Get Started with Fundamentals

This section provides essential knowledge for understanding how the Salesforce Platform works at its core. Whether you're new to Salesforce architecture or looking to deepen your understanding, these foundational articles will help you build a solid architectural foundation.

Architecture Basics is your starting point for understanding how to architect solutions on the Salesforce Platform. This article covers three essential areas that every architect must master:

  • Transactions: Learn how Salesforce defines and controls transactions through governor limits and execution contexts. Understand the platform's order of execution and how it ensures data integrity across all database operations.

  • Metadata Versus Data: Discover the critical distinction between metadata and data, and how this affects your application lifecycle—from sandbox development to production deployment and package management.

  • Platform APIs: Explore the various Salesforce Platform APIs available, understand when to use each one, and learn how to plan for API versioning and maintenance.

Start with this article to build your foundational understanding of how the platform manages resources, enforces limits, and provides APIs for application development.

The Salesforce Platform - Transformed for Tomorrow documents the comprehensive transformation that has reshaped Salesforce's platform architecture. This detailed whitepaper explores:

  • Modern Platform Architecture: Discover how Salesforce has evolved from a monolithic architecture to a structure with independent services, supporting AI-powered applications and agentic experiences.

  • Hyperforce Infrastructure: Learn about Salesforce's next-generation infrastructure that operates across multiple public cloud providers, providing enhanced scalability, compliance, and data residency capabilities.

  • Architectural Principles: Understand the six core principles that guide platform development: Enterprise-Grade Trust, Multitenant design, Metadata-Driven architecture, API First approach, Open and Interoperable systems, and Agentic capabilities.

  • Platform Layers: Explore the interconnected layers that make up the modern Salesforce Platform, from infrastructure to user experience, and how they work together to deliver comprehensive business capabilities.

This article is essential reading for understanding how Salesforce has positioned itself for the future of enterprise applications, particularly in the age of AI and cloud-native architectures.

Platform Multitenant Architecture provides an in-depth technical look at how the Salesforce Platform delivers reliable, scalable, and customizable experiences. This article explains:

  • Multitenant Design: Understand how a single shared database and schema safely isolate tenant-specific data, metadata, and business logic for hundreds of thousands of organizations.

  • The Platform Data Layer: Explore the Universal Data Dictionary (UDD), flex columns, indexing systems, and how the platform stores both metadata and data efficiently.

  • Application Development: Learn about the platform's support for no-code, low-code, and pro-code development approaches, including browser-based tools, APIs, query languages, and Apex.

  • Internal Processing: Discover how the platform handles queries, searches, bulk operations, schema modifications, and multitenant isolation to ensure optimal performance and security.

This technical brief is invaluable for architects who need to understand the underlying mechanisms that make the Salesforce Platform scalable, secure, and customizable.

Platform Sharing Architecture is your comprehensive guide to architecting secure data access models. This document covers:

  • Sharing Components: Learn about all the components that make up the sharing model, including profiles, permission sets, role hierarchies, organization-wide defaults, sharing rules, teams, territories, and more.

  • Implementation Scenarios: Explore real-world customer scenarios and how different sharing components work together to meet complex data access requirements.

  • Best Practices: Understand considerations for large data volumes, ownership skews, territory management, and how to plan for organizational changes.

  • Troubleshooting: Follow a systematic approach to diagnose why users can or cannot access records, and learn how to resolve common sharing model issues.

Whether you're designing a new sharing model or optimizing an existing one, this guide provides the knowledge you need to create secure, flexible, and maintainable data access architectures.

These four articles form the foundation of Salesforce Platform architecture knowledge. We recommend reading them in order, starting with Architecture Basics, to build your understanding progressively from fundamental concepts to advanced architectural patterns.