Do you remember the days of client/server and Windows NT? Maybe I’m dating myself. How about when we started to see Windows Server, Active Directory, or maybe Hyper-V? Do you remember how painful it was to back up your legacy Microsoft back then? Today, most people are talking about cloud and rightfully so as Microsoft Azure and Office 365 are among the fastest growing franchises at Microsoft. But as the saying goes, “The more things change, the more things stay the same.”
That’s right. I’m looking at you Mr. “Backup & Recovery”. First, things haven’t gotten any better with your legacy on-premises backup for Microsoft environments – you may have added deduplication hardware and the latest support for Windows Server 2019, but you’re mostly looking at solutions that were designed and architected 20 years ago. Second, as mentioned above we now have cloud. Since it’s a managed service, you don’t need to worry about backups anymore, right? WRONG.
Cloud providers – including Microsoft, which offers Azure and Office 365 – employ a shared responsibility model. In short, what this means is they’ll take care of physical cloud infrastructure, like their data centers and servers. But when it comes to your data, it’s almost solely your responsibility to secure, manage, and back up your data. If someone with fat fingers hits the “delete” button, or if a bad actor deploys the latest ransomware scheme to get ahold of your Office 365 account, you may be out of luck if you didn’t properly back up your cloud data.
So what should you do? You can deploy cloud-specific backup products or services that are offered as stand-alone point solutions. But, the problem with that is you are basically introducing yet another tool, another user interface, and another data silo that needs to be managed and taken care of. Too much complexity. In a recent Vansen and Bourne survey, 9 in 10 participants stated the cloud has NOT delivered on its expected benefits and 91% believe mass data fragmentation is the cause.
Cohesity provides a single data management platform and UI for hybrid cloud environments. Our platform seamlessly integrates and provides data mobility between on-premises and the cloud. It does away with legacy infrastructure, software, and separate point solution by unifying, protecting, and managing all your data from new cloud workloads running on Azure to your legacy on-premises Windows environments.
I’m excited as we are now offering several new integrations and capabilities that simplify data management on Azure and hybrid cloud.
Now may be a good time to change and start rethinking your backup and data management strategy as hybrid cloud is becoming more a reality with each passing day. Many of our customers have already made the change and are reaping the benefits.
Here are few other blogs you maybe interested in:
SaaS Apps Require Backup – Myth or Reality?
4 Reasons to Backup Microsoft Exchange Online
Why O365 Exchange Online needs a backup
Should you Backup Your On-Premises Exchange – Yes or No?
Why Enterprises Need Great Backups: Office 365 Exchange Online Edition