How to Backup Office 365 Data?

Microsoft offers powerful tools within Office 365. However, a comprehensive backup plan is not included in the subscription to store data on-premises or on a different cloud platform. Your Office 365 data is subject to damage due to data security threats and simple user errors. Office 365 helps your business operate from anywhere, anytime, by hosting your emails, files, and SharePoint infrastructure. Even though you do not have to host the infrastructure, backing up critical Office 365 data is your responsibility, provided you want to retain your data beyond the period specified by individual Office 365 services.

Why Back Up Office 365 Data?

Your Office 365 emails and documents hold sensitive business data and are automatically backed up for a short time. You need to create a backup to protect your data from accidental or unintentional deletion, data security threats, and retention policy gaps. Sometimes, archived data is also necessary to help you meet legal and compliance requirements. If you store additional copies of your data in a different location, you can easily restore Office 365 emails and files.

How to Create a Backup in an On-Premises or Cloud Storage?

There may be situations when you do not want to keep all your data in one place but want to store a copy at a different location in on-premises or cloud object storage. You can opt for a third-party service that helps with end to end, automatic data backup in such situations. Another significant reason to deploy a third-party service can be its simple and intuitive user interface. However, as Office 365 is a full suite of services, not all solutions ensure a complete backup for data generated by each service. Apart from taking help from a third-party service, you can export your Office 365 data to a Portable Storage Table (PST) file, which can be used to restore data at any given point in the future.

Does the Export Method Always Work?

The export method is complicated and time-consuming and doesn’t always guarantee complete backup of your files. The size of a PST file cannot exceed the set limit. Due to the plethora of complexities and restrictions involved, this method often fails. Needless to say, the export option doesn’t apply to situations where you want a real-time data backup.

What Can Be the Best Solution for Comprehensive, Real-Time Backup of Office 365 Data?

Many businesses opt for Office 365 solutions that include Microsoft Office desktop and enterprise applications with online collaboration, project management, and analytics capabilities. But the growing awareness regarding the importance of data backup has given rise to many vendors all competing for the same Office 365 backup landscape. Unfortunately, most offerings fail to align with their marketing hype. The data backup market is littered with vendors offering Office 365 data backup services that are unable to work at scale or fail to meet core requirements. There are certainly some vendors that do offer fully functional data backup features. Working with the right Microsoft service provider can help you identify the tools and services that ensure secure and comprehensive Office 365 data backup.

Apps4Rent Is an Authorized Service Provider for Office 365 Solutions

The Office 365 suite includes revolutionary technologies such as:

• OneDrive – for secure file hosting in the cloud
• SharePoint – for better control of your data, documents, and projects
• Power BI – for Business Intelligence and Analytics, and
• Microsoft Teams – for chat-based workspace

Some Microsoft Office 365 providers offer plans that include everything for your organization to be more collaborative and productive, while others lack many of the significant Office 365 tools. You will also have to be very cautious while choosing a provider as they may have all of the tools mentioned in their plans, but the tools are available for partial use only. It’s often hard for subscribers to make sense of all the offerings available under the Microsoft Office suite. If your business is keen to benefit from Microsoft Office 365, the Apps4Rent support team and migration experts are at your service 24/7 via phone, chat, and email. Contact us now.