Bulk Data API

Nick SimhaTechnical Alliance Manager

Agenda

Bulk Data API basics

Demo

Best practices

Resource list

What is the Bulk Data API?

REST based, asynchronous API optimized for loading

large sets of data.

Why is it useful?

Enable high volume integration with Salesforce (volume)

Enable integration that has to finish in a certain window of time

(speed)

Part of suite of features that enable our customers to store very

large data volumes in Salesforce

– Batch Apex

– Skinny tables

– Divisions

– Custom Indexing

– Etc.

How does the Bulk Data API works

Loop until all records sent (e.g. 50 times for 500k rows)

Loop until all files processed

Decoupled phases. One doesn't wait for the other, each can run in parallel

How can I call the Bulk Data API?

Through Data Loader

From any Web Services Client – Java, C# etc.

From the command line!

Support by our integration partners

Using the Bulk API from a client

Create Job

Create Batch (es) and add to Job– Number of batches determined by the amount of data and the

limits on batch size.

Close Job

Retrieve Batch Status

Retrieve Batch Result

Sample Request

POST /services/async/17.0/job HTTP/1.1

User-Agent: curl/7.19.6 (i386-pc-win32) libcurl/7.19.6 OpenSSL/09.8k zlib/1.2.3

Host: na6.salesforce.com

Accept: */*

X-SFDC-Session:00D80000000MD0n!AQgAQI1EfPPEyWvwuaD_IRpvSlrwm7Kr00e

Content-Type: application/xml; charset=UTF-8

Content-Length: 195

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<jobInfo xmlns="http://wwwforce.com/2009/06/asyncapi/dataload">

<operation>insert</operation>

<object>Contact</object><contentType>CSV</contentType></jobInfo>

See Getting Started Chapter in the API guide. Use curl –trace-ascii <file_name> to capture messages.

Demo

Load 100K Addresses of medical providers

Cleanse the data

Bulk API - Some Additional Information

Can Monitor Bulk Loads in Builder – Monitoring -> Bulk Data Load Jobs

Doesn’t handle attachments

Governor limits – 500 batches per 24 hour limit. 10,000

records per batch. So theoretical limit of 5M records per

day.– Caveat – Batch size also needs to be less than 10MB

Batch limits can be increased by engineering– Need to contact your SE

Best practices

Combine Bulk API with Batch Apex to get optimal performance

– Faster than complex triggers

– Similar to the demo – this is a generic pattern that you can use in

many scenarios

Stick with parallel processing unless there is a reason not to do so

– See FAQ for scenarios when you would serial processing

Handling Very Large Data Volumes requires a comprehensive,

holistic approach

– Bulk API is one part of the solution

Resource list

Bulk API doc http://www.salesforce.com/us/developer/docs/api_asynch/index.htm