Microsoft Office 365 Is A Shared Responsibility Model – It’s True
“What is the need to backup Office 365 SharePoint Online, Exchange Online, and OneDrive for enterprise data?” This particular question was asked by several customers when we posted an informative blog on Microsoft Office 365 backup and recovery policy. In general, people get a common answer to this question i.e., Microsoft is responsible for taking care of it. Now, wait for a second! Do you really think that Microsoft is completely responsible for the client’s data stored on its cloud storage platform??
With the perspective of clearing some major doubts of Microsoft business customers, we have generated this Office 365 shared responsibility model post. It will help end users in learning and understanding that what is the duty of Microsoft towards the records stored on its cloud. And also, one is going to learn the responsibilities of business itself towards their sensitive content. After all at the end of the day – It is completely your data!
Who Is Responsible For What?
Microsoft’s Responsibility – The primary responsibility of Microsoft service provider is to be focused upon their global architecture and their commitments made to millions of clients to maintain the infrastructure always up in running mode. Its duty is to deliver constant uptime reliability of their internet service and help users to expand their production scale globally.
Organization’s Responsibility – The aim of an IT organization should be to acquire complete access and control over their online data, regardless of the fact where it is stored. This duty cannot be ignored easily because the company made its own decision of utilizing a SaaS application. Clients can look for supporting technology developed to contribute to each group in fulfilling that primary responsibility. Office 365 comprises of in-built data replication that provides data center to data center redundancy. This particular functionality is essentially required. If in case something goes unintentionally wrong from the one working in the global data center of Microsoft, they could switch to their replication target. In several cases, end users are entirely oblivious to any change.
An Important Fact – Remember one thing that ‘replication is not a backup’. Also, this data replication is not for your purpose; it is majorly for Microsoft. To make Office 365 shared responsibility model understanding more clear just think about a hypothetical question i.e., ‘What have you completely secured – a replica or a backup?’ Take your time to answer this question!
Some of you might be imagining answer ‘a replica’ – because information, which is regularly or almost regularly replicated on a secondary website can eliminate app downtime. But, you also know that there are several problems associated with a replication-only strategy of data protection. For example – if corrupted data or deleted data is replicated with healthy content, it means that your replicated record is also corrupt or deleted.
In order to achieve complete Office 365 data security, you have to create both replicas as well as a backup.
What About O365 Recycle Bin?
Obviously, a question might be roaming around in mind’s of some people – What about the recycle bin in an Office 365 tenant? It is true that Microsoft comprises of few different options for recycle bin, and they could help users with limited and short-term data loss retrieval. But if in case, you have a complete backup of your data, any sort of limit cannot stop you from recovering lost content. Still, to acquire full controls and access on your company crucial data, you have to perform complete data retention. This is a short-term retention solution, which is available only for a specific time duration and then afterward it will get permanently erased.
Now Its Time To Cover Security
Both Microsoft, as well as the IT companies, are equally responsible for the security of data stored online. Microsoft secures the records at the infrastructure level. It comprises of physical security of their storage data centers and the identification and authentication within their online services. This also includes the supervision over admin and user controls built in the user interface of Office 365.
Talking about the IT companies, they are responsible for protection at data-level. There is a list with infinite numbers of cloud computing security risks that comprises of accidental deletion, ransomware attacks, sharing of information with unknown individuals, and others. The overall element required to protect Office 365 data comprises of fulfilling legal and compliance requirements. In the Office 365 Trust Center, Microsoft had made it very clear that their role is as a data processor. This means that they are responsible for data privacy, and users can visit their sites to check the certificates that the service provider has. Even if the information resides on the Microsoft cloud then also, an IT company’s role should be as a data owner. And this duty comes with all sorts of external pressures from the company along with legal compliance demand.
That’s All For Today
We hope that now you have a better understanding of Office 365 shared responsibility model and Why they perform protection over what they do. Without Office 365 backup, users have limited control and access over their own data. They can fall as a victim to data loss dangers and retention policy gaps. Also, they can open themselves to permit external intruders to perform their intended threat. All of these misshapen can be fixed by creating a backup of Office 365, which should be placed at a secondary location. This will help a lot in easy recovery whenever required in any situation.
