Backups & Disaster Recovery
Microsoft 365 & Google Backup
Cloud suites replicate for availability, not for your mistakes: deleted mailboxes, ransomware-synced drives, and departed-employee purges are permanent under native retention alone. Independent SaaS backup, versioned mail, drives, calendars, and SharePoint outside Microsoft's and Google's recycle bins, closes the gap everyone assumes doesn't exist.
Key points
- Back up mailboxes, OneDrive/Drive, calendars, contacts, Teams/Chat, and SharePoint separately.
- Retain versions beyond native windows, 30-day recycle bins don't cover slow discoveries.
- Protect against sync-spread ransomware: versioned backups outside the sync path.
- Preserve leavers' data per policy before license removal purges it.
- Test restores of single emails, files, and full mailboxes quarterly.
- Encrypt backup copies with keys outside the SaaS tenant.
- Document retention per data class, legal holds differ from routine mail.
- Monitor job success independently of the vendor's green dashboard.
Field note
Restore one real mailbox item per quarter, not just the job report. SaaS backup dashboards stay green while retention gaps quietly age out the exact email you'll need in a dispute.
Frequently asked questions
Doesn't Microsoft back up my data?
For their continuity, not your recovery, accidental deletion and malicious purge are your problem under shared responsibility.
What about Google Vault?
Vault is retention and eDiscovery, not point-in-time restore, complementary, not a substitute.
How fast is a mailbox restore?
Single items in minutes; full mailboxes longer, measured in drills, per our usual rule.
Do we need this for five users?
Yes, small tenants feel data loss hardest, with no spare capacity to absorb it.
How Kinetikatech helps with backups & disaster recovery
Here's the deal: Automated daily backups, off-site copies, integrity testing, and practiced restore procedures, so failures become maintenance windows. Hand it to our Backups & Disaster Recovery and Server Management service and it's covered, assessed properly, implemented cleanly, monitored around the clock.