Important Info on Backup for Office 365

Microsoft does not back up Office 365.

Microsoft only backs up Office 365 (now known as Microsoft 365) for a short period of time. Afterwards, the customer is responsible for obtaining a backup on their own. Many customers assume that there is a built-in backup system for Microsoft. There is not. The confusion exists because Microsoft provides a limited version control for documents but no real backup for mail or anything in Office 365 (including OneDrive, documents, email, etc.) Basically, if you need a document in OneDrive from a year ago that got deleted, or if you were to get Ransomware, there is no way to retrieve it. In fact, Ransomware infects and duplicates your files 1,000 times to completely disable the version control feature.

A prime example of the disaster this can cause to a business was in the Ransomware attack a few months back on the well-respected hosting company, Rackspace. Rackspace hosts thousands of companies and an untold number of these companies lost all of their Office 365 data. Because this was not backed up outside of Microsoft, it is all irrecoverable. We don’t want the same kind of risk to happen to our clients.

Office 365 Backup Option

Waytek offers an Office 365 backup service, using Veeam (an enterprise level backup and disaster recovery platform.) Many of our clients now have their Office 365 backed up to our data center using Veeam cloud to ensure their optimal protection. The small cost (low monthly fee) far outweighs the risk of losing everything in Office 365. We can’t stress enough the importance of being aware of looking at the options for mitigating the underlying risks.