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Big Objects - Introduction

Big Objects

A big object stores and manages massive amounts of data on the Salesforce platform. You can archive data from other objects or bring massive datasets from outside systems into a big object to get a full view of your customers. Clients and external systems use a standard set of APIs to access big object data. A big object provides consistent performance, whether you have 1 million records, 100 million, or even 1 billion. This scale gives a big object its power and defines its features.

There are two types of big objects.
  • Standard big objects—Objects defined by Salesforce and included in Salesforce products. FieldHistoryArchive is a standard big object that stores data as part of the Field Audit Trail product. Standard big objects are available out of the box and cannot be customized.
  • Custom big objects—New objects that you create to store information unique to your org. Custom big objects extend the functionality that Lightning Platform provides. For example, if you’re building an app to track product inventory, create a custom big object called HistoricalInventoryLevels to track historical inventory levels for analysis and future optimizations. This implementation guide is for configuring and deploying custom big objects.

Custom Big Object Use Cases

  • Auditing and tracking—Track and maintain a long-term view of Salesforce or product usage for analysis or compliance purposes.
  • Historical archive—Maintain access to historical data for analysis or compliance purposes while optimizing the performance of your core CRM or Lightning Platform applications.

Differences Between Big Objects and Other Objects

Because a big object can store data on an unlimited scale, it has different characteristics than other objects, like sObjects. Big objects are also stored in a different part of the Lightning Platform.
Big ObjectssObjects
Horizontally scalable distributed databaseRelational database
Non-transactional databaseTransactional database
Hundreds of millions or even billions of recordsMillions of records
These big object behaviors ensure a consistent and scalable experience.
  • Big objects support only object and field permissions, not regular or standard sharing rules.
  • Features like triggers, flows, processes, and the Salesforce app are not supported on big objects.
  • When you insert an identical big object record with the same representation multiple times, only a single record is created so that writes can be idempotent. This behavior is different from an sObject, which creates a record for each request to create an object.

Considerations When Using Big Objects

  • To define a big object or add a field to a custom big object, use either Metadata API or Setup.
  • Big objects support custom Lightning and Visualforce components rather than standard UI elements home pages, detail pages, list views, and so on.
  • You can create up to 100 big objects per org. The limits for big object fields are similar to the limits on custom objects and depend on your org’s license type.
  • You can’t use Salesforce Connect external objects to access big objects in another org.
  • Big objects don't support encryption. If you archive encrypted data from a standard or custom object, it is stored as clear text on the big object.

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