Over the past decade, the influx of productivity tools that include collaboration capabilities (Office 365, Google Drive, and others) has changed the way we work.
Organizations, teams and individual workers all benefit from the flexibility that comes with the ability to work without being tethered to a desk.
This shift in work has a laundry list of benefits but it’s brought new challenges to IT professionals who are charged with protecting data. Those challenges start with the realization that even data in the cloud needs to be backed up to mitigate the risk of data loss, to address compliance regulations, and ensure business continuity in the event of data loss.
Your data, your responsibility
Collaboration tools like Office 365 aren’t designed to provide the kind of archive and backup protections most organizations require. If backup was included, the cost would go up quite a bit for each license. More importantly, though, any bundled backup offering probably wouldn’t have the kind of flexibility organizations need.
Given this, do you really want the decisions about backing up your valuable data left to someone else’s discretion? Initiating an Office 365 backup solution reduces the risk that data loss will have a negative impact on your business.
Built-in protections aren’t enough
Microsoft provided some recovery, legal hold and retention capabilities within Office 365, but they’re limited. There’s a history of IT professionals leveraging some of these capabilities, such as the recycle bin, to serve as a “backup.”
Ultimately, any use of these features for an alternate purpose will create potential problems. Our recent ebook goes into more detail about the challenges with native data protection in Office 365.
Choose a backup solution that works for your organization’s needs
Different businesses have vastly different needs when it comes to backing up data. The backup infrastructure of organizations spread across multiple geographic regions in highly regulated industries will look radically different from an organization that’s more centralized and subject to fewer regulations.
Deploying a solution that’s scalable, has the capability of protecting your organization’s most important data, and allows for fast, flexible recovery will give peace of mind about the ongoing integrity of data assets.
