Is there a replication delay in Salesforce.com via the APEX API?

Question

I have been using SOAP to deal with Salesforce.com and have been using the getUpdated() call, using the timestamp I retrieve from the getServertimestamp() call.

I have watched my process check, (it polls every minute) and a few seconds after I save the change in the Sandbox environment, I see it poll, get no <ids> in the getUpdated call, and then on the next poll, the modified id shows up.

Is there a backend replication delay in SFDC? I suspect there is, but have had no luck in identifying the magnitude of it. Anyone else experienced this?

Additionally, I realize I should mention, this is all in a Sandbox copy of the environment, which may confuse matters even further.

Update: I just tested, and I made a change, and my poll ran 48 seconds later, and did not see the updated object. But 1 minute 48 seconds later it did see it. So that is one data point. (I know my SOAP endpoint and Web interface are both running on the same server at SFDC, tapp0).

Answer 1

There's no delay in the recording of the change, but the getUpdate/getDeleted calls round down the specified time to the nearest minute, so a finish time of now, gets rounded down, and the just made change falls outside of the range.

Also, if you're doing near realtime replication via these calls, then make sure to pay attention to the inflight transaction timestamp returned, otherwise you can miss changes (as the change timestamp can't be the actual transaction commit time)