7 Reasons Why You Need Additional Data Backup with Microsoft 365

And that would be a dangerous assumption to make, despite the fact we are talking about a well-respected giant such as Microsoft. Don’t wait until precious data has been deleted before you take action. Securing additional data backup needn’t be a post mortem ‘lessons learned’ action. Here are 7 reasons why you need additional data backup when you’re working with Microsoft 365.

It’s a big mistake to be wholly dependent on a single cloud service. Say important data is lost and your organisation doesn’t have full access to or control of your data, you could face a lengthy process restoring it or even permanent deletion.

Microsoft 365 was never intended to be an all-encompassing backup solution.

A simple recovery can be a massive problem if data has fallen out of the retention period and Microsoft 365 has deleted it forever.
You can avoid this with a data management service that allows you to easily set your own retention policies and whose sole purpose is to ensure that your data can be recovered directly back to Microsoft 365, regardless of the state of your live data.

If employees leave a company, can you prevent their files leaving with them? When someone deletes a user or users from Active Directory -intentionally or otherwise – once they are outside of retention, their SharePoint sites and OneDrive data (ie, all of their work) is also deleted.

What if you need those files during legal action in months or years to come? If you are to retain access to data after a user has been removed from Microsoft’s Active Directory, it’s critical you back up your data to a third-party backup provider, not least for compliance purposes.

What happens when users accidentally or intentionally delete or overwrite files? Recycle bins and version histories in Microsoft 365 provide only limited protection. If you delete a user, whether you meant to or not, that deletion is replicated across the network. Once an item is purged from the mailbox database, it is unrecoverable. This could have far-reaching effects if a disgruntled leaver decided to delete important emails or files. Microsoft’s backup and retention policies only protect you from data loss up to a certain point and can’t take the place of third-party data management solutions.

When data is deleted or corrupted, businesses face three major problems – loss of data, loss of time and loss of money.

Although Microsoft provides exceptional availability, they aren’t focused on supporting extended retention or old user data. Putting all your bets on Microsoft Support to help recover lost data is high risk (not to mention time-consuming).

How can organisations be protected from app outages, mis-configured workflows or ransomware attacks? Microsoft explicitly states that point-in-time restores of data are not within the scope of the Exchange service. Regular backups will help ensure a second copy of your data is uninfected and you can recover mailboxes quickly to a point before the attack. We recommend sourcing a data management provider who can deliver streamed, on-demand access to your data.

Companies nowadays require a separation of roles as a security standard. Storing your data within the same platform in which it was produced allows for a single point of failure. Potentially, Microsoft 365 administrators could assign themselves full access to search, export or delete content from Exchange mailboxes, SharePoint folders and OneDrive locations. Without third-party backup, that file, depending on the retention policy, may be irretrievable.

Protect your Microsoft 365 data with a backup strategy that addresses compliance issues as well as simplifying your data backup systems with one central, easy-to-use system and on-demand access to all of your data, wherever it is stored.