It’s a question I’m often asked. Do I even need to back up Microsoft 365? That’s what Microsoft does, right? In this blog post, I describe why it makes sense to do so!
First, Microsoft does not guarantee complete and fast restores of deleted or corrupted Microsoft 365 data. In short, Microsoft ensures that it won’t lose your data. However, the company doesn’t make any guarantees about recovering it for you. Also, there are no RTO agreements. This can therefore take some time and mean that the RPO and RTO cannot be met. Companies often have limited time to wait for the data to become unavailable before they re-create it, and it is now obsolete.
In addition, you have no control over how long the data is stored, and it is not protected against accidental deletion. The latter is especially important due to the increase in malware.
- Protection against loss of service due to hardware failure or natural disaster
- Short-term protection against user and admin error (Recycle Bin, soft delete)
You should protect against data loss due to:
- Accidental deletion
- Retention policy gaps and confusion
- Hackers, ransomware, and other malware
- Legal and compliance requirements
- Departing employees
Microsoft recommends third-party backup in the Service Availability section of its Services Agreement, also according Microsoft’s Shared Responsibility Model.
Now that you know Microsoft (365) doesn’t back up your data, the question is whether or not you should do it yourself. The answer is that you need to back up your data. Whether it’s because of theft, disaster, or a cup of coffee, losing data costs money. Every year companies spend millions and millions to recover lost data, and don’t forget the costs involved with downtime! But it’s not just money you’re saving; you’re also saving the headaches associated with being out of compliance with local, state, or federal laws. So when you back up Microsoft 365, know that you’re saving money and protecting yourself and the company you work for.
Third-party Office 365 backup is the best way to protect against accidental or malicious file deletion, other user errors, ransomware, and data corruption. These solutions store backups independently from Microsoft servers and enable granular restores of Office 365 files, folders, and applications. They ensure that you can restore quickly and meet data retention requirements for Office 365 data.
As you might know, I’m using BDRSuite. BDRSuite provides secure backup & recovery of Microsoft 365, including OneDrive for Business, Mails, Calender and Contacts, SharePoint Online sites, Teams, and much more. It offers all the features (or more) that other vendors provide but for a better price. I can also highly recommend their Support. When you have a question or the need for any kind of support they are 24×7 available (email, telephone and chat).
You can choose to store data locally or in the Cloud. It is also possible to create copy jobs to have multiple copies in separate locations. All data and data transfer is secured using an AES 256-bit encryption algorithm which secures your Microsoft 365 data from unauthorized access.
I will post technical blogs about BDRSuite on my blog shortly. So stay tuned 😊
More information about BDRSuite here.