Why Office 365 Backup Is Crucial
If your business uses Microsoft Office 365, you are aware of the extreme capabilities the service offers. Majority of users can agree the software is a part of their daily work routine. Nonetheless, their whole office’s daily work routine.
Microsoft takes care of quite a bit and provides a great service for their customers. However, Microsoft’s primary focus is on managing the Office 365 infrastructure and maintaining uptime to your users. They are empowering YOU with the responsibility of your data. The misconception that Microsoft fully backs up your data is quite common and could have damaging repercussions if this responsibility is left unattended.
Office 365 Misconception
The misunderstanding falls between Microsoft’s perceived responsibility and the user’s actual responsibility of protection and long-term retention of their Office 365 data.
Microsoft Office 365 offers geo redundancy, which is often mistaken for backup. Geo redundancy protects against site or hardware failure, so if there is an infrastructure crash or outage, your users will remain productive and often oblivious to these underlying issues.
Backup takes place when a historical copy of data is made and then stored in another location. However, it is even more important that you have direct access to and control over that backup. So, if data is lost, accidentally deleted, or maliciously attacked, you can quickly recover. Aside from the standard precautions Office 365 has in place, you may need to re-assess the level of control you have of your data and how much access you truly have to it.
6 Reasons Why
Microsoft Office 365 fits the needs of many organizations perfectly. Office 365 provides application Availability and uptime to ensure your users never skip a beat, but an Office 365 backup can protect you against many other security threats.
By talking with hundreds of IT professionals across the globe who have migrated to Office 365, six vulnerabilities in data protection rise to the top:
- Accidental Deletion:
If you delete a user, whether you meant to or not, that deletion is replicated across the network, along with the deletion of their personal SharePoint site and their OneDrive data.
With native recycle bins and version histories included in Office 365, you can protect yourself from data loss but not if they’re geo-redundantly deleted or out of retention period. The best way to avoid this problem is by having proper backups that will always be available when needed! - Retention Policy Gaps & Confusion:
The fast pace of business in the digital age lends itself to continuously evolving policies, including retention policies that are difficult to keep up with, let alone manage. Office 365 has limited backup and retention policies that can only fend off situational data loss and is not intended to be an all-encompassing backup solution.
Another type of recovery, a point-in-time restoration of mailbox items, is not in scope with Microsoft. In the case of a catastrophic issue, a backup solution can provide the ability to roll back to a previous point-in-time prior to this issue and saving the day.
With an Office 365 backup solution, there are no retention policy gaps or restore inflexibility. Short term backups or long-term archives, granular or point-in-time restores, everything is at your fingertips making data recovery fast, easy, and reliable. - Internal Security Threats:
Businesses are often experiencing threats from the inside posed by their very own employees, both intentionally and unintentionally.
Access to files and contacts change so quickly, it can be hard to keep an eye on those in which you’ve installed the most trust. Microsoft has no way of knowing the difference between a regular user and a terminated employee attempting to delete critical company data before they depart. In addition, some users unknowingly create serious threats by downloading infected files or accidentally leaking usernames and passwords to sites they thought they could trust. - External Security Threats:
Malware and viruses, like ransomware, have done serious damage to organizations across the globe. Not only is company reputation at risk, but the privacy and security of internal and customer data as well.
External threats can sneak in through emails and attachments. Exchange Online’s limited backup/recovery functions are inadequate to handle serious attacks. Regular backups will help ensure a separate copy of your data is uninfected and that you can recover quickly. - Legal & Compliance Requirements:
Sometimes you need to unexpectedly retrieve emails, files, or other types of data amid legal action. Something you never think is going to happen to you until it does. Microsoft has built in a couple safety nets, (Litigation Hold) but again, these are not a robust backup solution capable of keeping your company out of legal trouble. For example, if you accidentally delete a user, their on-hold mailbox, personal SharePoint site and OneDrive account is also deleted.
Legal requirements, compliance requirements and access regulations vary between industries and countries, but fines, penalties and legal disputes are three things you don’t have room for on your to-do list. - Managing Hybrid Email Deployments & Migrations to Office 365:
Organizations that adopt Office 365 typically need a window of time to serve as a transition window between on-premises Exchange and Office 365 Exchange Online. Some even leave a small portion of their legacy system in place to have added flexibility and additional control. These hybrid email deployments are common, yet pose additional management challenges.
The right Office 365 backup solution should be able to handle hybrid email deployments, and treat exchange data the same, making the source location irrelevant.
You already made a smart business decision by deploying Microsoft Office 365, now utilize Data-Tech’s backup solution that offers you both complete access and complete control of your Office 365 data and avoid the unnecessary risks of data loss.
Source: Veeam
