When we talk about business productivity solutions, the first name to pop into most people’s heads is Microsoft 365. This isn’t surprising given that 56 percent of businesses rely on 365 applications such as Exchange, SharePoint, and OneDrive for email communication, team collaboration, and document retention.
More than 1 million businesses trust Microsoft 365 to provide a solid infrastructure for their business productivity needs. But when it comes to backing up data for long-term retention and compliance requirements, you will have to look elsewhere. Microsoft 365 does not provide a built-in backup and recovery solution.
Microsoft’s shared responsibility model means Microsoft is in charge of platform uptime, but you’re in charge of data protection. So not investing in a third-party backup solution puts your organization at risk of data loss caused by human error, intentional deletion, external security threats, and technical failures. Read on to learn our top three reasons to back up your Microsoft 365 data.
Long-Term Retention
OneDrive, Microsoft’s cloud storage service, lets you store your critical files and access them from anywhere at any time. But, without a long-term retention solution, those files aren’t really protected.
Microsoft 365 only retains items in the recycle bin for 90 days, so if a user accidentally deletes a file, it’s gone for good when the recycle bin is emptied. OneDrive files also disappear when the file owner’s user account is deleted, and that data is unrecoverable.
Investing in a third-party backup solution with complete OneDrive backup capabilities eliminates the risk of losing critical business data because you can quickly recover files, folders, or entire accounts.
Frequent backups and point-in-time recovery are crucial in the event of a natural disaster, cyberattack, or other unplanned outage. Backing up often (e.g., every three hours versus every three days) minimizes the amount of data that is lost or must be recreated.
Point-in-time recovery lets you restore data and files from a specific point, such as just before a successful ransomware attack encrypted your entire system. This allows you to preserve and restore the maximum amount of undamaged data and transactions, which helps maintain business continuity in a crisis.
Protection from Cybercrime and Data Loss
Ransomware, phishing, and other cyberthreats are on the rise, especially in the wake of COVID-19. With no comprehensive cyberprotection or data loss prevention tools in place, your Microsoft Exchange and SharePoint accounts are at risk. When company email and collaboration stop, operations and productivity also come to a screeching halt.
Safeguard your Exchange and SharePoint data from any cybersecurity threat with a solution that offers fully integrated Sophos Intercept X Advanced technology and frequently backs up the entire organization to the cloud, geo-independent data centers, or on-premises storage options.
Your backup solution should include Exchange and SharePoint recovery capabilities that allow you to restore at any level—from individual emails and documents to an entire site collection, library, or mailbox.
Legal, Compliance, and Regulatory Requirements
Navigating today’s global business environment requires a thorough understanding of regulatory compliance mandates such as GDPR, HIPAA, SOX, and ITAR. Failure to comply with these mandates leads to hefty fines, expensive litigation, and loss of reputation.
If your organization relies on Microsoft 365 applications for the bulk of your business operations and you aren’t using a third-party backup and recovery solution, be aware that you are not adequately protected against the consequences of non-compliance. Although Microsoft Exchange does offer Litigation Hold, which retains the contents of an employee’s Exchange mailbox for e-discovery purposes, it doesn’t provide a sufficient level of protection.
You never know when you will be required to provide a former employee’s emails or other business files, so it’s a smart choice to properly archive and backup employee data and files after they separate from the company. This also allows you to delete the employee from your system and deactivate their software licenses, which will save the organization money.
As a standard level of support, Microsoft provides 14 days of SharePoint Online backups with one-hour recovery point objectives (RPOs) and six-hour recovery time objectives (RTOs). But for many organizations, this doesn’t meet compliance standards with their internal and external stakeholders.
In the event of a data breach, your organization can be held accountable for expensive non-compliance fines and legal fees if internal and customer data is lost or exposed. Arcserve offers several solutions that will help you stay on the right side of these global mandates with battle-tested solutions that support corporate and regulatory compliance.
With cybercrime on the rise and a whole bunch of unknowns on the horizon for businesses, you can’t be too careful when it comes to securing your company’s data, systems, and applications. If yours is one of the more than 1 million companies that relies on Microsoft 365, investing in a comprehensive cybersecurity and data protection solution needs to be a priority.
Arcserve maintains full protection of your Microsoft 365 applications (and your other business-critical systems, too) with options ranging from Exchange email archiving and OneDrive data replication to AES encryption and role-based access control.
Download Don’t Get Caught Assuming: How to Protect Microsoft 365 Data to learn more ways to protect your 365 applications from data loss.
