Cloud Backup: Why is it important?

Why Office 365 customers need a backup solution

Many business owners using Office 365 believe that their data is totally secure. The reality, however, is a different story. Although Microsoft offers many benefits in productivity, efficiency, and collaboration with Office 365, the company doesn’t provide users with a comprehensive backup system for their underlying data.

Mechanical malfunctions and physical damage, hacking and theft, user error, and power outages all put user data at risk in the cloud. While companies do their best to prepare for these problems, no plan is foolproof, and stories of data loss are far from rare, with the average data breach costing small businesses £120,000. About 32% of companies get hit by data loss in the cloud, with the most common cause being deletion. Although nearly two-thirds of data loss is accidental, 20% is lost to malicious intent, including hackers.

 

Cloud Backup saves data, time, and money

Cloud backup can be the difference between a slight blip and a disaster, and it can offer end customers a way to mitigate these risks. Skykick recently had one customer that didn’t think it needed backup besides Office 365. That was until an employee inadvertently deleted 50,000 files in the accounting department’s SharePoint library.

The information was recoverable in the recycling bin, but this would have had to have been done file by file, which was going to take an estimated six days. Luckily, they had been backing up SharePoint files with SkyKick’s Cloud Backup. So the entire folder and all the files were restored within hours — a significant improvement in efficiency. After that, the customer requested backups for its entire Office 365 tenant as well!

Ransomware is another issue facing organisations across the globe. Although it has become more sophisticated, many schemes are still simple and catch users off guard. A Skykick customer was hit with ransomware in 2016, and the perpetrators wanted $6,000 for the key to unlock the data. Luckily, the customer had deployed Cloud Backup a few months before the attack. So instead of paying the ransom or wasting hours recreating 44,000 encrypted files, the service provider was able to restore all of the customer’s files, including every pre-attack version.

The fact is that having only one copy of important data is asking for trouble, whether it’s stored in the cloud or elsewhere. If your data isn’t backed up, you could be facing not only a loss of productivity as you scramble to rebuild, but also a loss in revenue and reputation.

Office 365 is an excellent service that gives you access to your data from virtually any place at any time — and across many devices. As a software-as-a-service (SaaS) built on the industry-leading Azure public cloud, Office 365 offers users high reliability, geographic redundancy, and secure connectivity.

This should not, however, be confused with a comprehensive data protection solution. Microsoft does not back up O365 user data, so it recommends that customers use third-party solutions.

“Service Availability. 6b. We strive to keep the Services up and running; however, all online services suffer occasional disruptions and outages, and Microsoft is not liable for any disruption or loss you may suffer as a result. In the event of an outage, you may not be able to retrieve Your Content or Data that you’ve stored. We recommend that you regularly backup Your Content and Data that you store on the Services or store using Third-Party Apps and Services.” (Microsoft, 2020)

Furthermore, Microsoft doesn’t protect data from common issues like file corruption or everyday human error. Nor does it offer a way to easily revert to older versions if something goes wrong beyond their normal data retention policy.

 

XMA can help you evaluate your options in addressing these shortcomings and specifically discuss how implementing a backup solution can be cost-effective and seamless and offer peace of mind.

 

SkyKick’s Cloud Backup is easy to use, and recovery is fast

 

Not all backups are created equal, however. When looking into a solution that can protect your data stored in the cloud, there are a few fundamental questions you should be asking your vendor:

• What data is actually being backed up?
• How is the backup data being stored and protected?
• How often is data backed up, and how long is each backup version kept?
• How easy is the data restoration process?

SkyKick Cloud Backup is a flexible, agile, and reliable solution that offers comprehensive data protection across the full Office 365 tenant, unlimited storage and retention of user data, and a hassle-free setup and run experience. And data recovery, when needed, happens fast, which gets your company up and running with minimum downtime.

With flexible per user per month licensing available on our CSP program including free 24×7 support, speak to us today about your Microsoft licensing estate and ensure your data and users are secure .

Email CSPS@xma.co.uk for more details.

 

Microsoft (2020) Microsoft Services Agreement. Available at: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/servicesagreement