Do I Need To Backup Emails And Data In Office 365?

I am using Office 365 and assume that my data is safe, but do I need to backup emails and data in Office 365?

What is Microsoft’s obligation to provide backups for your data?

Can you expect to recover your emails and data from Office 365?

Office 365 Responsibility Model

Microsoft’s responsibility Uptime of the Office 365 platform
Your responsibility Access and control of your data

Under Microsoft’s shared responsibility model, Microsoft are responsible to ensure that you can access the Office 365 platform. Microsoft is not responsible for your data including the following scenarios

  • Accidental deletion
  • Intentional deletion
  • Malicious activities
  • External hacking

Microsoft’s uptime targets of 99.99% are clearly sufficient for most businesses. However this does not guarantee that you can get your data back in the event of one of the above situations.

Therefore, if your emails and data are critical, or you have legal or statutory obligations to backup and recover your data, then an Office 365 backup solution may be required.

Broadly, There Are Three Types Of Backup Solutions…

  1. Office 365 in place
    1. Provided through Office 365 retention
    2. Skills required to operate the Admin portal
    3. Configure Office 365 with appropriate retention policies
    4. Understand Office 365 recovery processes
  2. On Premise
    1. Backs up from Office 365 to an On Premise device
    2. Simple recovery of Emails, SharePoint and OneDrive
    3. Eg: Synology NAS
  3. Cloud
    1. Backs up from Office 365 to another cloud provider
    2. Simple recovery of Emails, SharePoint and OneDrive
    3. ShadowProtect Backup

Most businesses will currently be using option 1) above, but have probably not configured the Office 365 retention policies correctly.

It is important to ask your provider the following questions

  1. what are the email retention settings?
  2. describe the email recovery procedure
  3. what are the OneDrive retention settings?
  4. what are the SharePoint retention settings?
  5. can you simulate a data recovery of each of the above services?

If the answers to the above are not clear and forthcoming then you are exposed to potential data loss. Make it a requirement that you know whether or not your provider will backup emails and data in Office 365.

See Roshtech’s Office 365 page for more information.

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