Migrating data from Salesforce to Redshift can be done by building a data pipeline manually, usually a Python script (you can leverage a tool as Apache Airflow for this). This process can take more than a full week of development. Or it can be done in minutes on Airbyte in three easy steps:

1. set up Salesforce as a source connector (using Auth, or usually an API key)
2. set up Redshift as a destination connector
3. define which data you want to transfer and how frequently

You can choose to self-host the pipeline using Airbyte Open Source or have it managed for you with Airbyte Cloud.

This tutorial’s purpose is to show you how.

What is Salesforce

Salesforce is a cloud-based customer relationship management (CRM) platform providing business solutions software on a subscription basis. Salesforce is a huge force in the ecommerce world, helping businesses with marketing, commerce, service and sales, and enabling enterprises’ IT teams to collaborate easily from anywhere. Salesforces is the force behind many industries, offering healthcare, automotive, finance, media, communications, and manufacturing multichannel support. Its services are wide-ranging, with access to customer, partner, and developer communities as well as an app exchange marketplace.

What is Redshift

A fully managed data warehouse service in the Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud, Amazon Redshift is designed for storage and analysis of large-scale datasets. Redshift allows businesses to scale from a few hundred gigabytes to more than a petabyte (a million gigabytes), and utilizes ML techniques to analyze queries, offering businesses new insights from their data. Users can query and combine exabytes of data using standard SQL, and easily save their query results to their S3 data lake.

Prerequisites

1. A Salesforce account to transfer your customer data automatically from.
2. A Redshift account.
3. An active Airbyte Cloud account, or you can also choose to use Airbyte Open Source locally. You can follow the instructions to set up Airbyte on your system using docker-compose.

Airbyte is an open-source data integration platform that consolidates and streamlines the process of extracting and loading data from multiple data sources to data warehouses. It offers pre-built connectors, including Salesforce and Redshift, for seamless data migration.

When using Airbyte to move data from Salesforce to Redshift, it extracts data from Salesforce using the source connector, converts it into a format Redshift can ingest using the provided schema, and then loads it into Redshift via the destination connector. This allows businesses to leverage their Salesforce data for advanced analytics and insights within Redshift, simplifying the ETL process and saving significant time and resources.

Step 1: Set up Salesforce as a source connector

1. Open the Airbyte platform and navigate to the "Sources" tab on the left-hand side of the screen.

2. Click on the "Salesforce" source connector and select "Create new connection."

3. Enter a name for your connection and click "Next."

4. Enter your Salesforce credentials, including your username, password, and security token.

5. Click "Test connection" to ensure that your credentials are correct and that Airbyte can connect to your Salesforce account.

6. Once the connection is successful, select the objects you want to replicate from Salesforce.

7. Choose the replication frequency and any other settings you want to apply to your connection.

8. Click "Create connection" to save your settings and start replicating data from Salesforce to Airbyte.

9. You can monitor the progress of your replication in the "Connections" tab and view the data in the "Dashboard" tab.

Step 2: Set up Redshift as a destination connector

1. First, log in to your Airbyte account and navigate to the "Destinations" tab on the left-hand side of the screen.
2. Click on the "Add Destination" button and select "Redshift" from the list of available connectors.
3. Enter your Redshift database credentials, including the host, port, database name, username, and password.
4. Choose the schema you want to use for your data in Redshift.
5. Select the tables you want to sync from your source connector to Redshift.
6. Map the fields from your source connector to the corresponding fields in Redshift.
7. Choose the sync mode you want to use, either "append" or "replace."
8. Set up any additional options or filters you want to use for your sync.
9. Test your connection to ensure that your data is syncing correctly.
10. Once you are satisfied with your settings, save your configuration and start your sync.

Step 3: Set up a connection to sync your data from Salesforce to Redshift

Once you've successfully connected Salesforce as a data source and Redshift as a destination in Airbyte, you can set up a data pipeline between them with the following steps:

1. Create a new connection: On the Airbyte dashboard, navigate to the 'Connections' tab and click the '+ New Connection' button.
2. Choose your source: Select Salesforce from the dropdown list of your configured sources.
3. Select your destination: Choose Redshift from the dropdown list of your configured destinations.
4. Configure your sync: Define the frequency of your data syncs based on your business needs. Airbyte allows both manual and automatic scheduling for your data refreshes.
5. Select the data to sync: Choose the specific Salesforce objects you want to import data from towards Redshift. You can sync all data or select specific tables and fields.
6. Select the sync mode for your streams: Choose between full refreshes or incremental syncs (with deduplication if you want), and this for all streams or at the stream level. Incremental is only available for streams that have a primary cursor.
7. Test your connection: Click the 'Test Connection' button to make sure that your setup works. If the connection test is successful, save your configuration.
8. Start the sync: If the test passes, click 'Set Up Connection'. Airbyte will start moving data from Salesforce to Redshift according to your settings.

Remember, Airbyte keeps your data in sync at the frequency you determine, ensuring your Redshift data warehouse is always up-to-date with your Salesforce data.

Use Cases to transfer your Salesforce data to Redshift

Integrating data from Salesforce to Redshift provides several benefits. Here are a few use cases:

1. Advanced Analytics: Redshift’s powerful data processing capabilities enable you to perform complex queries and data analysis on your Salesforce data, extracting insights that wouldn't be possible within Salesforce alone.
2. Data Consolidation: If you're using multiple other sources along with Salesforce, syncing to Redshift allows you to centralize your data for a holistic view of your operations, and to set up a change data capture process so you never have any discrepancies in your data again.
3. Historical Data Analysis: Salesforce has limits on historical data. Syncing data to Redshift allows for long-term data retention and analysis of historical trends over time.
4. Data Security and Compliance: Redshift provides robust data security features. Syncing Salesforce data to Redshift ensures your data is secured and allows for advanced data governance and compliance management.
5. Scalability: Redshift can handle large volumes of data without affecting performance, providing an ideal solution for growing businesses with expanding Salesforce data.
6. Data Science and Machine Learning: By having Salesforce data in Redshift, you can apply machine learning models to your data for predictive analytics, customer segmentation, and more.
7. Reporting and Visualization: While Salesforce provides reporting tools, data visualization tools like Tableau, PowerBI, Looker (Google Data Studio) can connect to Redshift, providing more advanced business intelligence options. If you have a Salesforce table that needs to be converted to a Redshift table, Airbyte can do that automatically.

Wrapping Up

To summarize, this tutorial has shown you how to:

1. Configure a Salesforce account as an Airbyte data source connector.
2. Configure Redshift as a data destination connector.
3. Create an Airbyte data pipeline that will automatically be moving data directly from Salesforce to Redshift after you set a schedule

With Airbyte, creating data pipelines take minutes, and the data integration possibilities are endless. Airbyte supports the largest catalog of API tools, databases, and files, among other sources. Airbyte's connectors are open-source, so you can add any custom objects to the connector, or even build a new connector from scratch without any local dev environment or any data engineer within 10 minutes with the no-code connector builder.

We look forward to seeing you make use of it! We invite you to join the conversation on our community Slack Channel, or sign up for our newsletter. You should also check out other Airbyte tutorials, and Airbyte’s content hub!