Salesforce Architecture Overview
Salesforce is a cloud-based application platform that enables businesses to develop and deploy highly-customized applications. Understanding the architecture is crucial to develop applications in Salesforce.
Some of the key aspects of Salesforce architecture are:
- Multi-tenant: The platform enables multiple users to share a common infrastructure and resources while ensuring data security and privacy.
- Metadata: Salesforce’s metadata-driven architecture enables developers to define application logic and behaviors, with changes automatically reflected across the platform.
It is important to familiarize oneself with Salesforce architecture terminologies like metadata, sObjects, Apex, Visualforce, and more. The benefits of Salesforce architecture are many, including rapid application development, scalability, and low infrastructure costs.
In conclusion, Salesforce architecture is key to building robust applications and solutions that can be customized for various businesses. Additional resources can be found through Salesforce’s online documentation and community forums.
Salesforce: A Customer Relationship Management Solution
Salesforce is a popular CRM software that enables efficient management of customer relationships, in addition to integrating seamlessly with other systems. Salesforce offers software solutions customized to meet marketing, sales, services, and eCommerce standards set by companies.
Some key facts to consider are:
* Salesforce is a multi-tenant cloud company with trusted and multi-cloud ecosystem protection.
* Multiple metadata parts and artificial intelligence are used to support all of Salesforce’s services, which are supported by the Salesforce platform. The platform provides development tools like robust API access.
* Salesforce Marketing Cloud and Sales Cloud are pre-built offerings available in Salesforce which support all apps and are built for optimal functionality. Apps can be created using the platform or Salesforce’s pre-built offerings.
* Salesforce Einstein’s predictive intelligence and lightning framework have been designed to meet customer’s needs and everything is integrated with Salesforce. Platform technologies, such as Salesforce Einstein, are built with the customer’s convenience in mind.
CORE ARCHITECTURE OF SALESFORCE
Salesforce has a layered architecture, as shown in the diagram below:
“`
UI Layer
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Lightning Experience, Salesforce Classic
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Presentation Logic Layer
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Apex controllers, Visualforce pages
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Business Logic Layer
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Apex classes, Triggers, Batch Apex
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Data Access Layer
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SOQL, SOSL, Database methods
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Data Storage Layer
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Objects, Fields, Records, Relationships
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“`
Let’s examine each layer in detail, starting with the UI layer, which is the most basic layer. By following this architecture, we can have a better understanding of how Salesforce works and how to build our own applications like Salesforce does.
Multi-Tenant Architecture for Software Applications
Multi-tenant architectures are popular as they enable multiple tenants to use the same software or application. For instance, a Salesforce app can be uploaded to the cloud and shared with different clients, making it more cost-effective as the development and maintenance costs are shared among multiple clients. Any modifications made by the developer/operator are updated in one place, and the updated version is available to all clients.
Advantages of Multi-Tenant Architecture:
- Data is stored in a single database schema for all customers
- Resources and maintenance are shared in instances of low economic activity
- A single software server can have multiple tenants
- Changes can be made once and applied to all clients
In contrast, single-tenant architecture dedicates one software/application to each client, resulting in higher maintenance costs as only one client is responsible for the costs of development and maintenance.
Salesforce Architecture and API
Salesforce’s architecture stores data on different levels in a shared database. Each data point has a metadata that points to a specific client’s data, increasing security and flexibility of applications. The metadata-driven development model increases developer productivity by only focusing on building applications.
Salesforce provides great CRM functionality, the ability to develop apps, and has a vast range of partner applications. Its APIs enable cross-app connections for programming and customization mechanisms, without requiring extensive knowledge.
Salesforce Architecture Terminology
App: There are no specific metadata elements for an app such as objects or classes. It is used to group things by providing a visual clustered tab. Multiple apps can achieve the same thing as internal metadata is not associated with the app.
Instance: An instance represents the Salesforce organization’s hardware and specific details when the user logs in. Multiple instances can reside on a single server and can be changed based on the region.
Superpod: A framework or stack balancer can act as an outbound intermediary server, capacity foundation, mail server, or SAN texture supporting different instances. A Superpod is a collection of these frameworks and stack balancers.
Org (Organization): Every trial beginning on salesforce.com or developer.force.com creates a new org. Orgs are highly flexible and have clear security and sharing settings. Custom APIs are also available.
Sandbox: Salesforce allows easy creation of any number of sandboxes, which are copies of metadata from the production org to the sandbox org. Multiple copies can be created in separate environments such as Developer Sandbox, Developer Pro, Partial Copy, and Full Sandbox.
Benefits of Salesforce Architecture
Salesforce is a CRM tool that offers various benefits to businesses. Some of these benefits include:
– Time management: With Salesforce, customer data and planning tools are readily available, making it easier to convert leads into customers and prioritize work.
– Cloud software: Salesforce is accessible from anywhere with an internet connection, making it easier to access important files, even while on the go.
– Less administrative work: Salesforce automates administrative tasks, allowing businesses more time to focus on building customer relationships and increasing profits.
– Increased customer satisfaction: By spending less time on administrative tasks and more time serving customers, businesses can improve customer satisfaction and build stronger client relationships.
– Better planning: With all account information at your fingertips, Salesforce makes it easier to create effective plans for customers and achieve optimal results.
– Reliable reporting: Salesforce keeps important data organized and provides reliable reporting, making it easier to make sense of large amounts of data.
– Team collaboration: Salesforce’s “Chatter” function makes it easy to communicate with team members and streamline productivity.
Conclusion
Salesforce’s design is not the result of random trials but rather a product of careful consideration of various factors. The well thought out design ensures that every aspect is in its rightful place. Once you start using Salesforce, you will learn about its functions, the definition of CRM, Salesforce services, and applications. This blog provides a comprehensive understanding of Salesforce design.
Additional Resources
Here are some resources to help you prepare for Salesforce Lightning and developer interviews:
