A Full sandbox is essentially a complete duplicate of your production environment, designed specifically for thorough testing purposes.
Understanding Full Copy Sandboxes
Based on the provided reference, a Full sandbox is defined as a dedicated environment intended primarily for testing. Unlike some other types of sandboxes, it is a replica of your production org. This means it contains:
- All data: Including every object record, customer information, sales data, and attachments.
- Metadata: The configuration, customizations, code, and structure of your production org.
Because it's a complete copy, a Full sandbox is robust enough to support various demanding testing scenarios.
Key Characteristics
A Full sandbox distinguishes itself through its comprehensive nature:
- Complete Replication: It mirrors your live production environment entirely.
- Includes All Data and Metadata: Every piece of information and configuration is copied over.
Intended Uses
According to the reference, Full sandboxes are specifically built for intensive testing:
- Testing Environment: Their primary purpose is to serve as a dedicated space for testing changes before deploying them to production.
- Performance Testing: Evaluating how well your application or changes handle specific workloads and respond under various conditions.
- Load Testing: Assessing system behavior and performance when subjected to a large number of concurrent users or transactions.
- Staging: Acting as a final pre-production environment to simulate the live system as closely as possible before go-live.
In essence, a Full sandbox provides a high-fidelity environment crucial for validating complex changes, ensuring stability, and predicting performance under real-world conditions.