! Thus, they don’t (and won’t) accept responsibility for customer data. It’s a common misconception that SaaS providers fully back up your data on your behalf, and that your data will be recoverable whenever you need it. Most SaaS providers, including Microsoft 365, G Suite, Box, and Dropbox, only retain backups of your data for a limited period of time. In the case of Salesforce, your deleted, lost, or corrupted data will only be retained for 15 days (without additional protection).
Why is it Important to Backup my Salesforce Data?
As the world’s #1 customer relationship management (CRM) platform, Salesforce is deeply embedded within the business operations of over 150,000 customers – from small businesses to Fortune 500 companies. It has been reported that 88% of Fortune 100 companies use at least one Salesforce application. Among the most critical Salesforce data generated by these organizations is:
|
Client and |
Accounts and |
Leads |
Contacts |
|
Opportunities |
Contracts |
Financial Data |
Employee Information |
This data is mission-critical for a successful business and enable it to compete effectively in the market. Likewise, the temporary or long-term loss of this important information can be the death-knell of an organization – regardless of size.
Now is the Time to Act… before it’s too late!
If you haven’t already deployed a Salesforce data backup and recovery solution for your important Salesforce information, please don’t wait another minute to act! Be warned, however, that general SaaS data backup and recovery solutions only provide backup support for Microsoft 365 and G Suite. You need a solution developed specifically for the backup and recovery of your Salesforce data set.
Infrascale Cloud Application Backup (ICAB) for Salesforce provide the peace of mind you need for your business-critical Salesforce data. With ICAB for Salesforce your SaaS data is always protected and always available… on your time. Infrascale provides unlimited Salesforce data backup history – mitigating the risk of data loss from human error, data corruption, malware/ransomware, and gaps in retention policy.
It’s not a matter of if your Salesforce data will be compromised, it’s a matter of when it occurs. Don’t wait, act now!
