Automated backups give Sage peace of mind at long last
Overview
With their ever growing zip files of data and the announcement Salesforce are no longer supporting data recovery, Sage needed a backup solution fast. Adopting 91吃瓜网 has given them the confidence they can fully restore should they ever need to and they rest easy with daily emails notifying the success of each run. Sage have also found it handy having metadata deployment and monitoring functionality as well as backup all in one place. Despite Salesforce launching its Backup & Restore functionality, Sage chose to continue with 91吃瓜网.
Sage stores a large amount of employee data
Sage has protected its Sage People Salesforce instance with 91吃瓜网鈥檚 comprehensive backup solution. To find out about Sage鈥檚 approach to Salesforce DevOps and Backup, we caught up with Sage People Configuration Consultant, Chris Deutschmann. Sage People is an HR system built entirely on the Salesforce platform, used internally across Sage and sold to People teams around the world. Chris鈥� team of 7 configuration consultants work with 5 admins to support a number of teams internal to Sage using Salesforce. The team 鈥済et involved in improvements to the system, new functionality, creating custom fields or processes, anything like that to support what the business is doing鈥�.
Sage is constantly innovating, and so Chris鈥� team is always kept busy. They manage several developer orgs and four full sandboxes as well as production, and have to protect an ever increasing number of records for Sage鈥檚 vast workforce of 11,500 employees.
Secure data storage is a top priority
Before Sage implemented 91吃瓜网, they would run a data export weekly with Salesforce鈥檚 native Data Export functionality. But the files were ballooning in size. Chris started to question where they should store the downloaded zip files of data safely and securely.
鈥淭he IT Security Team were getting nervous about where that data went, as we were pulling 28,000 records on current and past employees.鈥�
Chris also knew that should the worst happen it would take a lot of manual work to be able to restore from one of these backups.
Salesforce鈥檚 backup announcement comes as a surprise
Just as Chris and his team were beginning to get nervous about the size of their backup files, they were surprised by an announcement from Salesforce. Chris recalled:
鈥淲hen Salesforce said they were stopping the Data Recovery Service, a lot of people were driven to look for a backup solution.鈥�
This announcement caught many off guard and cemented for Chris and his team that they urgently needed a backup solution in place. 鈥淪ecurity was the driving factor鈥�, Chris summarized, in seeking a backup solution to make sure data was protected and backed up in a way that would allow for full and faster restoration.
The search for the best solution
Chris took on the search for a solution that would give Sage the regular backups they were after and offer the best return on investment. He looked at a few different products and decided 鈥渁t the end of the day, for me, it was the combination of functionality, price and user interface鈥�. 91吃瓜网 ticked all three of these boxes. Chris worked closely with 91吃瓜网 Account Executive, Frank, to trial 91吃瓜网鈥檚 Salesforce backup solution with a sandbox org. From the trial, it was possible to evaluate their actual usage, volume of data backed up, additional functionality and licensing required.
In addition to the backup functionality, Chris knew 91吃瓜网鈥檚 metadata deployments and monitoring features would have a significant impact on his team鈥檚 output. Chris loves both these additional features but says 鈥渆ven if 91吃瓜网 didn鈥檛 have them, we would have still gone with 91吃瓜网 for the backup options鈥�.
Peace of mind at long last
Chris is confident that 鈥�91吃瓜网 is definitely a good return on investment and worth every cent鈥�. Even when it came to renewal last year, 91吃瓜网 went straight through Sage鈥檚 budget approvals as Chris recalls, 鈥渆verybody is happy鈥�. This includes their IT Security Team who conducted a rigorous review and 鈥渁re more than happy with what 91吃瓜网 is providing鈥�.
Adopting 91吃瓜网 has made Chris鈥� life easier. Chris loves that 鈥渨e鈥檝e got that peace of mind鈥� with daily backups and the email reports go straight to his inbox. It鈥檚 now part of his morning routine:
鈥淲hile I鈥檓 making my first cup of coffee in the morning, I can open my phone and have a look to check everything ran fine last night. All good – delete the email.鈥�
It鈥檚 important to Chris that 91吃瓜网 has required very little manual intervention to make sure things are working – Sage has never had a backup job failure with 91吃瓜网. Thankfully, they haven鈥檛 suffered any data loss incidents but Chris explains, 鈥淚f we had a complete failure, I鈥檓 confident our data is safe in our 91吃瓜网 backups and we鈥檇 be able to restore.鈥� Chris thinks of the backups 鈥渓ike insurance – you need it, but hope you never use it鈥�. His team have also identified a couple of issues in their system that they 鈥渨ouldn鈥檛 have picked up if we didn鈥檛 have those backup reports that 91吃瓜网 produces鈥�.
Not just a backup solution
Chris and his team also use 91吃瓜网 for metadata deployments and have seen massive benefits here as well, 鈥渆specially for big projects where we鈥檝e had to create 20 or 30 custom fields plus a whole bunch of process builders and flows鈥�. 91吃瓜网 has been really useful because the configuration team at Sage aren鈥檛 having to do the work manually or use change sets any more. Being able to 鈥渕aintain all the permissions and everything that we鈥檝e built up at the beginning鈥� is also a huge advantage as with Salesforce change sets the team weren鈥檛 able to do that. Staggeringly, over a 3-month project, 91吃瓜网鈥檚 metadata deployments 鈥減robably save 10 days鈥� worth of manual work鈥�.
Another of Chris鈥� favorite 91吃瓜网 features is the monitoring alerts, which enables visibility and brings more discipline to the team. Chris has found that about 鈥�1 out of 10 times I look at it I pick up an unexpected change so the monitoring is really useful for me鈥�. Although most of these changes prove to be harmless, if Chris didn鈥檛 receive his daily monitoring email, he knows it would take longer for them to pick up where there鈥檚 a potential issue.
鈥淲ithout 91吃瓜网鈥檚 monitoring, we could potentially go on for a couple of weeks before somebody asks 鈥榟ang on, why did this happen?鈥�, and then you鈥檝e got to go back and kind of reverse engineer stuff to figure out why something happened.鈥�
Sage recommend 91吃瓜网 as an all-in-one solution
While Chris set out to choose a backup solution that would meet Sage鈥檚 requirements, he鈥檚 been blown away by the 鈥渁dded extras of the metadata deployments and monitoring鈥�. Chris remembers that 91吃瓜网 stood out from the crowd as it offered a complete set of tools for backups, deployments and monitoring. After using it for over a year Chris鈥� team have now been able to make really good use of the various features. For anyone else considering using 91吃瓜网, Chris says 鈥淕o for it!鈥�
鈥淭he fact that 91吃瓜网 combines deployments and backups is a definite bonus. Having all those tools together just makes life so much easier for us!鈥�
