When it comes to backups and storage, a lot of IT pros and executives tend to deal in blind faith; simply trusting that everything is backed up safely and securely, without truly being involved in the process. Today, progressive organizations are taking backup and storage much more seriously than in past years, with many living under the mantra of “data loss isn’t a matter of if…but when.” As more companies turn to cloud based backups, it’s important to understand all of the facts around popular options like Office 365. Below is a breakdown of 3 common Microsoft Cloud Myths and the truth behind them.
Microsoft Cloud Myth #1: Your data in Office 365 and One Drive is completely safe
Office 365 and OneDrive data is hosted in multiple and redundant data centres. That reduces the risk of downtime due to a natural disaster, however, it will not protect you from the all-too-common hiccup called “human error”. If someone deletes an email or file permanently (Shift+Del), it’s gone, and it’s gone for good.
Microsoft Cloud Myth #2: Office 365 backups will protect us
Yes. There is a built-in OOTB (out of the box) backup provided by Microsoft, but OOTB usually focuses on disaster recovery, offering environment-wide backups for a finite amount of time (14 days) that can be used to restore your environment en-masse. The focus is on creating backups in the event of wide scale data loss and a restoration in the event of a data centre disaster, but not intentional or un-intentional data deletion. To put it simply, total restores over a short period of time are easy, but restoring single files are not completely covered.
Microsoft Could Myth #3: Office 365 archive will keep all the data for legacy purposes
You can configure custom retention policies for your live and archived data, but it will not protect you from account or email deletion.
To sum everything up, the Microsoft Cloud and other public cloud offerings are definitely here to stay, but it is important to understand the entire package when using these options. Make sure you know as much as you can about your built in backup options, and if you need a little more backup juice, know that there are other options out there.
Want to know more about online backups and cloud based storage? Check out our Data Protection Services page and give us a shout if you have any questions!
