Protect your organization with Office 365 backup solutions
While Microsoft Office 365 provides a wealth of benefits for productivity and collaboration, the capabilities that are native to this cloud-based offering are likely not enough to provide the Office 365 backup solutions that most organizations will require.
Traditionally, most organizations have required third-party solutions for email backup and recovery to ensure maximum data protection, and moving to cloud platforms like Office 365 doesn't change that need. For enterprises looking for highly effective Office 365 backup solutions, Mimecast provides a suite of cloud-based services that can augment Office 365 protection of email data.
Why backup Microsoft 365?
Many IT teams are unaware of Microsoft's limitations when it comes to Office 365 email backup and recovery. With zero native backup or recovery flexibility for user data, built-in Office 365 email backup tools do not offer a "true backup".
The ability of end-users to restore data is limited and requires help from IT, adversely impacting productivity. And multiple policies are required to protect data from malicious attacks or accidental deletion, potentially causing conflicts with organizational retention policies and creating risks for non-compliance.
Shared Responsibility for Microsoft 365 Data
Microsoft secures the infrastructure, but customers remain responsible for protecting Microsoft 365 data from accidental deletion, misconfiguration, and malicious activity. Without an independent data backup, recovery options can be limited.
Protection Against Accidental and Malicious Data Loss
Everyday actions, such as overwriting files, deleting messages, or removing users, can permanently affect Office 365 data. External threats, including ransomware and account compromise, further increase the risk of data loss.
Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery
Backup plays a critical role in disaster recovery, allowing organizations to restore access to email and collaboration data quickly after outages, cyber incidents, or operational failures.
Long-Term Access and Retention Control
Native retention tools are designed for compliance, not recovery. Purpose-built backup solutions help retain and retrieve historical data beyond standard platform limits while keeping backup data accessible when needed.
Common Microsoft 365 Data Loss Scenarios
Data loss in Microsoft 365 is rarely caused by a single event. More often, it results from a combination of human error, security incidents, and operational changes.
Accidental Deletion and Overwrites
Users may delete or modify files and messages unintentionally, with limited native recovery windows. Once those windows expire, recovering Office 365 data may no longer be possible without a separate backup.
Malicious Activity and Ransomware
Compromised credentials or insider threats can result in mass deletion or encryption of data across mailboxes and collaboration tools. These attacks often spread quickly across Microsoft Teams, email, and file storage, making rapid recovery critical.
User Offboarding and License Changes
Removing users or licenses without proper safeguards can permanently delete content tied to accounts. This can include shared files, historical conversations, and business-critical Microsoft 365 data needed for compliance or continuity.
How to Evaluate an Office 365 Backup Solution
When comparing backup options, organizations should consider more than basic retention features.
Coverage and Recovery Flexibility
Look for solutions that protect all key Microsoft 365 workloads and provide flexible restore options at scale. This includes the ability to recover an entire mailbox as well as individual items across services such as email and Microsoft Teams data.
Security and Compliance Support
Backup data should be encrypted, auditable, and aligned with regulatory requirements. Backup platforms should also support long-term storage independent of any single retention policy, using secure Microsoft 365 Backup Storage to preserve access to historical data.
Operational Simplicity
Automation, centralized management, and predictable performance help reduce administrative overhead while ensuring consistent protection. An automated backup approach designed for premium Microsoft environments helps maintain reliability without adding administrative complexity.
Office 365 backup solutions from Mimecast
Mimecast's suite of integrated services for email archiving, security and continuity help to ensure cyber resilience for email data and fulfill Office 365 archive mailbox requirements. Offered as an all-in-one subscription service, Mimecast significantly reduces the cost and complexity of managing email by providing users and administrators with easy-to-use tools and automated solutions.
- Backup Office 365 mailbox items automatically to a cloud archive.
- Quickly recover mailboxes, tasks and notes, personal folders, calendar items and contact lists after data loss, accidental deletion, outages and attacks.
- Provide users with ultrafast tools to search their personal archive.
- Enable administrators to easily manage e-discovery, litigation support and granular retention policies from a single web-based console.
With Mimecast, organizations get Office 365 backup software that provides complete protection against data loss, corruption and malicious threats.
Mimecast's comprehensive Office 365 backup solutions
- Mimecast Cloud Archive. This central repository of email data in the cloud augments your Microsoft 365 backup solution by retaining and storing encrypted copies of inbound, outbound and internal email in multiple data centers across diverse geographic locations. Industry-leading search tools enable users to find any email within seconds and help administrators to accelerate responses to e-discovery and litigation requests.
- Mimecast Sync & Recover. This optional add-on provides additional Office 365 backup solutions and recovery capabilities. Sync & Recover automatically syncs data in Office 365 mailboxes up to six times per day. When data is lost due to damage, corruption or attack, Sync & Recover enables automated and Mimecast.
