What you need to know about Salesforce Instance Refreshes

Instance refreshes upgrade your Salesforce orgs infrastructure and technology. They have shown up to 49% of performance improvement. Each org is hosted by one instance and one instance is comprised of a primary and a secondary instance. When the instance refresh begins, the customer is moved to another instance. It takes half the orgs from the customer and puts them to the new instance and the other half to another instance. When the refresh completes, there should be no orgs in the old instance.

During the refresh, only read only mode is available should you try and enter the org. No records can be created, modified or deleted. Queues and suspension resume when the maintenance is complete.

There are steps that are important to follow prior to the start of the maintenance. These steps will prevent your users from not having access to the Salesforce org after the maintenance is complete.

Follow these steps when preparing for your refresh:

1. Enable my domain in org

   1. The instance name will be changing
   2. Determine what you want the domain name to be
   3. Then enable the domain
      1. Must be implemented my Domain prior to the maintenance window

2. Replace hard-coded references that are auto-generated

   1. Lightning readiness check
   2. View “Hard-coded URLs and My Domain” section on the report
   3. If you have these references change them to relative, non-instance URLs
      1. Hard coded URL example: na1.salesforce.com
      2. Non-instance specific URL: login.salesforce.com

3. Whitelist Salesforce IP ranges

   1. Refer to Infra for the ranges
   2. Network settings need to include current ranges
      1. If your team has set up the corporate network settings or email security filters to restrict access to only certain IP ranges or data centers, makes sure that you are including the newest ranges.

4. Plan around System Maintenance Windows

   1. Windows will be used to perform refreshes
   2. Expect updates on 1st and 3rd weekends on calendar

Does it impact Salesforce Outlook? Yes.

Salesforce instance refreshes will have an effect on Salesforce for Outlook as well. Once the instance refresh is completed, users are automatically logged out and will need to log back in using the Setup Wizard. In the case that there are issues logging into Outlook after the refresh, you will have to reauthenticate.

Does it impact Salesforce Sandbox Refreshes? Yes.

Salesforce Instance refreshes also impact an org’s sandbox refreshes as well. Four hours before the instance refresh is active, the sandbox refresh queue will be suspended. If there was a sandbox in the middle of a sandbox refresh, it will be stopped. Exactly 24 hours after the instance refresh is complete the sandbox refresh will be restarted not continued from it’s progress.

Does it impact your old data center? Yes.

All data in your old data center is impacted as well from the instance refresh. The hardware that was hosting your instance is decommissioned. The procedures and processes involved in the instance refresh have been put in place ensure that your data will not leave the previous data center. It ensures that each refresh meets specific compliance and security requirements.

With the right Support Partner, your Salesforce Instance Refreshes can be painless, and easy to implement.

-Geoffrey Godwin, Business Analyst