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Danny_Teng__cDanny_Teng__c 

Salesforce cannot handle 6 million records

Hi, 

About early last year, we decided to purchase additonal data storage to store millions of data records. We were considering if we should go with regular relational database hosted in SQL server or put them into Salesforce. We opted for 2nd option because we tought we can take advantage Salesforce reporting/dashboard, build additional custom logic with APEX, etc.

Unforunately after spending days of integration, data clean up, ETL to bring the data into our Salesforce, we discovered that Salesforce keeps timing out when we try to view the data with View list, when we try to build reports, or when we try to perform SOQL. The thing is, we are not trying to query all the data. We were just trying to pull subset of data with filter by specific zip code or city. However, no matter what, we kept getting system times out error message.

We logged a ticket and got escalated to tier 3. Support Tier 3 said that this is Salesforce limitation. We were told to download the data somewhere else to view or perform reporting. I feel this is a very unacceptable answer. If this is a real limitation, I feel that Salesforce should have disclosed this info before we purchased the additional data storage.

I am out of luck right now. I am working with our Account Execetive, hoping we can get some refund.  Now, I am considering about storing the data in Postgrees / Heroku and use Heroku Connect to have the data exposed in our Salesforce.

What do you think? Should I go further with this idea, or should I just go with traditional database & web services? 

Thanks for your help in advance.
 
Jason HardyJason Hardy
You could try indexing some of the fields (zip codes are a great example of indexible fields), that might help. Other than that not much you can really do.
JD68JD68
Salesforce is definitely capable of storing millions of records and I have worked on many projects where this is done.  I'm suprised at the response you got from support.  As per Jason's response, the fields can be indexed - if you contact support again they can do that for you.  This should make a huge difference.  Failing that there are other techniques that can be used, that are outlined here:

http://www.salesforce.com/docs/en/cce/ldv_deployments/salesforce_large_data_volumes_bp.pdf

Please have a look at this document as it will be helpful in understanding how to deal with the issue you're facing.  Hope it helps.