06-05-20 | Blog Post
As the world’s business has been reshaped due to the pandemic, Microsoft Teams, a set of collaboration apps and services in the Office 365 suite, grew from 20M to 44M active users in just four months, November 2019 to March 2020. A significant proportion of that increase was associated with business converting massive numbers of centralized workers to remote workers. Today, cloud-based essential business services are a key tenant of both business operations and survivability. Major challenges still lie ahead as business evolves to operations in a post-pandemic world. In an environment that will have increasing numbers of distributed workers as well as distributed applications and data, an important question remains: is your business truly protected and fully survivable in today’s distributed environment?
Microsoft takes care of quite a bit, and provides a great service for their customers. However, Microsoft’s primary focus is on managing the 365 infrastructure and maintaining uptime for your users. They are empowering the business to be ultimately responsible for its data. The misconception that Microsoft fully backs up data on the businesses’ behalf is quite common, and without a shift in mindset, could have damaging repercussions when this responsibility is left unattended. Even the Microsoft Services Agreement recommends backup using third-party apps and services.
Directly from the Microsoft Services Agreement:
Of primary issue is the user’s actual responsibility for protection and long-term retention of the Office 365 data as well as assuring the level of access and control they maintain on that data. Microsoft Office 365 offers geo-redundancy, which is often mistaken for backup. “Backup” actually takes place when a historical copy of data is made and then stored in another location. With direct access and control of the backup data, if data is lost, accidentally deleted or maliciously attacked, the business can quickly recover and users will remain productive and often oblivious to the underlying issues.
Looking at your current business and compliance requirements and policies for data, do MS365 default protection levels align? A few examples- MS365 deletes deleted SharePoint online sites and object as well as deleted OneDrive sites and items at 3 months, recycle bins/deleted items at one month, and employees who leave the company also deleted at 1 month. Does your policy or compliance require additional months or years of protection for this type of data? If you’ve implemented Microsoft 365 in your business, then it is also critical to consider data protection and compliance standards and regulations for your back-ups (including HIPAA, PCI, SOC 1-2-3, Privacy Shield, and ISO 27001 hosting.) OTAVA Backup for Microsoft 365 offers a fully compliant backup environment with your choice of retention timing and additional protections and controls to meet your data backup requirements.
Built for the latest and greatest Microsoft 365 productivity cloud services, OTAVA Cloud Backup for Microsoft 365 is a comprehensive backup and recovery solution for Microsoft Online Applications in a simple as a Service package. Get complete protection against accidental deletions, malware, security threats and retention policy gaps. With no additional fees for bandwidth, storage or licensing, it’s never been easier to back up your critical data. Try it free for 30 days and see for yourself the power of additional backup protection for your critical Microsoft 365 data.
If you’re looking for the expertise and services to automate and enhance your Data Backup and Disaster Recovery capabilities, or to improve your compliant Public, Private, or Hybrid Cloud solutions, OTAVA can help. Consider our secure, compliant cloud solutions managed by a team of experts trained in the latest security best practices. Call 877-740-5028 or contact us to learn more.
6 Critical Reasons to Back Up Microsoft 365: There are six critical requirements for Microsoft 365 Backup. Download this free whitepaper sponsored by Veeam, the leader in cloud data management™.
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