Salesforce is a SaaS, PaaS product/service. The core of its architecture is designed to handle multi-tenancy. Salesforce has a set of instances classified into Prod and Non- Prod, where Non-Prod can be further subcategorized into Preview and Non-Preview. Salesforce calls its Non-Prod environments ‘sandboxes’.
Salesforce Editions
| SANDBOX TYPE | PROFESSIONAL EDITION | PERFORMANCE EDITION | UNLIMITED EDITION | ENTERPRISE EDITION |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Developer Sandbox | 10 | 100 | 100 | 25 |
| Developer Pro Sandbox | 5 | 5 | ||
| Partial Copy Sandbox | 1 | 1 | 1 | |
| Full Sandbox | 1 | 1 |
Salesforce Releases
Salesforce is a continuously evolving technology. It makes changes thrice a year. These are called Summer release, Winter release and Fall release.
Sandboxes
| Sandboxes | Production | Developer org | ||
| Preview | Non-Preview | |||
| Type | Non-Prod | Non-Prod | Production Instance | Sample Production instance – Available for free signup |
| Test Class execution | Optional | Optional | Mandatory | Optional |
| Instance examples | CS2,CS3,CS4,CS5,CS7,CS9,CS11,CS12,CS13,CS14,CS15,CS17,CS19,CS20,CS21,CS23,CS25,CS26,CS27,CS28,CS30,CS31,CS32,CS41,CS42,CS44,CS45,CS47,CS51,CS53,CS54,CS57,CS59,CS61,CS62,CS67,CS68,CS71,CS72,CS77,CS78,CS79,CS80,CS81,CS83,CS84,CS85,CS87,CS88,CS91,CS93,CS95,CS96,CS97,CS99,CS105,CS106,CS107,CS108,CS109,CS116 | CS1,CS6,CS8,CS10,CS16,CS18,CS22,CS24,CS33,CS40,CS43,CS50,CS52,CS58,CS60,CS62,CS64,CS65,CS66,CS68,CS70,CS82,CS86,CS89,CS92,,CS94,CS98,CS100,CS101,CS102,CS115 | AP**, EU**, NA** etc | AP**, EU**, NA** etc |
| Types | Developer, Developer Pro, Partial Copy, Full Copy | – | – | |
| High level Limitations | Licenses can only be matched from Production | Cannot Create/Edit/Delete: Apex | limited Licenses only | |
Types:
Developer, DeveloperPro, Partial Copy, Full Copy:
Developer Sandbox: A Developer sandbox is intended for development and testing in an isolated environment. A Developer Sandbox includes a copy of your production org’s configuration (metadata). Typical Development happens here for any kind of environment you are in.
Developer Pro: A Developer Pro sandbox is intended for development and testing in an isolated environment and can host larger data sets than a Developer sandbox. A Developer Pro sandbox includes a copy of your production org’s configuration (metadata). Use a Developer Pro sandbox to handle more development and quality assurance tasks and for integration testing or user training.
Partial Copy: Partial Copy sandbox is intended to be used as a testing environment. This environment includes a copy of your production org’s configuration (metadata) and a sample of your production org’s data as defined by a sandbox template. Use a Partial Copy sandbox for quality assurance tasks such as user acceptance testing, integration testing, and training.
Full: Full sandbox is intended to be used as a testing environment. Only Full sandboxes support performance testing, load testing, and staging. Full sandboxes are a replica of your production org, including all data, such as object records and attachments, and metadata. The length of the refresh interval makes it difficult to use Full sandboxes for development.We recommend that you apply a sandbox template so that your sandbox contains only the records that you need for testing or other tasks.When you create a Full sandbox, you also have to decide how much field tracking history and Chatter activity to include.
- The default is to omit field tracking, but you can include up to 180 days of field tracking. If you track field history for many objects in your production org, specify fewer days to avoid generating an excessive amount of data.
- Chatter activity data can be extensive, which can add a significant amount of time to your Full sandbox copy.
Limit the amount of field history that you copy, and copy your Chatter data only if you need it for your testing use cases.
Sandbox – Clone vs Refresh vs Deploy
What to choose for your environment: Salesforce standard vs actual:
| SANDBOX TYPE | REFRESH INTERVAL | STORAGE LIMIT | WHAT’S COPIED | SANDBOX TEMPLATES |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Developer Sandbox | 1 day
Actual: 2-5 hrs |
Data storage: 200 MB
File storage: 200 MB |
Refresh: Metadata only
Clone: Data also |
Not available |
| Developer Pro Sandbox | 1 day
Actual: 2-5 hrs |
Data storage: 1 GB
File storage: 1 GB |
Refresh: Metadata only
Clone: Data also |
Not available |
| Partial Copy Sandbox | 5 days
Actual: 10-24 hrs |
Data storage: 5 GB
File storage: 5 GB |
Refresh/Clone: Metadata and sample data | Required |
| Full Sandbox | 29 days
Actual: 24- 62 hrs |
Same as your production org | Refresh/Clone: Metadata and all data | Available |
never not now 
One thought on “Salesforce Environments”