There is no doubt in the fact that Development Environments are an important segment of Salesforce when you talk about Force.com

Today, we are going to unleash various points that you must read before starting the journey. These details are highly significant as they will help you to understand the environment easily. Also, make sure to read our previous blogs on the connecting topics for better results. You can find all of them in the Blog Section of our portal.

What are Development Environments?

As the name suggests, Development Environments is a place to develop, test, and debug any program related to your brand or company. Moreover, it is a combination of software and web workspace where developers can modify the software. However, this will not affect the live environment of your company or business. When we bring the same scenario to Salesforce, various users can extend and integrate their systems by developing on Force.com without having any ramifications in the actual working status of the program.

Many developers use the Developing Environments to test or develop new applications before the final application. Unlike the Production Environments, there is no important data or information present in the locations. The business critical data is secure and doesn’t get disturbed by the changes. Hence, it is a safe option to test new features as any error will not shut down the whole ecosystem.

Server Tiers

Development Environments consists of 3 major server tiers that collectively work to enhance the usability of the environment. They are Development, Staging, and Production, or commonly known as DSP. We will discuss briefly each one of them in the following sections.

• Development Server- The developer needs some space to create software or programs from a raw idea. Once the code is ready, you can check it by running several test programs in the Development Server. In case there are potential threats or errors in the code, the user can adjust the code accordingly. However, it might work in the first few tries and then is sent to the next server.
• Staging Server- We further have the Staging Server that is quite similar to the Production Environment that we discussed earlier. It deals in analyzing the reliability and credibility of the program and ensures it can withstand real-life scenarios. This server acts as the final checkpoint before applying the software or program. Without approval from the staging server, the application is not sent forward.
• Production Server- After finding all the checks from Development and Staging server, the application is finally ready for production. The job of the Production Server is to merge the software in the live server accordingly. Hence, users can now easily access the feature that you built in the previous server stages.

Types of Development Environments

We assume that you have understood the basic concept of Development Environments and various servers related to them. Let us now throw some light on the two types of Development Environments,

Developer Edition (DE) Environment

First of all, it is a fully functional development environment containing all the features and tools for better assistance. However, there are some restrictions on the number of users and the amount of data they consume. It is recommended for the initial stages when you are developing the application on Force.com due to its logical-based environment. However, all the users and developers can join the unlimited number of DE organizations as per the requirement. This will give them the advantage of creating the software for every Salesforce Production Environment. Moreover, signing up for the respective system will help to manage their work easily.

Sandbox

On the other hand, Sandbox is almost as same as the Production Environment as it deals in both configurations and data, respectively. You also have the privilege to deploy multiple Sandboxes in the environment to complete the job. This way, you will not be compromising any applications or data in the Production Environment.

Conclusion

We will conclude our discussion about Development Environments on a positive note. You must have learned various things with proper explanation. Also, don’t forget to share your views in the comment section or directly send us a mail for the same. We will be glad to help you with any query regarding Salesforce or Force.com pretty effectively.

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