Why we need better backup and recovery for Office 365?

Office 365 customers might be heedless of its limitations in data recovery and believe that they are insured for all types of data loss or corruption. Simultaneously, banking on data protection tools and solutions can be equally ponderous and pain-stricken since, at times, the expected coverage falls go down swinging in front of malicious virus attacks and secondary item-level deletion or corruption events. Businesses are aiming for expansions and in order to curtail extrinsic costs, they are inclining towards advanced cloud services to experience its unique ability to promote buoyant, collaborative work environments and channels. The organizations are making diversions with time, and the time has arrived to address the inherent risks of working in sprightly, synergetic cloud environments — particularly on the account of the potential loss of software-as-a-service (SaaS) data. The growth in the application of SaaS apps, like Office 365 is in full-swing and protecting Cloud data could not be more crucial as it is now.

Here are some noteworthy reasons that define our need for better backup and recovery for Office 365

Human Mistakes & Limitations in End-user capabilities

Office 365 is an employer-friendly platform that assigns access to a singular document for multiple users which in turn enable the users to edit the same document at the same time or check real-time assignment updates, on any device. Unfortunately, the collaborative environment promoted by Office 365 makes it vulnerable to accidental data deletion. Human error is the prime cause of major data loss incidents. It is the incapability of SaaS apps like Office 365 that they fail to protect organizations from data loss since they have an inbuilt structure of agreements with clients means that limits them from identifying an accidental or purposeful action. Therefore, they are obligated to carry out all user requests. Office 365 provides a competent infrastructure recovery mechanism for the entire email channel, it doesn’t facilitate the same capabilities at the user level and provide resistance in offering a true point in time recovery. End users expect user-friendly, intuitive self-service recovery system and advanced search of email, contacts, and calendars without involving IT complexities.

Short Retention & Data Restoration

Office 365 employs methods to secure deleted files, emails or entire mailboxes, but the data may only be retained temporarily depending on the policies applied to the data, and may not be easily retrievable. Data is not always recoverable after the expiry of the retention period which rightfully impacts the belief of many organizations that SaaS provider can restore the lost data at ease. In today’s collaborative cloud environment, it’s necessary to restore the original format of data and also emphasize on data recovery. Organizations need to be able to quickly restore it to any point in time. Organizations can avoid wasting time in recreating things like labels, file structures, reports and optimizing settings for Office 365 operations. Point in time recovery enables recovery analysis by restoring previous emails after security tasks are expedited.

Compliance Risk & Hacker Peril

In case of on-premise data storage, organizations need to comply with both IT governance and regulatory requirements. However, not all SaaS applications protect data in accordance with the compliance requirements and industry standards. Therefore, all small and medium-sized organizations need to do their due diligence to ensure smooth accessibility of cloud data according to key requirements for compliance. Malicious attacks through emails create a jolting impact on the data integrity of the cloud platforms and challenge the organizations in the field of compliance. Malicious attacks or unauthorized access to the system by hackers continue to be the focal point of concern for the organizations since both involve radical data alteration and permanent data deletion. Recovery options and methods for items or mailboxes are limited when these events occur. Implanted Policy expiration models are not adequate to initiate end-user recovery since there are limitations involved with deleted items, recoverable items, and legal holds that make it burdensome to manage and highlights its implausibility in handling e-discovery and compliance situations. End-users are required to configure multiple policies and settings that result in a strife with corporate retention policies which in turn wrack up the compliance guidelines. Backup solutions or tools utilizing snapshots enforce an administrative burden from restoring and mounting multiple snapshots and provide constrained search and discovery options.

Gartner Research Report of 2017 stated that “Infrastructure and operations leaders using or evaluating Office 365 are considering investments in third-party tools for accelerated and docile recovery options, as well as preserving reputation after a malevolent attack.” Kernel Office 365 Backup & Restore acts as a third-party archiving tool that can automate and unscramble the recovery process of recovering your email and other Exchange data. This tool helps in backup and recovery of deleted or corrupted data, and ensure whatever data is lost due to a security breach or malware attacks are not gone forever. To achieve advanced protection and recovery, an integrated customer-centric solution like Kernel Office 365 Backup & Restore reduces risk and boosts productivity. It remains in sync with cloud email mailbox changes and ensures full protection against data loss once the retention duration gets exhausted. It saves Exchange/Office 365 mailboxes as PST without Outlook and exports user/archive/shared mailboxes & public folders to PST files. Prior to backup and restore of office 365 data, it filters mailbox by Date, Item Type, it does not consider empty or deleted folders at the time of export of office 365 data and restores healthy PST files to Office 365 mailboxes

Office 365 and Exchange replication need commensurate amends for damages. However, during the occurrence of corruption or malicious attacks, no standalone replicated copies of emails are created and database backups are insufficient to support timely restoration and recovery of lost data Potential data loss risks can be wiped out by using a third-party solution. Activating end-user search and recovery is of highest priority since it eliminates the administrative strain from IT by producing a productive atmosphere for the users.