{"id":1538,"date":"2022-02-02T10:10:04","date_gmt":"2022-02-02T10:10:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.owltech.co.uk\/?p=1538"},"modified":"2022-02-02T10:10:04","modified_gmt":"2022-02-02T10:10:04","slug":"should-you-backup-office-365","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/argon.owltech.co.uk\/?p=1538","title":{"rendered":"Should you backup Office 365?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Yes, if you think Microsoft back up your Office 365 data<\/a>, you\u2019re not alone. But you\u2019re also wrong.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This common misconception puts your critical data and entire business at considerable risk. The data in your Office 365 mailboxes, SharePoint, and OneDrive is in fact explicitly your responsibility to protect. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here it is in black and white, from Microsoft\u2019s Office 365 service agreement<\/a>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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To understand why, it\u2019s probably helpful to explore the definition of backup, why Office 365\u2019s features fail to conform to it, and what a true backup solution, in contrast, looks like.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How does Office 365 backup my data?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The short answer is \u2013 it doesn\u2019t. Office 365 violates the cardinal \u20183-2-1 backup rule\u2019 \u2013 three copies of your data on two different pieces of media, one of which should be offsite.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Using Office 365 to protect itself<\/em> is akin to backing up your PC files to somewhere else on your PC that is subject to exactly the same risk of loss!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Secondly, what we often think of as backup features within Microsoft\u2019s cloud don\u2019t meet the criteria for backup at all; they are merely storage<\/em> or versioning<\/em>, and they come with limited capacities and unwelcome baggage \u2013 for example:<\/p>\n\n\n\n