Microsoft 365

Why should you back up Microsoft 365 and your Mailboxes?

25th Mar 2021 | 6 min read

Why should you back up Microsoft 365 and your Mailboxes?

Microsoft 365, formally known as Office 365, has been the driving force behind the productivity of businesses around the globe for years. With over 220 million active monthly users worldwide to date, it is the most widely adopted suite of productivity tools the world has ever known. Packed full of cloud-based software-as-a-service products such as SharePoint and Teams, users enjoy free of charge automatic updates to keep them current. Whether creating documents in Word or algorithms in Excel, Microsoft 365 is quick and easy to adopt for users with both simple and complex job roles which means that data from Exchange, SharePoint quickly mounts.

As a business user you may assume that Microsoft has your critical data protected and backed up by default. That would be true to an extent and applies for a 14 day period. Redundancy and backups are an integral part of their customer promise, however the mailbox backups running at their data centres are purely for internal data recovery purposes in the event that Microsoft have an issue with their infrastructure. Delete something accidentally? Fall victim to a malicious data theft attack? Your data is gone and is totally unrecoverable.

7 reasons why you should you backup Microsoft 365

1. You are responsible for backing up your data

Microsoft has a responsibility to keep their cloud infrastructure running and they have periods of guaranteed uptime built into their cloud service agreements. That being said, the business critical data that you own is not covered by the Microsoft 365 Shared Responsibility Model which serves to remind us that Microsoft promise the service availability, and the customer promises to store their data sensibly. Any data that is recoverable is very difficult to reach and accessible via many entry points. A third party offering provides a single interface which sees across your data pool and makes the recovery process much simpler. Infinity Group advises all our customers to implement Cloud backup instead of an on-premise backup solution due to the added security benefits and the multiple authentication layers and replication methods. Whichever model of backup you favour, whether cloud or hybrid, we can help walk you through safeguarding your business data.

2. Point-in-time recovery for Exchange Online does not exist

As it stands, there is no “out of the box” functionality that equips businesses with the ability to recover their Exchange mailboxes from a certain point in time. If a disgruntled employee were to delete everything in the Office 365 Portal it would be unrecoverable, as the option to restore the data from previous months is not built into the Microsoft 365 backup strategy. The same applies to files saved in OneDrive and SharePoint more than 30 days previous. Without a thorough backup strategy in place valuable data can be lost via malpractice or cyber-attack. Infinity Group provide fully managed, Cloud, Hybrid and Onsite Backup services to safeguard your business data in a highly secure environment. We give you peace of mind that your business data is safe, compliant and protected whilst also ensuring it can be immediately restored in the event of any disaster.

3. Data recovery for OneDrive and SharePoint Online has a 30 day limit

You now have a third-party backup solution in place for Exchange Online and decide to use the Microsoft point-in-time recovery functionality included for OneDrive and SharePoint Online. In theory this can provide the safe recovery of data that you need, except in the event that you need to go back more than 30 days. Any recovery over 1 month previous will not be possible, and can only be recovered by a third party backup product installation. Automated backups become highly valuable in this instance.

4. You need access to your data in the event of an outage

It’s not common, but it happens. Microsoft 365 data outages are reported globally and last from seconds to days. Microsoft do have an SLA in place to restore service, but if you have critical data stored that you can’t access it could be devastating to your business continuity. A third-party backup will provide you with the ability to dip into the backup from the previous day and continue working offline until normal service resumes.

5. You can be charged for storing more data than your individual allowance

Microsoft 365 plans come with a quota of storage which is usually 10GB per user. If your users reach that limit Microsoft will bill you for the additional storage. Totally unexpected and not always competitively priced, it can mean that your Microsoft 365 subscription costs begin to climb and spend predictability becomes impossible. Infinity Group Cloud backup options are fully scalable meaning the sky truly is the limit. Use what you need when you need it with total control and transparency of your spend.

6. Footing the bill for ex-employees

If an employee leaves your business and you need access to their data you will be required to continue to pay for a Microsoft 365 subscription on their behalf. Infinity Group operates a backup license model which is a vastly cheaper method of retaining their valuable data. This means that you no longer need to pay for that employee and can focus your spending on business growth and development.

7. OneDrive is not a valid backup solution

Microsoft OneDrive stores a copy of the users files in the cloud so that they can be accessed from anywhere, and not for backup purposes. The main reason that OneDrive simply doesn’t work for backup is that it syncs automatically. If a user deletes an important Excel spreadsheet the updates sync and the spreadsheet is also deleted from OneDrive. File replication in the cloud is extremely valuable for a business with a mobile or remote workforce, but it is also a huge security hole when it comes to backup and recovery.

To summarise

Clearly, there is quite a large void between the backup tools provided with Microsoft 365 and the level of data redundancy and security that most businesses require. Microsoft guarantee an active service which means that your workforce feel empowered to be productive regardless of where in the world they are, and which device they have to hand. Your responsibility as your business grows is to put in place a Disaster Recovery Plan that protects you from loss of digital assets and data.

Infinity Group are ISO 27001 (Information Security) compliant and provide Disaster Recovery Services across the UK. When a disaster such as a malware attack, power failure, fire or theft strikes it is imperative that your business systems are back up and running without delay. It is essential that your business is sufficiently backed up via the Cloud, onsite or using a hybrid backup solution to ensure that data is never lost and can quickly be restored. Please get in touch to speak to one of our consultants about Microsoft 365 backup today.

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to hear from you_

Our specialist team of consultants look forward to discussing your requirements in more detail and we have three easy ways to get in touch.

Call us: 03454504600
Complete our contact form
Live chat now: Via the pop up