Why SaaS Isn’t Backup: How Your Data Is and Isn’t Protected
By Courtney HeinbachContemplating whether you need to back up your SaaS data? The short answer: yes!
Storing data in cloud applications can be safer than storing data on most on-prem storage systems — but “safe” does not equal “invulnerable.” In fact, one-third of SaaS users report losing data in the cloud. The cloud is safe, but it’s not infallible and many of today’s cloud vendors lack the incentive to point out their vulnerabilities when it comes to backing up data in SaaS apps.
How Your Data is Protected in SaaS Apps
Here’s a quick look at how your data is protected in some of the most popular SaaS apps out there.
- G Suite: Google offers infrastructure high availability (HA) with erasure code and multiple replicas in multiple geographies, so data will still be accessible in incidents of hardware failure. Google does not offer native backup capabilities for Google Groups or Sites data.
- Office 365: The infrastructure of O365 is not unified, which means the backup capabilities for the components differ depending on the application. Backup measures include: local flash copies, encrypted, offline-remote backup, and near real-time replication to a data center.