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Summary: Microsoft Office 365’s popularity highlights its role in enhancing productivity and collaboration. The risk of data loss in cloud-based services is less but it’s necessary to understand the policies before performing backup & restore. Let’s discuss the reasons, policies, and tools for safeguarding Office 365 data, emphasizing the need for proactive measures. The process of backup & restore is very crucial so it’s better to use quality tools like Kernel Office 365 Backup.

Undoubtedly, Microsoft Office 365 stands as a preeminent productivity suite in today’s landscape. Countless companies tend to integrate their business with its capabilities to elevate collaboration, enhance efficiency, and maintain seamless connectivity. Nonetheless, there are certain risk of data loss while relying on cloud-based services for business operations.

Hence, the importance of having reliable backup and recovery strategy is crucial. Businesses must study the entire environment of backup & restore process by going through the policies. Here, we will delve into the working nature of M365 backup and recovery policies such as relevant queries, suitable precautions and getting valuable insights. Additionally, we will know about some practical tips for initializing an efficient backup and recovery process tailored to your business needs.

Reasons why there should be a Backup & Recovery policy

There are several reasons why businesses should prioritize understanding the policies of this topic as the data stored on cloud-based platforms also inherits risk of loss. You can check out the prime reasons that suggest users have a Backup & Recovery policy:

  • Enrolling your organization under the Office 365 subscriptions plan without going into the basics can lead to the loss of access to all your crucial data. This can help organizations to smartly evaluate their substantial budget, limitations, new advance features and management of operational time.
  • The major issues faced by the users in widely used cloud-based services prompt businesses to redefine their strategies for backup and recovery strategies in order to prevent heavy losses and initiate smooth run.
  • Analyzing the usual GDPR deadline helps the organizations to achieve successive compliance assurance, that highlights the need to streamline a comprehensive plan for data backup and recovery.
Understanding Microsoft Office 365 Backup & Recovery Policy

The policy of M365 provides secure environment that extends its beneficiaries of advance features to all Office 365 users which is far better than third-party backup solutions. It provides the users with customers with comprehensive guidance on data protection measures and suitable steps for restoring lost or deleted data.

What can you backup?

Office 365 offers customers a multi-tiered data protection approach. The initial layer is inherent to the service, purpose-built for universal accessibility and robust resistance to hardware failures. In instances of service disruptions, Microsoft’s expansive network of global data centers guarantees continuous customer data accessibility. The second layer of defense arises from customer-owned backup solutions, facilitating the creation of data duplicates stored beyond the confines of Office 365.

  • Email and calendar Data – Email and calendar data in Office 365 is protected by both the service itself and customer-owned backup solutions. By default, email messages and calendar items are stored in three copies across two different storage subsystems in each data center. This configuration provides protection against hardware failures, software bugs, and other types of outages.
  • SharePoint Online Data – SharePoint online (Office 365) is a cloud-based service that helps firms to share and manage files, documents, and information. SharePoint online is designed to be available and resistant to hardware failures that protects & make customers’ data accessible even if the Microsoft data center fails.
  • OneDrive for Business Data – OneDrive for business gets affected in case of availability and hardware failures. Data center networks around the world that ensures the availability of customer data during an outage. Additionally, Office 365 offers self-service features of data recovery & message tracking in Office 365 that fixes mail delivery issues in one go.
How often can you expect data backup

The basic nature of Office 365 as it automatically backs up data on daily basis. This schedule can be adjusted by customers who have purchased third-party backup solutions.

How long the data will be retained within Office 365?

As a default setting, Office 365 preserves email messages and calendar items for a span of 14 days. Additionally, SharePoint Online performs daily backups, providing customers the flexibility to extend their data retention duration of up to 30 days. OneDrive for Business files also allows daily backup, and customers can choose to retain data for up to 30 days & can find old emails in Office 365 easily.

Deleted items folder retention policy

Office 365 offers a range of retention policies for deleted items folders, with the default Microsoft policy retaining deleted items for 30 days. Nonetheless, administrators possess the flexibility to update this policy to match the requirements of an account. To implement such modifications, administrators can follow these steps in the Office 365 Admin Center to customize the Default MRM (Messaging Records Management) policy:

  1. Open Office 365 Admin.
  2. Go to the Exchange admin center.
  3. From the menu bar, choose Compliance management.
  4. Select Edit retention policies.
  5. In addition to changing the Default MRM policy, a company administrator can configure it to protect items for 7 days, 30 days, one year, or another period according to their company’s requirements.

Recoverable Items Folder Office 365 Retention Policy

To get the most out of your Recoverable Items folder, you must understand a few things:

  • The default search period for deleted emails in MS Outlook is 14 days; however, an administrator of Exchange Online can extend it to 30 days as per their needs.
  • The Litigation Hold feature in Exchange Online allows you to store emails for as long as you like from your Office 365 account.
  • Emails Recoverable Items folder are deleted from this folder are permanently lost and cannot be recovered. So, be sure to contact your admin before taking any action to delete items from this folder.

Exchange Online Mailbox Litigation Hold

Litigation Hold, an Exchange Online feature, that empowers users to safeguard mailboxes by preserving all incoming and existing emails, rendering them immune to deletion—a valuable tool for legal and compliance needs. When a mailbox is on litigation Hold, it secures all mail, including deleted items from loss via retention policies or mailbox cleanup processes. This robust safeguard ensures no email data loss, even if users deletes messages from their mailbox.

To leverage Litigation Hold, you must initially enable the feature for your organization, subsequently applying it to individual mailboxes. Once a mailbox is under Litigation Hold, you can precisely define the duration for which mails should be retained. Alternatively, you have the option to employ utilize the retention policy for comprehensive control over mail retention periods.

Kernel Office Backup and Restore Tool

As the volume of data continues to grow, the demand for its safety, security, and backup has been glorified. Amidst a myriad of technological platforms, Microsoft has consistently offered top-tier tools for managing and safeguarding Office 365 data. Nevertheless, there remains room for improvement, as not all users wish to solely adhere to Microsoft’s storage terms. Considering such users’ needs and requirements, Kernel Office 365 Backup and Restore has been designed.

Users now have the convenience of effortlessly backing up their Office 365 mailbox items, including emails and contacts, while selecting their preferred storage location. This process liberates them from the constraints of retention policies or recovery terms, enabling seamless access and management of their backed-up files anytime and anywhere. Here are some of the noteworthy professional features of the tool:

  • Export Office 365 data to PST, PDF, HTML, MSG, DOCX, or DOC format.
  • Smart filters help you to quickly select the required data for backup.
  • Supports modern authentication and takes backups of all plans of Office 365.
  • Automated backup via an inbuilt CSV file.

Closing Notes

Protecting your organization’s data is indeed an crucial part of business operations and the evident process is backup and recovery. Having a well-structured plan is essential to perform data protection to save it from potential loss or corruption. Microsoft offers various backup options, each with its own limitations so it’s crucial to select secure methods as discussed in this article.

However, using a user-friendly backup tool that streamlines the process of data backup and recovery. We have highlighted a robust tool that is capable to perform smooth transitions Kernel Office 365 backup.