(July 31, 2023) Cloud email has become an essential tool for supporting remote workers. It also allows organizations to eliminate the IT infrastructure needed to support email in-house. However, inadequate backup practices create vulnerabilities for cloud email systems and the business-critical data stored in them.
For example, hundreds of millions of people have Exchange Online mailboxes connected to their Microsoft 365 accounts. Many don’t realize that there is no native option within M365 for backing up those mailboxes. As a result, a great deal of information is at risk.
Email systems in most organizations — whether on-premises or in the cloud — have evolved into huge, unsanctioned data repositories. By some accounts, about 60 percent of an organization’s business-critical information is stored in its email system. People routinely use their inboxes to keep messages and attachments containing contracts, financial statements, and other information.
True Backup Needed
Microsoft does have some data protection capabilities for Exchange Online mailboxes. However, they aren’t true backup solutions. It is possible to back up mailboxes using personal storage table (PST) files, but that is a cumbersome, manual process that requires some proficiency with proprietary technology.
You can also configure retention policies to retain mailbox content to comply with internal policies, industry regulations, and legal requirements. Again, it isn’t a true backup — it retains some data but doesn’t allow you to restore a mailbox to its original state.
Microsoft makes it clear in its M365 service agreement that customers should use a third-party solution to back up mailboxes regularly. Choosing a solution requires some homework, however. While most backup vendors offer tools for M365, they don’t always provide coverage for the dozens of individual applications within the cloud service.
Don’t Forget Teams
Microsoft Teams is particularly problematic. The popular collaboration application is a data-rich environment holding chat and voicemail messages, images, videos, files, recordings, and contacts. But that data is scattered throughout the M365 cloud.
Unlike most other applications, Microsoft Teams is a complex combination of different services, including Exchange Online. Because of this, Teams data is stored within various apps — Teams chat data, conversation history, and calendar data are stored in Exchange, for example. As a result, you must back up Exchange to fully protect Teams’ data.
Backup and recovery of the Teams environment should be among the essential features to look for when evaluating third-party backup solutions for Exchange Online. You want full control and protection over all Teams data, including entire groups, specific channels, and settings. You’ll also want the ability to enable long-term retention for compliance or regulatory purposes.
Choosing an Email Backup Solution
Here are a few other key features to look for:
- Full mailbox backup. You need more than the ability to retain certain information within an email. The best solutions will perform a full backup of mailboxes, creating a single-point-in-time copy of the mailbox that remains protected against deletion, corruption, or security threats.
- Hybrid support. Many organizations have both on-premises and cloud email. Top solutions allow you to easily back up mailboxes across a hybrid environment and migrate mailbox data between M365 and on-premises Exchange.
- Granular restores. Look for solutions that will provide the most flexibility, allowing you to restore individual emails, entire mailboxes, or an entire Exchange environment.
- E-discovery capabilities. Retrieving emails for legal or regulatory compliance reasons can be costly and time-consuming. The best solutions have advanced search functions that allow quick recovery of individual mailbox items.
If you’re considering a backup solution for your critical cloud-based data, give Mainstream a call. Our data protection specialists can guide you through the evaluation process.
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Mainstream Technologies delivers a full range of technology services in Arkansas and the surrounding region including managed technology services and consulting, custom software development, and cybersecurity services. We also offer industry-leading data center services in our Little Rock facilities. Established in 1996, Mainstream has earned a reputation for delivering quality, reliable, and professional technology services for public and private-sector customers across the United States.
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