Trusted by millions of users, Microsoft 365 is the world’s most popular messaging, productivity, and collaborative software suite. For all that M365 does offer, it does not include a built-in data protection and disaster recovery solution. Data protection in the cloud is a joint responsibility between Microsoft and the customer. Microsoft states, “We strive to keep the Services up and running; however, all online services suffer occasional disruptions and outages, and Microsoft is not liable for any disruption or loss you may suffer as a result.  In the event of an outage, you may not be able to retrieve Your Content of Data that you’ve stored. We recommend that you regularly back up Your Content and Data that you store on the Services or store using Third-Party Apps and Services.” Research firm Gartner also recommends businesses supplement Microsoft’s limited native backup capabilities with a third-party solution in order to meet business needs.

Managing M365 effectively depends upon more than simply adding user licenses and ensuring that employees have access to their tools. Backup, recovery, and data protection considerations need to be addressed in order to ensure the business is protected against loss of data and is able to meet compliance regulations. For most businesses, the most effective means of doing this is to implement a comprehensive data backup and recovery solution to protect Microsoft 365 data.