A practitioner’s guide to Microsoft 365 business resilience

Talk about exponential data growth.

Nearly 2 billion new files are added to Microsoft 365 every day. With more data in Microsoft 365, we need to put more thought into data resilience to be ready for threats like ransomware, malicious attacks, and accidental deletions.

For these types of events, you need to be able to restore to a certain point in time—for one user or in mass for hundreds or even thousands of users. Minimizing the risk of business interruption is crucial to ensuring business operations, which can impact profitability. To be best prepared, let’s look at what it means to use Cohesity DataProtect delivered as a service for Microsoft 365 and with Microsoft 365 Backup Storage for business resilience.

Protecting Microsoft 365 with a backup as a service option

With Microsoft 365 data already in the cloud, it’s likely that you may choose to protect Microsoft 365 data with an as a service solution. Traditional backups are a good measure and are important to the recovery process. However, once a ransomware, malicious attack, or accidental deletion occurs, the restore process can be longer than expected, depending on how much data you have. Be sure to test in advance because recovery time objectives (RTO)  matter when your business is under siege.

Let’s start by taking a closer look at why enterprises may choose an as a service solution for any technology.

• Single pane of glass – Across all Microsoft 365 and non-Microsoft 365 workloads (On-prem, cloud-native, etc.)
• Rapid recovery – Achieve rapid recovery within hours after a cyber incident
• Data resilience – Built-in functionality to abide by data residency and data localization needs
• Backup compliance – Meet backup needs with coverage across all major apps like Exchange Online, OneDrive, SharePoint Online, Teams, and Groups.
• Simple and secure – Automate the protection of Microsoft 365 data with simple, flexible backup policies. Employ multi-layer security and data protection technology to ensure data is protected and available.
• Global search – Search across all the backups for a specific object.

Cohesity DataProtect integrated with Microsoft 365 Backup Storage

Consider all the benefits of using our backup as a service option, DataProtect delivered as a service. Now, with Microsoft 365 Backup Storage, the value is further enhanced. This option specifically stores copies of data from Microsoft 365 applications. These copies are backups that include the ability to restore to a certain point in time for Exchange Online, OneDrive, and SharePoint Online.

Here are the benefits:

• Fast backup and recovery: Protect your entire tenant within hours of onboarding. Recover to a healthy state within hours of an attack.
• security control: Maintain tight security control and privacy restrictions with your data inside the Microsoft 365 trust boundary.
• APIs for intelligent workflows: Tie together the power of the platform with non_Microsoft 365 data and intelligent workflows via APIs for your preferred partner solution.

Watch a demo of the integration below:

Better together: Cohesity DataProtect as a service with Microsoft 365 Backup Storage

In my experience, the higher the data protection level, the more likely you are to be able to restore it in the event of ransomware, malicious attack, or accidental deletion. Time to recovery can be critical to ensuring business uptime and revenue generation. Here is a summary of the benefits of using Cohesity DataProtect delivered as a Service with Microsoft 365 Backup Storage.

• Business resilience: Strengthen business resilience with rapid recovery time, rather than days or months, and the ability to meet long-term recovery needs.
• Security and protection:Ensure your data is secure with Microsoft 365 data residing inside the Microsoft trust boundary and leveraging multi-layered protection provided by Cohesity.
• Single pane of glass: Manage your data seamlessly from a unified view – no matter the source (Microsoft 365, Microsoft Azure, on_premises) to maintain seamless control of your data.

The diagram below illustrates these benefits, including recovery point and recovery time objective expectations.

Regardless of the type of cyber incident (ransomware, malicious attacks, or accidental deletions), it is best to back up and have a tested recovery plan for as many scenarios as possible. Having both Cohesity DataProtect delivered as a service, and Microsoft M365 Backup Storage in your backup and recovery toolbox can help with business resilience regardless of the data incident you may face.