In today’s digital landscape, ensuring the security of customer data is one of the top priorities for Salesforce Admins. With the increasing frequency of security breaches, the need for robust protection of sensitive information is more critical than ever. Exposing services to the public internet inherently opens up vulnerabilities that can lead to unauthorized access, putting your organization’s data at risk. This is where Salesforce Private Connect comes into play.
Salesforce Private Connect offers admins a simple, secure solution to safeguard their data by enabling private connectivity between Salesforce and external services without exposing them to the public internet. Built on AWS PrivateLink, it eliminates the risk of attacks on publicly visible endpoints, allowing admins to manage sensitive data with confidence. Now extended to Salesforce Data Cloud, Private Connect ensures that your customer data, used in key services like Agentforce, remains private and secure, providing an essential layer of protection for your business operations.
Salesforce Private Connect was released in May 2020 as a partnership between Salesforce and Amazon as another layer of security. We brought private connectivity between Salesforce and a customer’s services in AWS via AWS PrivateLink through an easy-to-use point-and-click setup. Now, we’ve applied that same concept to Salesforce Data Cloud. Admins can ensure the customer data they use to power Agentforce remains private and secure through our new feature, Private Connect for Data Cloud.
Built on Data Cloud’s trusted, secure deployment in AWS, Private Connect for Data Cloud manages a dedicated, private network connection on behalf of a customer to their data sources in the same AWS Region. Using AWS PrivateLink, this network connection is specific to the Data Cloud tenant and the target, thereby allowing that target to remain inaccessible and invisible to the public internet. Hackers can’t attack what they can’t access, and leaving the target invisible to the public internet adds a significant layer of safety and privacy.
What does this mean for admins?Salesforce Admins play a key role in implementing security strategies and ensuring compliance with security standards. Setting up private connectivity, however, often requires specialized support and configuration of the systems on either side. Now, we’re adding this support for the Data Cloud side of the equation, and sensitive data used by Agentforce remains secure during transit.
For business admins who rely on Data Cloud to enhance their workflows and drive agent-first operations, seamless integration is essential. Even more essential is maintaining the security of their most sensitive, business-critical data. By enabling integration between data sources and Data Cloud across private network boundaries, admins get both—and Data Cloud can maximize its impact, without compromising security or performance. Admins can leverage the full potential of their data infrastructure while maintaining a secure and unified environment.
Private Connect for Data Cloud is generally available to Data Cloud customers for Snowflake for AWS and Amazon Redshift. We will be supporting other providers in upcoming releases.
To get started with Private Connect for Data Cloud:
1. Navigate to Data Cloud Setup. Under “External Integrations”, access the new Private Connect menu item.
2. Create a private network route to Snowflake in AWS or Redshift.
3. Create a new connection to Snowflake or Redshift, toggling Use Private Network Route on and selecting the route you created in Step 2.
By leveraging Salesforce Private Connect for Data Cloud, admins can confidently protect sensitive customer data while maintaining seamless, secure integrations, ensuring both compliance and peace of mind.
Special thanks to Product Management Director Drew Loika for his collaboration on this article.
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