Backup as a Service and Data Recovery are two well-known technology solutions for business continuity. Still, they are often overlooked or taken for granted, only being brought to light when it's too late and your data has been compromised. As a result, your data is vulnerable to natural disasters, technology failures, human error, and cyber incidents without a backup plan. Furthermore, without a recovery plan, you risk costly downtime, estimated to cost $5,600/minute or $300,000/hour.

Before we delve a little deeper into these solutions, let's cover the basics.

What is Backup as a Service (BaaS)?

Backup as a Service (BaaS), also known as cloud backup, provides offsite storage and replication of certain files, folders, or even entire systems and hard drives. The contents are regularly backed up or synced with the service provider. This ensures that if you lose any data locally, you can restore it to the latest backed-up or synced version and continue running your business. This service essentially runs in the background, and users are not intended to notice it. However, when your data is lost or accidentally deleted, you will be thankful to have a backup of your business-critical data on standby. 

Every single business or organization needs some form of BaaS. Without it, lost data is lost. This causes major business disruptions and brings the potential of sky-high costs to rebuild and remediate.

It's important to know that these incidents are not a one a million chance. 96% of businesses have experienced an outage in the last three years. So it is more a question of when this will happen than if it will happen, but with BaaS, you can be sure of a timely recovery.

Additional Benefits of BaaS

• Cost –  While there are additional costs to storing a copy of all your data, it pails compared to the cost of rebuilding and remediating. You can save even more by using a large provider with the data center infrastructure necessary to supply BaaS.
• Convenience – The ability to restore your data to the last save point will come in handy someday, and there's added convenience to working with a provider. Once your provider sets up BaaS, your files are automatically synced to the provider’s system. Your organization needs to do nothing, and it runs in the background.
• Security – Backups help guard your organization against ransomware and other cyber attacks. In addition, many providers also store your data in a data center that is hardened against cyber threats, and in most cases, your data will be encrypted. They often offer a robust security policy, protecting your data against physical and virtual attacks.
• Continuity – The ability to keep operating as usual with little to no repercussions after data loss is priceless. Recovering lost data or applications can mean the difference between recovery and shutdown.
• Scalability – Modern BaaS solutions often operate on a 'pay-as-you-go' basis, meaning organizations can pay for what they use, with the immediate option for expansion when the time comes. Some providers even offer autoscaling, which expands BaaS storage automatically.

In the Case of Data Loss

The best BaaS providers will have Recovery Time Objectives (RTOs) measured in hours, not days or even weeks. Therefore, the lost data will be recovered the same day in most cases. This keeps any felt business disruptions to an absolute minimum. Using BaaS means any lost data can be recovered, replicated, and used as fast as possible, so your organization can operate normally.

Additionally, our experts recommend Immutable Backups as an added layer of protection in your disaster recovery plan. Immutable backups create a fixed save of all your data, which is locked against editing or tampering. These backups are growing in popularity as businesses see a rise in cyberattacks.

Backups for Microsoft 365

83% of enterprises use Microsoft 365 products in their day-to-day operations. Yet, the IDC discovered that 6 in 10 do not have a protection plan for or rely solely on Microsoft’s capabilities which is not a suitable solution.

Microsoft 365 backups need to be a priority. These applications serve as a backbone for communication and daily operations for many organizations. Enterprise-grade security, backup, and data retention are the job of the user, not Microsoft. Additional tools need to be leveraged outside of the built-in capabilities of Microsoft 365 products.

Microsoft 365 is especially vulnerable to fileless malware attacks, disgruntled employees, and user error. Microsoft products do not protect against such things. The best protection against these things would be a SIEM combined with BaaS. Layers and redundancy are a good practice not only in the cybersecurity realm but also in the world of backups and recovery.

The full IDC case study with additional points on combining BaaS with Microsoft products can be found here.

Ascend Can Help

Ascend Technologies proudly offers the solutions discussed in this article and much more. Not only do we offer a robust BaaS solution that is purpose-built, focused on forward-thinking 24/7 monitoring, swift recovery, meets or exceeds compliance requirements, and scalable/flexible, we also offer a multilayered security solution to pair with our BaaS.

We pride ourselves on acquiring subject-matter experts who excel at tailoring solutions for organizations – large or small. With Ascend technologies covering your organization’s security, backups, cloud infrastructure, and more, we are truly a “one-hand-to shake” provider. We take the most technical parts out of managing your infrastructure so you can enjoy a smoothly operating and safe working environment.