Office 365 - "To back up, or not to back up?"

Microsoft Office 365 does not have a native backup facility that allows you to independently back up your data.

While Microsoft guarantee that their systems are highly available, that does not mean that your emails are backed up in the event that they are deleted or become corrupt.

Recent studies show that the majority of data loss and corruption in cloud environments is as a result of human error or through the use of third party sync tools.

What options do you have when it comes to backing up or retaining Microsoft Office 365 emails and files?

By default, deleted emails will move to the deleted items folder for 30 days before they are automatically removed.

Your  Managed Services provider could extend the deleted items retention period for pretty much as long as you want, but you should not depend on the recycle folder as a proper backup for your business data.

Microsoft also provide you with the option of an email archiving feature and litigation hold on some of the enterprise plans, but again that is an archive and not a backup of your emails in the traditional sense.

Control over business data

As a business owner or manager you should have control over your data, otherwise you could be putting the business at risk

• Extending the retention of period on deleted items is not a robust process, as some users routinely emptying the deleted folders item as part of their own housekeeping.

• A disgruntled user could purposely permanently deleted emails leaving you without a backup of emails sent to customers, suppliers or even competitors.

• It is important to have an independent backup that you can easily restore from should a user’s email become corrupt or deleted.

Take responsibility for your business data

Yes, employees need to be responsible when it comes to their actions but it is not the responsibility of the users to ensure proper safeguards are in place to protect the business.

To minimise risk and to protect your business it is important as a business owner or IT manager to be in control of all business data.

How to backup Office 365?

It is possible to backup all Office 365 data including email and SharePoint files to a separate and independent cloud service. So in the event that emails are permanently deleted or corrupt you can restore the lost data back into your Office 365 cloud environment.

Novi’s Office 365 backup service is fully compatible with Microsoft Office 365.
The flexible cloud based service can be up and running quickly without the need to purchase any hardware or software, providing you with unlimited storage for Office 365 mailboxes along with an option to backup Sharepoint files and Onedrive data.

For more information on Novi’s Office 365 backup service, please feel free to get in touch