Do I really need to Backup Microsoft Office 365 ? (Hint : Yes ! )

Businesses are turning to the cloud to allow workers to collaborate more efficiently, be more productive and work from anywhere and any device.  Microsoft Office 365 facilitates the modern workplace environment and helps lower the cost of IT infrastructure and services.  At the same time, it is important for organizations adopting Microsoft as a service to fully understand the need for adding a third party backup solution to protect your organization’s data.

Here are 5 reasons that third-party backup is a must for all Microsoft Cloud data including Exchange Online, Sharepoint Online, Teams, and OneDrive.

1. Microsoft hosts your data but cannot protect you from human error

Microsoft Office 365 is a great platform that makes it easy for your co-workers to share and co-edit the same document at the same time in Sharepoint Online, Teams, and OneDrive. Unfortunately, the collaborative environment also makes it easy for files to be accidentally deleted, modified or moved. In fact, human error is the number one cause of all data loss incidents. Microsoft contractually agrees to not look at, modify or access your data, so they have no way of knowing if the edit or delete was done on purpose.

 

While Office 365 has methods to preserve deleted files, emails or entire mailboxes, the data may only be retained temporarily depending on the policies applied to the data. In addition, it may not be easily recoverable. After the retention period expires, and this is typically 30 days, you may not be able to restore the deleted data.  Therefore, having third-party backup and recovery capabilities is the only way your organization can ensure that it is fully protected against data loss.

When your organization puts its valuable data in the cloud, it needs to take extra steps to protect this data from ill-intentioned users who may maliciously alter, encrypt or permanently delete business-critical data. With the help of third-party backup and recovery, organizations can be sure that whatever data is lost due to hacktivism or disgruntled employees isn’t gone forever.Users should have access to only the minimum resources they need (“least privilege”) and access to sensitive data should be highly restricted. You need to build a governance model that aligns access to applications and data based on business need. This is where identity and data access governance tools can help make sure users are not able to attain improper access; then, automate review and monitoring processes for user access.

Your auditors want to check that your organization is complying with both IT governance and regulatory requirements regardless of whether the data is in the cloud or on premise. Therefore, it’s important for organizations of all sizes to do their due diligence to ensure data is only readily accessible in the cloud according to key requirements for compliance.  Users should have access to only the minimum resources they need (“least privilege”) and access to sensitive data should be highly restricted. You need to build a governance model that aligns access to applications and data based on business need. This is where identity and data access governance tools can help make sure users are not able to attain improper access; then, automate review and monitoring processes for user access.

5. Restoring lost data: a requirement
In today’s collaborative cloud, it is not enough to just recover lost data. Your organization needs to be able to quickly restore data from to a particular point in time. With the ability to turn back the clock, organizations can avoid wasting time spent recreating data and documents that have been lost, deleted, or destroyed.

 

Let our team of IT infrastructure and data protection experts help you take the first steps to comply with data protection requirements that apply to your organization. We have long-time expertise, methodologies and practical tools to provide a simple and effective solution to your cloud and on-premise backup requirements. Do not hesitate to contact us.