Top 4 Questions (& Responses) from DevOps Huddle EP4: Speed up your Salesforce app releases with DevOps automation
Tags: devops, salesforce
Published: 2021-06-16 00:42:43

These are the top Q&As collected from DevOps Huddle EP4: Speed up your Salesforce app releases with DevOps automation that happened on February 11, 2021.
**<ol start="1">
  <li>What is DevOps for Salesforce?</li></ol>**
>For the last two decades, Salesforce is standing strong as the leading software platform. Innovation, infrastructure management, versatility, and scalability are just a few reasons why Salesforce commands that position.

>However, DevOps for Salesforce is tricky. Most of the core principles and techniques of DevOps fail with Salesforce. One of the biggest challenges Salesforce customers with complex systems face is dealing with thousands of moving parts but lack a systematic way of tracking, managing, and deploying them.

>Nevertheless, with the release of Salesforce DX in 2016, a lot of teams are in the process of enabling DevOps for Salesforce.

**<ol start="2">
  <li>What are some Salesforce DevOps trends in 2021?</li>
</ol>**
>* Vast majority of Salesforce teams will either be jumping on the DevOps bandwagon or making strides with DevOps. 
* Releases at an ambitious pace that will boost agility in companies
* Source control to become a habit for all, including no-code and low-code development teams
* An understanding of DevOps will be fundamental to building on Salesforce
* Proven ROI from DevOps will encourage increased investment in it
* As data security and compliance continue to drive DevOps practices, companies will become more robust. 

**<ol start="3">
  <li>Salesforce DevOps: Which Path Should You Take – Build or Buy?</li></ol>**
>The answer to this question depends on the business requirements and resources available. Factors you should consider are:
* Resources availability: Headcount open, option and economics of outsourcing talent if required, maintenance resource
* Urgent vs. important: How soon do you need a functional DevOps solution
* Project needs: Research based on your requirements and evaluate the complexities involved in building it
* Evaluate your competition: Outstand competition with a better solution, whether it is a DevOps platform built for enterprises or building one from scratch. 

**<ol start="4">
  <li>What are the primary requirements (or best practices) for setting up a well-defined DevOps framework for Salesforce?</li></ol>**
>To maximize your Salesforce ROI, follow a 4-step release management model:
* Use developer sandbox for development - Developer sandbox is a replica of production org’s configuration, and each team member should use this isolated environment for development & testing.
* Use partial copy sandbox for integration testing/QA - Following the development, deploy to a partial copy sandbox, which is a large amount of storage space for metadata and some production data.
* Use full sandbox for UAT/staging - To test new features against the entire production environment, clone the full sandbox back from the production
* Push to production with confidence - The above steps ensure that the feature in production is functional, meets the users’ needs and doesn’t disrupt the production environment. To reduce the risk, plan deployment during scheduled maintenance hours. 

*Original Post: https://www.opsera.io/blog/q-a-devops-huddle-ep4-devops-for-salesforce*