Backing up Microsoft 365 is more important than ever

Today, there are more than 1.2 billion Microsoft Office users. In addition, the more than one million companies using Microsoft 365 (M365) means that about one in five global employees use the platform. Clearly, M365 is popular and here to stay. It allows organizations to get out of managing email servers and put more focus on creating valuable business differentiators. Unfortunately, there is something that Microsoft 365 doesn’t really offer, and that is data protection. In fact, about 76% of user data is not backed up.*

Organizations today are incredibly dependent on cloud services such as messaging, collaboration and productivity. In many cases, we store valuable business data or sensitive customer data within these services. We rely heavily on the availability of this data to ensure that the business runs without interruptions that could result in loss of revenue.

So what happens if the worst case scenario occurs? In this case, we are not talking about failures. Yes, breakdowns happen from time to time , but most companies can recover quickly. Have you thought about data loss? Is your provider ready to recover data if it is accidentally deleted? Or if it is damaged? With a data loss event, the impact on the business can be devastating. Internal and external security breaches, systems failures, inadvertent deletions, and retention policy errors can (and do) occur and have increased in frequency in recent years. Too much is at stake, including company revenue and reputation, for today’s companies not to take preventive measures.

Microsoft 365 is a good example of a cloud service that many customers have chosen for their business needs. Today, M365 is more than just Exchange Online, it includes SharePoint Online and OneDrive for Business. These tools are essential to keep business collaboration productive. What can you do if you have an M365 data loss event? The truth here is that while Microsoft is responsible for the infrastructure that hosts the data, it is not responsible for the data itself.

Microsoft doesn’t back up my data?

When it comes to data backup and resiliency, the difference between what Microsoft offers and what customers think they have can be significant. It is important to realize that availability is not data protection. Microsoft 365 offers geographic redundancy, which protects against site failures, hardware failures and other disruptions to data availability. If one site goes down, another site is ready to provide data access. But what happens if you lose your data altogether? Microsoft does not protect your data, but follows a shared responsibility model for M365 data. The key in all of this is to remember that the cloud service provider (Microsoft) is responsible for maintaining the uptime of the platform, while you are responsible for the protection and long-term preservation of your Microsoft 365 data.

Irreversible data loss may occur in Microsoft 365

So how do you protect against irreversible data loss? As with other parts of your business, it requires a well thought out plan. Creating a data protection plan is essential to the resilience of your data and is similar to what you would do for any other business-critical workload or data. Is your data backed up daily? What is your retention policy for backup data? What compliance and security requirements are required for your organization or industry?

What does this mean for your data?

Protecting data in M365 is no less important than backing up on-premises data. They are all essential business data that deserve to be fully protected. In fact, many of the same threats to data in customer-owned data centers apply to data in the cloud. These are just some of the concerns you need to address:

• Unavailability of services: In most cases, the availability of Microsoft 365 services is unquestioned.
• Accidental deletion: The most common requirement to recover data is due to accidental data loss.
• External Threats: External threats are the most obvious threat to your data.
• Internal threats: The most overlooked problem is from internal employees and contractors.
• Legal and Compliance: All organizations have regulations that must be met at all times with potential audits.

Comprehensive data protection at its best

ALTA-ICT works with customers to ensure that business-critical data is backed up, restored and secure. When it comes to M365, ALTA-ICT offers a simple, flexible and secure 100% SaaS solution for daily, automated backups. ALTA-ICT provides comprehensive backup and protection for Microsoft OneDrive, Exchange Online, SharePoint and Microsoft Teams, as well as endpoints, data centers, SaaS applications and cloud-native workloads. We complement Microsoft 365 by filling data protection gaps without special hardware, software or resources. Our secure SaaS platform allows Microsoft 365 data to be open and accessible for unified governance policies and ransomware protection, while allowing you to gain vital insights into your Microsoft 365 data and projects.

Don’t take chances with the data your business relies on. Ultimately, you need to ensure that you have access to and control over your Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, OneDrive for Business and Microsoft Teams data.

Source: druva