Sandbox types and environment strategy design
The four sandbox types with their refresh intervals, storage, copied content, templates and edition allocations, and how to build an environment strategy from them: per-developer and per-stream tiers, shared UAT and Full staging, separate training and hotfix environments, naming, refresh schedules and per-tier endpoints.
Given a customer scenario, define an environment (sandbox) strategy that utilizes the correct sandbox types (for example, multiple project streams, training requirements, staging, production, and hotfixes).
~7 min read · 11 practice questions ·
What the exam expects
- Pick the sandbox type for an activity from its refresh interval, storage, copied content and template support.
- Check a plan against the edition's included sandboxes and know what must be bought.
- Design tiers for parallel streams: per-developer and per-stream environments, shared UAT and a Full staging org.
- Keep training, staging and hotfix work in separate environments, and reserve Full sandboxes for load, performance and staging.
- Govern the estate: purpose-based names, a published refresh schedule agreed between streams, per-tier test endpoints, post-refresh automation and no hoarding.
Key terms: sandbox template (the objects whose records a Partial Copy or Full sandbox copies); refresh interval (minimum time between refreshes, counted from the request); staging (the production replica that receives a release before production); integration sandbox (shared tier where features from several developers meet); sandbox hoarding (sandboxes kept after their purpose ends).
Key facts
- Detail
- Developer and Developer Pro 1 day, Partial Copy 5 days, Full 29 days
- Detail
- Counted from when the create or refresh is requested
- Detail
- Required for Partial Copy, optional for Full, unavailable for Developer types
- Detail
- Only Full sandboxes support them
- Detail
- 25 Developer and 1 Partial Copy; no Developer Pro or Full included
- Detail
- 100 Developer, 5 Developer Pro, 1 Partial Copy, 1 Full
- Detail
- Metadata replaced from the source; org ID changes
- Detail
- Keeps the source sandbox's licence type
- Detail
- Each tier uses test endpoints; never production from a sandbox
- Why is a Full sandbox a poor development environment even when budget allows one?
- When must a sandbox template be created before the sandbox?
- Why does Well-Architected want post-refresh scripts rather than manual setup?
- What happens to a sandbox's org ID when it is refreshed?
The questions are free to read. Answers with their sources and self-grading are included with the pack.
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