With data at the core of business organizations operating online, backup has become a necessity rather than just being a strategic practice. Due to threats like heinous competitors, ransomware attacks, or deliberate deletions by the dissatisfied customers, there can be significant rise in the downtime, with no backup strategy in place.
When it comes to SharePoint Online, businesses often think that backup comes along with the Office 365 subscription. But the reality is somewhat different. It is important to understand that Microsoft does provide data retention capabilities; however, it also states that data protection is the shared responsibility of the user. Such limitations stress on the importance of SharePoint backup solutions for efficient data protection and point-in-time disaster recovery.
Let’s go through the article to learn why you need backup solutions for SharePoint Online besides the native Microsoft backup policy.
What is the shared responsibility in Microsoft 365?
Microsoft works on a Shared Responsibility Model, which states that it is a combined responsibility of Office 365 and its users to maintain data security. Microsoft provides the infrastructure (manages data centers, network, etc.) with the data retention policies. However, the user needs to manage data, identities, device security, and access controls within the tenant.
It means you need to manage who you give access to the tenant and decide what data to store on the platform. Without a professional Office 365 backup solution, you might lose the data to vulnerabilities like accidental data deletion.
What does the Microsoft 365 native data protection include?
With the native data protection policies of Microsoft 365, here’s where you can retain your SharePoint data:
- Retain site collection data for 93 days within the recycle bin
- Hold 30 days of user’s Recycle Bin data
- Store deleted items backup for 14 days
- Allow admins to recover deleted data up to 90 days
Why do you need cloud backup solutions in 2026?
When it comes to data, you can’t put everything at stake by relying on traditional practices alone. Here is why you need to invest in a third-party SharePoint backup solution:
Deliver comprehensive protection:
With a professional solution, you get to backup entire site collections from SharePoint, achieving comprehensive protection for your data. It allows you to store permissions, metadata, version history, workflows, etc., thoroughly without losing the integrity.
Minimize data loss:
Regular and automated backups allow for an updated backup without skipping any important data. This helps to reduce the chances of data loss due to human errors or delayed backups, which is quite common in the case of native or manual backups.
Point-in-time recovery:
Professional SharePoint site backup solutions allow point-in-time recovery from disasters simply using a backup file. Recovering data after disasters like cyber breaches is easy if you’ve taken backup with a third-party tool.
Economical and budget-friendly:
Eliminate the cost of hiring resources to backup data and make the backup easily scalable and cost-effective. Simply need to schedule the backup, and the tool will consistently backup the data without fail.
Data compliance:
Help you save an encrypted backup flexible enough to support industry regulations and compliance. Backup data that is compliant with HIPAA, GDPR, and other standards.
Granular backup & recovery:
With automated backup solutions, you can easily download granular backups to your desired location on your machine. Moreover, the tools allow easy recovery of data at the granular level.
With backup solutions for SharePoint Online, you can expect zero downtime because the tool provides a quick response to restore site collections. However, it’s your responsibility as an admin to manage access controls for advanced data protection.
Conclusion
Moving to cloud services like SharePoint Online is great to boost your business productivity. However, it is also important to understand that data is your business’s asset, which can become a liability if you lose it to catastrophes like accidental deletion. Relying on just native Microsoft 365 backup solutions is not going to be enough. You need advanced protection, which is effortless when you have professional solutions like Kernel SharePoint Backup tool. It allows you to backup data without any restrictions. There is no need to possess any technical knowledge or hire a professional resource to operate this tool to save your crucial data.