SugarCloud Sandboxes

Overview

A sandbox is a replica of your Sugar® instance that can be used to test version upgrades and application changes without putting your live production instance at risk. Sandbox instances are also an excellent tool for end-user training because new users can practice creating, deleting, and editing Sugar records without compromising your data. This article covers the basics of sandbox environments and how to get started.

Sandbox Allowances

For customers wishing to host sandboxes in Sugar's cloud service, the number of cloud sandboxes allowed varies based on the CRM solution licenses (e.g., Sugar Serve) purchased with their subscription. If your Sugar subscription includes cloud sandbox licenses, you can request to have a sandbox instance created. For more information on requesting and using sandbox environments for your SugarCloud instance, refer to the Requesting SugarCloud Sandboxes section below.

Customers can create as many on-site sandbox instances as desired. For more information on creating on-site sandbox environments, refer to the On-Site Sandboxes section below. 

The sandbox allowances for Sugar subscriptions are as follows:  

Note: Please keep in mind that the file system and database storage used by SugarCloud sandboxes counts towards your total SugarCloud managed storage allotment. For more information, refer to the SugarCloud Managed Storage Limits article. 

Requesting SugarCloud Sandboxes

Depending on the Sugar product(s) purchased, your subscription may include a certain number of sandboxes per the SugarCloud Policy Guide. For more information, refer to the Sandbox Allowances section above. For any Sugar Sell Essentials customers who wish to utilize a sandbox environment, the sandbox can be purchased as an add-on product by contacting their Sugar partner or Sugar Sales team member.  

Sugar's cloud service also includes a file system and database storage allowance across all production and sandbox instances specific for each Sugar product (e.g., Sugar Serve). For more information, refer to the SugarCloud Policy Guide.

If you would like to be set up with a sandbox instance, a support-authorized contact for your organization must request a sandbox copy of your SugarCloud instance by filing a case with the Sugar Support team.

Please be sure to provide the following information when filing a case to request a sandbox instance:

• Provide a name you wish to use for the sandbox instance's URL. This is often your actual Sugar instance name modified with the word "test" or "dev". For example, if your organization accesses Sugar at https://mycompany.sugarondemand.com, then you might use https://mycompanytest.sugarondemand.com or https://mycompany-dev.sugarondemand.com for your sandbox environment.
• Specify where to retrieve the data you wish to use in your sandbox environment. For example, the data may come from one of the following places:
  • Most commonly, copy the data from your primary Sugar instance.
  • Transfer the data from a backup of your Sugar instance.
  • Use Sugar's generic demo data.

When the SugarCRM team sets up a cloud sandbox based on a cloud production instance, they take a virtual snapshot of the current state of the customer's database records and filesystem. From the time the snapshot is taken until the time the sandbox is built, users will likely make changes to data on the live production instance, so the data between the two instances will rarely be purely identical. In addition, as users continue working in the production environment, it is important to keep in mind that those changes are not synchronized to the sandbox. Therefore, changes made to either instance will occur independently of the other.

If you wish to eliminate changes made to your sandbox environment at any time, simply file a case with the Sugar Support team requesting the update.

Note: By default, cron jobs are not set to run on sandbox environments in order to prevent sandbox instances from executing any scheduled jobs (e.g. inbound email retrieval) that should only be processed in the production instance.

On-Site Sandboxes

Customers can host sandboxes on their own servers by using the same license key used for their production instance. For more information on creating a clone of your Sugar production instance, please refer to the Cloning a Sugar Instance for Testing article. Please note that there are no restrictions on the number of on-site hosted sandbox instances.

It is important to keep in mind that, while working in the sandbox and production environments, any changes made between the two instances will not be synced. If you wish to eliminate changes made to your sandbox environment at any time, you must refresh the sandbox instance.