Definition
Big Objects is a Setup feature for managing Salesforce Big Objects, which are designed to store and manage massive volumes of data (billions of records) on the Salesforce platform. Unlike standard objects, Big Objects are optimized for large-scale data storage and retrieval using a defined index, making them suitable for historical archiving and audit data.
Real-World Example
The admin at DataSync Corp uses Big Objects to archive five years of field audit trail data that would otherwise count against standard storage limits. She defines a Big Object called "Audit_History__b" with indexed fields for Record ID, Field Name, and Change Date. The archived data can still be queried using Async SOQL for compliance audits.
Why Big Objects Matters
Big Objects uniquely solves the data storage capacity problem that standard Salesforce objects create in large-scale organizations. While standard objects count toward your organization's data storage limits, Big Objects are exempt from these limits and are specifically designed to hold billions of records without consuming traditional storage allocation. This is critical because organizations accumulating massive audit trails, historical transactional records, or compliance data would quickly exhaust standard storage. Big Objects use a key-based indexing strategy (similar to how a database works) rather than Salesforce's traditional object-relational model, allowing extremely fast retrieval of specific records from massive datasets using indexed field lookups.
As organizations grow and data volumes increase exponentially, failing to implement Big Objects for appropriate use cases creates a cascading problem: standard objects become bloated, query performance degrades, and storage limits are reached prematurely, forcing expensive storage upgrades or destructive data deletion. Without Big Objects, companies must choose between keeping compliance-critical historical data (which they're legally required to maintain) and maintaining usable performance in their active records. The real consequence is that admins end up manually archiving data to external systems, creating data silos, compliance risks, and loss of historical audit trails within Salesforce. Big Objects keeps this data queryable within Salesforce using Async SOQL, maintaining compliance while protecting org performance.
How Organizations Use Big Objects
- FinServe Holdings — FinServe, a financial services firm handling millions of daily transactions, created a Big Object called 'Transaction_Archive__b' indexed on Customer_ID, Transaction_Date, and Amount to store 8 years of historical payment records (3.2 billion records). Previously, their standard Transaction object was causing query timeouts and consuming 85% of their storage limit. By migrating historical transactions to the Big Object, they freed 200 GB of storage, restored query performance to normal levels, and could still query 5-year audit windows for regulatory compliance audits in under 30 seconds using Async SOQL.
- MediTrack Systems — MediTrack, a healthcare data platform, uses Big Objects to archive patient interaction logs and medical event records spanning 10 years—over 2 billion records per customer. They defined the Big Object 'Patient_Events__b' with indexes on Patient_ID, Event_Type, and Event_Date, allowing compliance teams to generate HIPAA audit reports without impacting real-time clinical record performance. This approach eliminated their previous dependency on external cold storage and maintained all data within their Salesforce ecosystem for integrated reporting.
- LogixTech Solutions — LogixTech architected a sophisticated Big Object strategy for their multi-tenant SaaS platform, creating separate Big Objects for API call logs, system audit trails, and error records—storing over 40 billion records total. They indexed these objects on Tenant_ID, Timestamp, and Resource_Type, enabling customers to perform their own compliance and debugging queries via Async SOQL without accessing LogixTech's sensitive infrastructure data. This approach scaled their platform to support 500+ enterprise customers while maintaining complete audit transparency.