Data Architect course

I recently had the opportunity to attend the Build Data Architect Expertise (ARC201) Salesforce course. This was offered three days before Dreamforce. There were about 65 people in attendence. It was offered in the Salesforce West building in San Francisco, CA. It was a fabulous class that I learned a lot from. Some takeaways:

• When implementing a new system, take into consideration your current data needs, but also the future 3 to 5-year needs. The system data will grow. Make sure it is architected well to take these needs into account.
• Data Virtualization: data doesn't always need to be in Salesforce to see it. Data Virtualization & External Table option can be used instead.
• When doing a large data migration, make sure to complete the steps to do this in a Full sandbox before attempting it in Production. Start early for the Production run, so the day before can be more of an incremental, small data load.

This course also encouraged me to take the Salesforce Data Architect certification. This has been on my list to complete, but I have refrained due to not passing Platform Developer I yet. Salesforce did not offer the option to take the Data Architect certification at Dreamforce, but we did get a voucher to take it at a later date. I have more interest in Data Architect versus Platform Developer I, so I might revisit the order I take exams in the future.