As organizations increasingly move data into cloud-based applications, many believe that traditional best practices, such as data backup, are outdated. After all, software-as-a-service, or SaaS, applications are always available, accessible from anywhere, and highly redundant, so why is backup necessary?
With more companies depending on G Suite for collaboration and business operations, these risks are impossible to ignore. Backup is just as important in the cloud as in traditional on-premises IT systems. An independent, third-party, SaaS backup solution is the best way to protect organizations against the most common data loss pitfalls.
Why Google Vault Is Not Backup
While Google Vault does include some primitive recovery capabilities, it does not protect against:
- Data loss due to permanent deletion: If an admin or end user permanently deletes data, files are only recoverable for a short period. Plus, it doesn’t provide admins the granular control they need—only a restore of all deleted items in a 25 day window.
- Data loss due to a ransomware attack: If your business suffers a ransomware attack, Google doesn’t allow you to roll-back your data to a point-in-time before the corruption occurred. If you cannot restore your data to the point before the attack happened, you lose your valuable business data and a hefty sum of money to criminals should you choose to pay the ransom. Paying the ransom doesn’t offer any guarantee that your files will be unlocked, or mean that you can’t fall victim to the same attack in the future.
- Time lost in recovering files: The time it takes to recover data from the cloud might take longer than your business can afford. It can take anywhere from minutes to weeks or longer to restore lost data.
- Data loss due to inactive licenses: As one would expect, an active G Suite license is required to access G Suite data. Unfortunately, inactive or deprovisioned user data is deleted permanently, and there is no roll-back option.
Third-Party Cloud Backup Benefits
- Backup Confidence: MSPs need complete confidence that clients’ G Suite data is protected with a reliable, robust solution designed to reduce the risk and time required to manage backups.
- Minimal Downtime: MSPs need to be able to quickly restore or export data from a specific point-in-time before a data loss event occurred to keep client downtime as minimal as possible.
- Effective Monitoring and Management: Having complete administrative control lets MSPs proactively monitor backup activities. This gives MSPs a view of the status of all backup and recovery operations with detailed, actionable reports.
- Data Protection and Compliance: MSPs can balance security and transparency with powerful controls and robust user lifecycle management. They can protect valuable business data from accidental or malicious acts.
At Datto, we’ve developed a SaaS backup solution that can do all of the above for you and your clients. Visit our website to learn more about Datto SaaS Protection.
Author Erin Stephan is senior product marketing manager at Datto. Read more Datto guest blogs here.
